I click through options and change departure points twice, erase my name, then retype it with a different middle initial. My finger hovers over a hotel I once used near the station, and I let it pass. Only a few things left—send the delivery confirmation to a coupon inbox I never open and put the pickup to the station on Maya’s ride account. She won’t mind.
I don’t wake Marco. I set his boots by the door with the socks tucked deep inside. I pack his backpack with a change of clothes, his toys, the shark pajamas, the picture book about trains, and a small bag for me with jeans, sweaters, and the photo of my mother holding me as a baby from the shelf by the coffee grinder. I put my passport in the bag.
The burned toy is noisily quiet in the box. The first photo lies face down because I can’t stand the grin in it right now. I’ve never been ashamed of that night. I’ve been cautious and keptsilent in rooms where people wanted a story I wouldn’t give. I’ve kept my son safe. I’ll keep him safe tomorrow and the next day and the day after that until he’s a man who can keep himself.
The page asks for a final confirmation. I think of the imperfects bag and the discounts I give regulars without writing them down and feel a brief pang for the week’s margin, then let it pass. Money’s a tool. I’ll use what I have.
The apartment's still. The street outside hisses under a snowplow. I check every latch one more time, set my phone alarm, then set a second five minutes later. I slide the laptop a little closer and type in my card number.
In the glow of my laptop screen, the confirmation page for a one-way ticket to Wrenleigh stares back at me—departure, tomorrow morning.
3
LILA
Milan, Five years earlier
Applause rolls through the ballroom and breaks, and the look that just stole the night isn’t a gown at all. It’s Verlane Atelier’s workday dream—a cropped, box-shouldered blazer in graphite wool over a pale ice-blue silk shirt with tight micro-pleats, set above a pencil-short base. Each step sends a controlled flutter across my thighs, half office, half ballet. On my second pass, a dresser steps from the wing, fingers quick at the waist. The organza tutu-peplum drops loose and, in one breath, becomes a capelet, clipped at my shoulders so it lifts like light. The lights warm, phones rise in a wave, and the room inhales, a pause before applause. I walk the last length with the capelet floating behind the blazer’s sharp line, a clean shift from desk to stage. I feel the room catch it. The day job and the performance are both mine.
By one of the marble columns, I see him. His stance looks idle, but his body’s sharp, balanced the way a cheetah waits before it moves. The room’s a swirl of sequins, perfume, and cameras, but he’s still, watching the space like it belongs to him. For a second,my eyes lock on his. When I turn back to the runway, he hasn’t shifted. He’s exactly there, coiled in the same pose, as if the noise and light are just weather passing over him.
Atelier’s number owned the night, but the finale’s another story. The gown floods the runway like a last toast, and that is my cue to smile, pivot, and follow the white satin river offstage. The dress goes back to a padded hanger, hands swarm with clips and pins, and a dresser slides my feet into black stilettos with a speed that would impress a pit crew. I change into silk that drapes like poured light. Someone hands me a flute that smells like green apple. Someone else kisses both my cheeks and says, “You broke the internet,Cara.” I laugh because everyone says that tonight.
The charity gala rolls into the ballroom like a warm storm. Cameras pop in waves. The lighting is kind if you know your angles, which I do. This is for the pediatric hospital. A tasteful line on the program readsProceeds to fund neonatal equipment. I don’t miss what that money means. I smile brighter for it.
A string quartet plays a pop song I should know, reworked into something that twirls around the chandeliers and the chatter. Waiters drift like dancers through the crowd, trays glinting with neat squares of risotto al salto, tiny cones of fritto misto balanced beside flutes of pale Campari and gin. Someone laughs too loudly near the bar. A donor clinks glasses with aVogueeditor whose platinum-dyed bob keeps time with the music. I take a whiskey with a single cube. Champagne goes to my head too fast after a runway, and I want my head. Jules appears, his cheerful tie a bright note in the black-and-silver hum, steering me toward the chairman, the sponsor, and the photographer who gets the covers. When his hand lifts toward me, I turnthree degrees toward the light without thinking. He nods once, satisfied, and moves on.
“Record numbers, Lila,” the brand CEO says, his cufflinks flashing. “Pre-orders are insane. Milan wants to lock the spring by Monday.”
“Then let’s talk Monday,” I answer smoothly, setting the flute on a passing tray. I smile at a woman in a feathered cape I’ve seen in every front row for three seasons, a woman who knows which shoes matter before the samples ship. Her name’s Sabine Lemaire, a collector of couture and rumors in equal measure. She inclines her head, one gloved hand resting lightly on the stem of her glass, a gesture that carries both approval and warning.
My friends materialize, all eyes and clavicles and jokes in four languages. Ines whispers that Meisel’s assistant winked at her.
“He wasn’t winking at you,” Zhen says, her voice soft and sweet, like cotton candy left too long in the sun.
“If he wants my attention,” I murmur, “he knows where to find it.”
The laughter that follows sounds expensive and just a little tired.
Sabine glances over once more, her expression unreadable beneath the flicker of chandelier light, and I can’t tell if she’s cataloguing me or remembering when she used to be the one everyone turned toward.
That’s when I spot him again.
He stands near a marble column, half in the light, half in shadow. No name tag. No drink that he’s trying to balance with three business cards. No smile pitched to an angle. He’s notnetworking. He’s not being photographed. He’s a stillness in a room that keeps moving.
His suit’s darker than the others and cut clean, with hand-stitched shoulders and fabric that knows exactly how to fall. The watch at his wrist is slim. The cuff sits at the right line on his hand. He’s not one of the design boys who look like they forgot to eat. He’s taller, built like he has lifted things that mattered. His hair’s dark and neat. His jaw looks like it was carved with a good blade. He’s scanning exits and mirrors like he expects a fire drill and plans to be the first out, or the last.
I tell myself I won’t look again. I look again. My heart kicks once, the sound of a choice being made. He meets my eyes, holds the look, then brings the glass to his lips and drinks once, steady, as if answering.
“Back soon,” I tell Ines. She follows my line of sight and arches a brow.
“Stay near a light,” she says, teasing, “so we can find you.”
I cross the floor, weaving through donors and stylists and a singer whose gown is a theater on its own. He watches me come without pretending he’s not watching. When I’m an arm’s length away, I lift his glassfrom the ledge by his elbow and take a slow sip, locking my eyes to his. It’s Macallan Rare Cask,smoky and warm, and it fits tonight.
“Dangerous to leave a drink unguarded,” I say, my gaze flickering once, gone before the sip can settle.
“Dangerous to take one.” His voice is low, rough on the edges, a little Naples in the vowels and a little New York in the spine.
