I lifted the camera. Checked settings. Framed the shot.
Through the lens, it was easier.
Light turned into a problem I could solve. Angles became choices. Léonie’s face softened the moment she stopped performing for the room and started performing for the idea—eyes distant, mouth relaxed, shoulders loose.
Click.
I moved slightly, catching the way the fabric fell at her hip.
Click.
The way her fingers toyed with the edge of a sleeve like she was distracted by an internal thought.
Click.
I’d always been drawn to the almosts. The moments right before expression became an action. The half-second when someone’s defenses dropped and their real life flickered across their face like a confession.
Except now, my brain kept trying to overlay Connor on everything.
The restraint in his kiss.
The heat in his gaze.
The way he’d looked at me in that room—fully clothed among naked strangers—and made me feel like I was the most exposed thing there.
I pressed the shutter harder than necessary.
The camera clicked.
“Beautiful,” Julianne murmured. “Yes. Like that. Chin slightly down. Perfect.”
Léonie held the pose, then relaxed. Her eyes slid to me, friendly. “You’re American?”
“Yeah,” I said, adjusting my lens. “Trying to be Parisian.”
She laughed lightly. “Good luck. It’s genetic.”
“Apparently.” I smiled, then caught myself smiling and felt a ridiculous jolt of satisfaction, like I’d succeeded at something I hadn’t realized I’d been failing.
We moved through outfits. Linen became silk. Neutral became a deep wine color that made Léonie look like an expensive secret. I captured her in the light, in the shadow, against the wall, near the window where Paris looked almost gentle.
Halfway through, Julianne stepped behind me and glanced at my screen. “These are … intimate.”
I startled at the word.
“Not in a sexual way,” she added quickly, as if she’d read my mind. “Just … close. Like you’re photographing a person, not a product.”
I swallowed. “I can pull back.”
“No.” Julianne pointed at one shot—the moment Léonie had looked away, her mouth parting slightly like she’d been interrupted mid-thought. “This is what sells.”
I stared at it.
It wasn’t staged. It was a micro-second of vulnerability.
And it hit something in me that had been awake since the orgy, since Connor’s hand on my waist, since I’d realized watching could be a kind of intimacy.
“This one,” I said softly. “We keep that.”
