I look at him. “You’re still ordering for me?”
“You can object,” he says.
“I didn’t say I wanted to.”
“No,” he says. “You didn’t.”
The waiter leaves. I look away before my smile becomes too obvious. That’s the part that unsettles me. Not the heat. Not the night. Not even the fact that my body still feels marked by him in ways no one can see. It’s this. The ease of sitting across from him in morning light. The lack of awkwardness. The way silence doesn’t rush to fill itself.
He tears the end from a croissant, places it on the small plate between us, and asks, “What are you working on today?”
“A few food notes,” I say.
“Some Paris context. Nothing thrilling.”
His gaze stays on mine. “I doubt that.”
“You doubt my work can be dull?”
“I doubt anything is dull when you’re the one looking at it,” he says.
The sentence lands too cleanly.
I lift my cup when the waiter sets it down.
“That almost sounded charming.”
“It was accurate.”
“Of course it was.”
We drink coffee. We talk about the bakery across the street, the waiter’s excellent refusal to hurry anyone, and the city’s habit of pretending beauty is accidental. Nothing important. Nothing labeled. Nothing safe enough to dismiss.
When we finally finish and stand from our table, morning has fully arrived around us. He walks me back to the hotel door, but he doesn’t come inside. He stops beneath the awning, close enough that the air changes again.
“I have to go,” he says.
“I know,” I say, though I don’t know where, and I don’t ask.
His gaze moves over my face with the same focused attention that made me reckless in the first place.
“This isn’t finished,” he says.
He doesn’t phrase it as a question. That should irritate me, but it doesn’t.
I hold his gaze. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“About some things,” he says.
Then he bends and kisses me once, right there in the open doorway, with Paris moving around us and coffee still warm in my blood. It isn’t long. It doesn’t need to be. His mouth leaves enough heat behind to make walking upstairs feel like discipline.
When he pulls away, his eyes remain on mine.
“Goodbye, Serena,” he says.
“Goodbye, Damien,” I say.
He turns and walks down the street without looking back. I watch him until the corner takes him. Then I go back upstairs.
