Noah's pov
The applause continued while their lips were still locked. Laughter bled into celebration.
And I stood there—
Still burning, trying to process what I was looking at.
My fingers tightened slowly around the glass in my hand. The faint crack of pressure barely registered over the noise in my head.
Cassian moved first. Of course he did.
He took a sharp step forward, then another. The air around him turning dangerous.
“You’ve got some nerve,” he said. His voice was low, but it cut clean through the noise of the ballroom. “Disappearing for two years and walking back in like this?”
But Aria didn’t flinch. Not even a little.
Cassian let out a humorless laugh. “What? No explanation? No apology?”
She tilted her head slightly, her eyes were steady and unblinking. “I don’t
