Tia’s POV
The club’s dim lighting cast soft shadows over the polished wood and velvet booths, the low hum of music and conversation merging into an indistinct blur, when the voice that cut through the noise like a sharp blade called out my name.
I felt my stomach lurching in an unsettling mix of shock and something dangerously close to excitement.
Lieutenant Ethan Carter.
My former instructor. The man I had once admired with starry-eyed awe. The man I had nursed a ridiculous, breathless, completely unreciprocated crush on throughout my time at the military academy.
Seeing him now, standing there in a crisp, dark suit instead of his usual uniform, felt surreal.
He still had that commanding presence, the kind that had made cadets straighten their backs and hold their breath the moment
