All Chapters of Aria (The Complete Aria Series): Chapter 61 - Chapter 62

The moment we stepped out of the airport, the air changed everything. Warm. Heavy. Soft with salt and sunlight. The Bahamas didn’t feel like a destination. It felt like a pause in time. For the first time in months, there were no cameras. No headlines. No voices calling our names like demands. Just the ocean. Just wind. Just us.I stood barefoot on the balcony of the private villa that overlooked the water, my hair loose now, no makeup, no armor—just me.Antonio came up behind me quietly, like he always did when he didn’t want to disturb a moment, only enter it. “You’ve been staring at the ocean for ten minutes,” he said softly.I smiled without turning. “I think I forgot it looked like this,” I admitted. “Like it doesn’t belong to anyone.”Antonio stepped closer. “It doesn’t,” he said. “It just exists.”. A pause. “Like us right now.”That made me turn slightly toward him. The distance between us was small. But it felt like everything else in the world had fallen away to