I felt seen.
I felt loved.
34
MILA
The next day arrived like a held breath finally released.
Paris woke up in layers—first the pale light sliding between buildings, then the sound: a delivery truck grumbling over cobblestones, someone laughing too loudly below our window, the distant hiss of an espresso machine starting its day. The world didn’t pause for anyone’s fear or grief. It never had.
But for the first time since I’d landed here with my suitcase full of ambition and my throat full of unspoken doubt, the movement of the city didn’t feel like it was leaving me behind.
It felt like it was carrying me forward.
I lay in Connor’s bed at The Sanctuary, watching the light climb slowly up the curtains. Connor was awake beside me—quiet, still, his arm heavy across my waist. He hadn’t slept much. I could tell by the faint bruise-shadow beneath his eyes, by the way his gaze moved when he thought I wasn’t watching—checking corners, tracking sounds, counting exits.
But the emptiness from yesterday had softened. Not gone. Not solved. Just … less razor-edged.
He’d let me stay.
He’d let himself be held.
In his world, that was its own kind of victory.
I turned slightly, fitting my body closer to his, and he responded instantly—chin dipping, mouth pressing to my hair, a breath warming the top of my head.
It was tenderness. A steadying.
“You’re awake,” I whispered.
“I didn’t really sleep,” he murmured.
“I know.” I traced the inside of his wrist with my thumb, feeling his pulse there—proof, proof, proof. “But you rested.”
A pause.
“I did,” he admitted, like it cost him something to say it.
I tilted my head back enough to see his face. “Today’s the show.”
His eyes sharpened—not in threat-assessment, but in focus. In something quieter. Pride, maybe, threaded through the fatigue.
“I know,” he said.
My stomach fluttered, stupidly nervous all over again, as if yesterday hadn’t been an entire lifetime.
I’d worked until my hands were stained with ink and my brain felt like it was buzzing with static. I’d slept in fragments—dozing with my laptop open, waking to adjust a sequence, waking again with Connor’s hand on my back, grounding me without interrupting.
Amaya had offered to help me print the final set, her sound-artist patience translating perfectly into the rhythm of last-minute creation.
And now it was here.
The thing I’d wanted before I even knew who Connor was. Before I knew The Sanctuary existed. Before I understood what it meant to be chosen without apology.
I pushed myself up, then froze when Connor’s hand tightened on my hip.
His eyes met mine—serious.
