The room was perfectly silent, empty. The kind that followed a rather unsavory event.

And this was one of those unsavory events. Scott Summers, the unexpected love of Emma’s life, gone. Slipped from her fingers like the warm, comforting sand, gone in a heartbeat.

Her heartbeat.

Frost was devastated to say the least, huddling up in her office as if she were afraid of the crisp air outside. She wasn’t—everything just doesn’t feel as appealing once you’ve lost something that was never yours to begin with. As if dealing with Jean wasn’t tedious enough, the man she hopelessly chased is gone. Nothing more than a fleeting memory.

A memory Frost has kept for months.

Emma was pacing, each click of her heels against the hardwood painfully echoed in the silence. Her pain was hidden well—behind silent nods, frivolous smiles, loose gestures. All fake. A facade to hide the tears that prickled at the edge of her beautiful icy blue eyes.

Her tears falling faster than she can harden, her hands came up to cover her mouth, to cover her sobs. Each small hic and sniffle that snuck past her lips. Each soft, muffled cry slightly wracking her body—an arm crossed protectively around herself.

Emma wouldn’t have noticed any arrivals, a moment of vulnerability she couldn’t push back this time was rather important.