“Sorry,” I said automatically.
He glanced at my camera. “Photographer?”
“Yes.”
“American.”
“Yes,” I repeated, because what else was there?
He offered his hand. “Julien.”
“Mila.”
His smile widened, like my name confirmed something. “Ah. Mila. You like this work?”
“I … respect it,” I said, buying time. “It’s intimate.”
“It’s hunger,” he corrected. His eyes slid over me with the same casual entitlement as a man at the bar the other night. “Paris does hunger well.”
I felt my spine straighten. “So do a lot of cities.”
Julien laughed, as if I’d flirted. “But Paris makes it art.”
I didn’t respond.
He stepped slightly closer, just enough to invade my personal space without technically touching me. “You came alone?”
“I came with people,” I said, and then I saw Amaya across the room, laughing with a woman in a leather jacket.
Julien followed my gaze. “Artists?”
“Residency,” I said.
His eyebrows lifted. “Ah. You are here to become yourself.”
My stomach tightened. “Something like that.”
He leaned in closer. “Careful. Paris will give you what you ask for.”
The words were meant to sound seductive. A warning disguised as flirtation.
It should’ve worked.
Instead, my mind betrayed me and conjured Connor—his stillness, his restraint, the way he’d looked at me like I was a fact, not an opportunity. The difference between being appraised and being studied.
Julien didn’t feel like danger.
He felt like noise.
“I’m going to find my friends,” I said, stepping back.
His smile held. “Of course. But if you want … a real Paris guide …” He shrugged, letting the offer hang.
“I’m okay,” I said again, firmer this time.
I walked away without waiting for his response, heart tapping, not from fear—irritation. The small, familiar anger of being reduced.
As I moved through the room, I scanned faces without meaning to. I searched corners, doorways, peripheries.
