ROMAN
I'd spent six years imagining this moment—seeing her face again, hearing her voice. In my darkest hours, I'd even hallucinated her presence, the grief playing cruel tricks on my mind. But nothing had prepared me for the reality of Vanessa West standing before me, very much alive, looking at me with those stormy blue-gray eyes that had haunted my dreams.
"You were dead." My voice came out strangled, barely recognizable even to myself. "For six years, I thought you were dead."
Her chin lifted slightly, the gesture so achingly familiar it felt like a knife to my chest. "And you have no idea what I went through."
Those words hung in the air between us, charged with years of unspoken pain. Her scent—vanilla and rain—hit me like a physical blow, stirring memories I'd tried desperately to bury.
"What you went through?" I repeated, disbelief coloring every syllable. "I searched for you. For months. We found your car in that ravine, your blood—"
