Replaced by His First Love
she spat, the words catching in a throat that had suddenly gone dry as the volcanic ash they were studying.
She stood in her glass-walled replica office, her chest heaving underneath her white silk blouse. For exactly 1.5 seconds, her world had tilted. The moment her skin brushed his over the pulsing indigo crystal, a jolt of raw, biological electricity had surged up her arm, straight to the hollow cavity where her heart used to be. It wasn't just heat; it was an anchoring—a terrifyingly familiar fusion of his scent, Rain and Ancient Pine, and her own, Roses and Gunpowder Smoke. For that heartbeat, the ear-ringing tinnitus of her own rage had vanished, replaced by a silence so profound it fe