"You're not supposed to be here."
The words left Ethan's lips before I could even process what I was looking at. His voice was sharp—too sharp—but beneath it, there was something else. Shock.
The woman standing in the doorway barely flinched. Her gaze was fixed on him, unblinking, filled with something I couldn’t quite name. Regret? Anger? Pain? It was a mixture of all three, swirling in the deep brown of her eyes. She was tall, lean, with dark hair pulled into a sleek ponytail. She wore confidence like armor, but something in her stance told me it was an illusion.
Ethan’s entire body had gone rigid beside me. His hand, which had been resting casually on my lower back, fell away as if burned. I felt the shift immediately, the sudden emptiness where his warmth had been.
“Ethan.” Her voi
