The air in the room was thick, heavy with the scent of his expensive cologne and the salt from the ocean crashing below. My heart was hammering against my ribs, not out of fear, but from a dizzying, traitorous memory of the way he used to look at me before the world fell apart.
"You... you can't just say that," I finally managed to whisper, though my voice lacked its usual surgical edge. I put my hands against his chest to push him back, but it was like trying to move a mountain. His heart was steady under my palms—a slow, rhythmic thud that mocked my own racing pulse.
"I can say it because it's the truth," Asher murmured. He didn't grab me; he didn't have to. His presence was enough to pin me in place, the heat radiating from his body seeping through the thin silk of my robe. "The death certificate was for the world, Chloe. Not for us. In the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of the Church, you never stopped being mine."
