Kane’s hand returned to my lower back as he stepped up behind me.
“You good?” he asked.
“Yes.”
I looked at him. But his attention was already sliding away—tracking Connor the way he’d tracked crowds on the metro.
Connor said something low to him that I didn’t catch, and Kane’s jaw tightened in that subtle way that wasn’t anger so much as … readiness. Like he’d just been handed a set of coordinates and his body had snapped into a different language.
I didn’t know what any of it meant.
I only knew the shift in Kane was immediate and physical, and it tugged at something inside me that wanted to press closer, not pull away. Because whatever else he was—whatever history lived under his skin—he didn’t feel chaotic. He felt controlled. Built for pressure. A man who could hold the world steady when mine threatened to split.
Connor’s gaze flicked from Kane to me again, quick and measured, then back.
It wasn’t rude. It was … inventory. The way you look at someone when you’re trying to figure out what they need and how much time you have to give it to them.
Mila must have read the same thing, because she stepped in without making it obvious.
“Come on,” she said softly, like she’d known me longer than five minutes. “I’ll show you something else. It’ll make this place make more sense.”
I hesitated, only because leaving Kane’s side suddenly felt like stepping away from a railing.
Kane’s fingers flexed once at my waist, a small squeeze that was both permission and promise. “Go,” he murmured. “I’ll be right here.”
Right here.
NotI’ll see you later. Notgive me a minute. Justright here.
I nodded and followed Mila down the corridor.
The Sanctuary changed as we moved deeper into it. The main rooms had felt like a private hotel designed by someone with excellent taste and a dislike of attention—clean lines, old stone, art that looked chosen instead of purchased.
But this hall was quieter. Newer. The air carried a faint note of fresh paint layered over old building bones, like something was being added onto something ancient. The lighting was different, too—the kind that didn’t flatter people so much as honor what was on the walls.
Mila walked with ease, as if she’d already learned every creak in the floorboards, every blind spot, every place the building held its breath.
“This is the east wing,” she said, glancing back at me. “It used to be closed off.”
“Used to be?” I echoed.
Her mouth curved slightly. “Everything here is changing.”
We stepped into a wide, gallery-like space.
White walls. High ceilings. Light that fell clean and quiet from above. Like someone had designed the room around what mattered instead of decorating it.
And what mattered was everywhere.
Photographs lined the walls in large, framed prints—Paris in a way I’d never seen it, not the postcard version with romance as a costume, but the lived-in one. A man half in shadow, half in light. A city folded around two people like it was keeping a secret.
Connor.
Not posed. Not polished.
Connor caught in motion and stillness and exhaustion. Connor asleep, unguarded. Connor looking out a window like he was watching for ghosts.
The photos didn’t feel like art made for strangers.
