“I’m here because this conversation needed to happen.”
“I know.”
“You say that often,” I say.
“You give me many opportunities,” he says coyly.
I should smile, but I don’t.
The café moves around us in ordinary morning rhythm. Cups clink. Someone near the window reads a newspaper. A woman at the counter argues softly with the waiter about whether the croissants were better yesterday. The city is being normal around a table that is anything but.
Damien leans back slightly, giving the conversation space instead of taking it. “There are several ways we could waste the first ten minutes.”
“Are you planning to list them?”
“No,” he says. “I’m planning to skip them.”
“That would be efficient.”
“You like efficient.”
“I like honest more.”
His gaze holds mine. “Good.”
The word lands with more weight than it should. I place both hands around my cup, not because I need warmth, but because I need something to do with them.
“Then be honest.”
He looks at me across the small marble table, and whatever remains of the easy morning fades from his face.
“All right,” he says. “I know who you are.”
The words sit between us with the neat, dangerous weight of a knife placed flat on a table.
“I know,” I say.
His gaze does not move from mine.
“When did you know?”
“At Maison Holt,” I say. “During the third course.”
He listens without interrupting, but his jaw tightens by a fraction. I continue before he can decide what to do with that.
“I saw you at the pass. Until then, you were Damien from the market. Damien from the wine bar. Damien from the afternoon I should probably have had better judgment about.”
His mouth curves, but there is no humor in it yet.
“Probably?”
“I’m being generous to myself,” I say
“You’re very good at that when you choose to be,” he says.
“I’m also very good at the truth.”
“That’s why I asked you here,” he says.
