The silence after the door opened wasn't silence at all.
It was a pressure drop.
A cold, suffocating stillness that told Willow one thing with perfect clarity:
This moment had been waiting for all of them.
Miles stiffened, his breath catching in his throat as his eyes shot to Christy.
Her face had gone pale—pale enough that the diamonds at her ears looked too bright, too sharp.
She wasn't crying.
She wasn't screaming.
She was absorbing.
Christy wasn't the kind of woman who exploded.
She was the kind who dismantled quietly.
But Zane…
Zane was something else entirely.
He stepped inside slowly, each controlled movement exposing how close he was to losing every shred of restraint he still had. His shoulders were squared, his jaw locked, his eyes so dark they bordered on dangerous. He didn't look at Miles yet. He was looking at Willow—at the tension in her posture, at the distance she'd put between herself and the man she once planned to marry.
