“Lena Vaughn.”
My body recognized the deep cadence of his voice before my mind finished processing the sound, setting off a quiet tremor beneath my skin.
“Still the coldest thing in any room.”
For one terrible second, I genuinely forgot how to breathe, but years of training quickly took over. I turned around slowly, holding my composure steady as Antonio Whitaker stood behind me. He was Saint, if you asked the rest of Atlanta, but he was Antonio if you actually knew better. The distinction had always mattered to me. Saint wasn't some new persona created after our lives fell apart; he had existed long before I came along, serving as the name the city used when it wanted to remember exactly what he was capable of handling. Antonio was the man beneath the reputation—the one who knew precisely how I took my coffee, the one who used to show up with late-night takeout when I studied too long and forgot to eat, and the man who believed I would become an attorney long before I had enough confidence to believe it myself. He was the man I had loved, the man I had left, and somehow, after seven long years, both versions of him were standing in front of me wearing the exact same face.
Time had been offensively kind to him. His black tuxedo fitted his broad frame with the kind of sharp precision that said somebody had custom-tailored it rather than pulling it off a rack. His hair was cut low, his beard lined cleanly along his jaw, and the restless, volatile energy he had carried in his twenties had settled into something much quieter and infinitely more controlled. That was the primary difference I noticed first. In his younger years, Antonio had walked into rooms already prepared for them to become problems, but the man standing in front of me looked like he had learned to let the room decide whether it wanted to survive becoming one.
His mouth curved into a faint, familiar smirk. “You’re staring.”
“I am evaluating,” I corrected, keeping my tone perfectly flat.
“Same shit you used to call it,” he said smoothly.
“You clean up well.”
“I know.”
I rolled my eyes at his easy arrogance. There he was. But then his left cuff shifted slightly, and my gaze dropped to his wrist before I could catch myself. Everything inside me went instantly still.
The watch. It was the same black face with a silver casing—the exact timepiece I had bought him for his twenty-seventh birthday because he had spent years wearing a battered one that barely kept time while refusing to replace it. He still had it, and worse, he was wearing it to an event like this.
Antonio followed my eyes down to his wrist, and his smile shifted just slightly into something far more knowing. Damn it.
I lifted my champagne glass, using it as a shield. “Don't flatter yourself.”
“I ain't said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“Didn't have to,” he murmured. He stepped closer—not enough to physically touch me, but close enough to make me remember exactly how much space he used to occupy in my daily life. “You look good, Lena.”
“I know.”
He let out a low laugh. “See? That's my girl.”
“I am absolutely not your girl.”
“Didn't say you were.”
“You literally just did.”
“Old habit.”
“Break it,” I said.
His smile remained stubbornly in place, and mine almost broke to meet it, which irritated me far more than it should have. We had crossed paths a few times since the breakup, considering Atlanta wasn't quite large enough and our professional circles had eventually become too connected to allow complete avoidance. But crossing a crowded ballroom fifty feet apart wasn't this, seeing his name in a business journal wasn't this, and hearing someone mention Whitaker Holdings in a conversation about local development was nothing like this. This was dangerous proximity—cedar cologne, dark eyes, and the familiar angle of his mouth when he knew he was successfully getting under my skin.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Networking.”
I looked around the room with exaggerated disbelief. “At a legal gala?”
“Whitaker Holdings has money tied up in enough projects around this city that I occasionally gotta pretend I enjoy talking to lawyers.”
“You never enjoyed talking to lawyers.”
“I enjoyed talking to one.”
I ignored the quick tug in my chest and pushed past it. Whitaker Holdings wasn't new; Antonio had been laying its foundation long before we ended. What had once been a small fleet of trucks, scattered contracts, commercial spaces, and sheer ambition had grown into an institution Atlanta couldn't dismiss anymore. Real estate, logistics, investments, and massive developments—Antonio had built exactly what he had always claimed he would, which didn't surprise me, though it bothered me that some tiny, stubborn part of me was still remarkably proud of him.
“Besides,” he added, his voice dropping an octave, “I saw your name on the attendee list.”
My eyes narrowed. “There it is.”
“What?”
“The truth.”
“I told you I was networking.”
“You came because you knew I'd be here.”
“Both things can be true.”
“That's called stalking, Antonio.”
“That's a strong legal conclusion based on weak evidence, Counselor.”
“You want me to build a stronger case?”
“I always liked watching you work.”
Damn him. I took a slow sip of champagne to give myself a moment. “I don't have time for ghosts tonight.”
His expression shifted, the playful edge flickering out for just a second. “I'm a ghost now?”
