"Easton!"

Easton stopped walking and spun around to see Nick coming down the hall of the lab toward her. As he came near, he went to hug and kiss her but stopped short, instead giving her an awkward pat on the shoulder and a forced smile. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the lab on them.

"What are you doing here? Everything OK?" Nick asked, the gaucheness obvious on his face. When he came by the apartment his face was always plastered with an open smile, but now it seemed almost painful for him to be talking to her. She didn't blame him, she knew the feeling.

"Yeah, I uh, um," she glanced around, figuring telling him the truth was the best. She was done with lying. "I uh, came to see if Greg will talk to me." She pretended not to notice the disenchantment cross his rugged features.

"I can take you to him, I was just headed that way," Hodges interrupted, suddenly appearing over Easton's shoulder.

Easton reached out and squeezed Nick's hand before she followed Hodges down the corridor to the office she knew so well.

"You have another visitor," Hodges announced as he stepped aside to allow Easton into the room.

She stopped on her toes when she realized Greg wasn't alone. A inky haired, elegantly beautiful woman sat across the desk from him, a homemade picnic spread on the surface between them.

"Easton," Greg breathed, quickly setting his champagne flute full of sparkling cider down, almost as if he were embarrassed.

The woman glanced over her shoulder, her eyes briefly flicking down to Easton's eight-month swollen mound beneath her Alexander Wang tank dress, before standing up with a smile across her timeless face.

"Uh, Ellen, this is…" Greg began, fumbling to stand from his seat.

"Easton Mead needs no introduction," Ellen finished, rising as well. She held her hand out and Easton limply shook it, trying to find her voice.

"Sorry, I didn't realize you had company," Easton muttered quickly. Keeping her gaze on the linoleum, she backed from the room, moving as fast as her tan leather Frye boots would take her. Just as she reached the doors that led out to the parking lot, she felt a hand grab her wrist and stop her in her tracks.

"Easton." Greg's voice didn't sound like his own and the pain refreshed itself all over again because she was the one who had changed him.

He gingerly shoved her so that she continued through the doors and out into the cooling Vegas night.

"Greg, it's OK." She didn't want to turn and face him fully. "It's your right to move on. Sorry I interrupted."

"Why are you here, East?"

"I wanted to talk to you. I just… I just wanted to see you, even though I know I don't have the right to anymore." She could feel tears sticking to her lashes.

"No, you don't." His voice had a hardness to it, a sharp edge that cut Easton to the core, yet when she finally looked up at him, his eyes shimmered with tears. "But that doesn't mean I'm not happy you came." He stared at her until she looked him in the eye.

Easton didn't move a muscle, yet Greg took a few steps toward her until she could almost taste his scent as it flooded her nostrils. Why would he want to be this close to her when she knew he hated her so much?

He was slightly taller then her, even in her boots, so she rose up onto her toes and put her hands on his shoulders. He didn't move away. He put his hands on either side of her face, and the world fell away. She had never been so lost in a kiss before.

And then, the space between them exploded. Her heart kept missing beats and her hands couldn't bring him close enough to her. She tasted him, and she realized she'd been starving for him. She'd kissed him before, but it never burned her alive.

Maybe it lasted a minute, maybe it was an hour. All Easton knew was this kiss, and how smooth his skin was when it brushed against hers, was that even though she thought she knew all along, she needed to spend forever with him and it was too late.