The first time Clara saw Ethan, he was silhouetted against the crimson sunset, emerging from the ocean like some ancient sea deity. Water cascaded down his shoulders, catching the dying light in diamond-bright droplets. Clara, who had come to the secluded beach to escape her life rather than find a new one, felt something stir within her that she thought had long since died.

Their eyes met across the sand-hers amber-flecked, his stormy gray-and the world around them seemed to halt its rotation for just a breath. When he smiled, dimples creasing his tanned cheeks, Clara felt heat surge through her veins that had nothing to do with the summer evening.

"You look like you're running from something," he said when he approached, his voice deep and resonant like the waves crashing behind him. No introduction, no small talk-just an observation that cut straight to her core.

"Aren't we all?" she replied, surprising herself with her candor. Clara hadn't come to this remote coastal village to make connections. She'd come to sever them, to nurse wounds inflicted by betrayal and loss. Yet something about this stranger's direct gaze made her want to be seen again.

Their first night together was spent around a driftwood fire, sharing stories as stars exploded into existence above them. Ethan was a marine biologist studying the reef nearby; Clara a pianist taking an indefinite sabbatical from a prestigious conservatory. Two souls adrift, somehow washed up on the same shore.

"Play for me sometime," he whispered into her hair as the fire died to embers. "I want to know what your soul sounds like."

Days blended into nights as they explored each other's bodies and minds with equal fervor. Ethan taught her to dive, guiding her into azure depths where coral gardens exploded with color. Clara brought him to tears with nocturnes played on the old piano in the village bar, her fingers coaxing magic from worn ivory keys. Their passions fed each other, growing more intense with each shared sunset.

One stormy night, as lightning fractured the sky and waves pounded the shore, they made love with a desperation that matched the tempest outside. Afterward, tangled in damp sheets, Clara traced the contours of his face and felt terror seize her heart at the depth of her feelings.

"I can't stay," she whispered, the admission tearing from her like a confession. "This wasn't supposed to happen. I didn't come here to fall in love."

Ethan captured her trembling hands and pressed them to his chest where his heart thundered beneath her palms. "Then why did you stay the first night? Why did you let me in?"

"Because you saw me," she answered, tears mixing with the salt already on her skin. "When I wanted to be invisible, you saw straight through me."

Their argument raged like the storm outside, words hurled like the debris that scattered across the beach. Clara packed her bags at dawn, convinced that passion such as theirs would eventually consume them both, leaving nothing but ashes. She was halfway to the ferry terminal when she realized she was still running-not toward freedom, but away from it.

The tide was coming in when she returned to their spot on the beach. Ethan stood at the water's edge, his shoulders rigid with tension, staring out at the horizon as if it held answers to questions he hadn't yet formulated.

"The sea always returns to the shore," Clara called, her voice carrying over the rush of waves. "No matter how far it travels, it always comes back."

He turned slowly, disbelief and hope warring in his expression. When they collided, it was with the force of waves meeting cliff face-powerful, inevitable, transformative.

"I'm terrified," she admitted against his lips, tasting salt and promise. "Everything between us burns so bright, I'm afraid we'll incinerate."

Ethan cradled her face between calloused palms. "Some fires aren't meant to be extinguished, Clara. Some are meant to forge something unbreakable."

As the sun climbed higher, painting the world in possibilities, they waded into the water together. The tide pulled at their bodies, but their entwined hands anchored them against its force-two people who had learned that the most passionate love wasn't about possession or perfection, but about choosing to return to each other's shores, come calm or storm.

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Contents

Chapter 1 Love at first sight