“Damien,” she says.
“I know,” I say.
I don’t know everything, but I know enough. I know if I kiss her again, she may not leave. I know if she stays, neither of us will pretend this was only a mistake made in the charged aftermath of a kitchen debate. I know she is trying to put herself back together, and for once, I let her do it without reaching for the pieces.
She smooths her black skirt, gathers her bag from the counter near the kitchen door, and checks for her phone with careful, efficient movements. I stand still while she does it. If I touch her now, I will only prove both of us correct about how little discipline remains in this room.
As she turns, she pauses and looks back at me. The late afternoon light cuts across her face, soft enough to make leaving look gentler than it is.
“I should go,” she says.
“Yes,” I say, though the word tastes wrong.
Her eyes hold mine for one last beat.
“Goodbye, Damien.”
“Goodbye, Serena,” I say.
I open the door for her, and she steps into the afternoon without looking back. I remain there after the door closes, one hand still on the frame, listening to the restaurant settle around me. The kitchen behind me is exactly what I built it to be: clean lines, steel, heat, order, and a room designed to obey process. It should feel clarifying. Instead, it feels like proof that I have been applying professional distance selectively and unconvincingly for the past two weeks.
I return to the pass and begin cleaning because the station needs it and because I need the work. I clear the plates, rinsethe spoons, wrap the herbs, wipe the steel, and put everything back where it belongs. The food was honest today. Everything I cooked, she tasted like it mattered.
I have never wanted anything from a critic except honesty. I want significantly more than that from this one—fromher.
The thought worries me enough that I stop moving for a moment, towel in hand, the last of the sun fading across the pass. This is a problem I don’t know how to solve cleanly, so I finish cleaning the station anyway. Then I turn off the pass lights and leave the kitchen in shadow.
I’m going to stop pretending I’m going to solve it.
Chapter Nineteen
Serena
Over the next couple of days, I write in the hotel room with the curtains open and Le Marais moving below my window in warm, ordinary pieces. Delivery vans. Scooters. Bakery doors. The clatter of café chairs being dragged across pavement. Paris keeps offering itself to me as if beauty is enough to excuse distraction, but I keep my eyes on the laptop and build the framework Diana needs. I write clean sentences. Useful sentences. Sentences that prove I’m still capable of separating the work from the man.
Mostly.
Every now and then, my mind slips. Not far. Not enough to ruin a paragraph. Just enough for my hand to still over the keyboard while some sharp, inconvenient fragment returns of this past Sunday. I close my eyes for one second, then open them and force the sentence back into shape.
Diana sends edits just after noon.
Diana: This is strong. Keep pushing the surrounding context. Maison Holt cannot read like it exists in a vacuum.
Serena: It does not.
Diana: Good. Then prove it.
Serena: You’re very soothing.
Diana: I am not paid to soothe you. I’m paid to make you better.
I almost smile, then return to the document. By late afternoon, I have three clean pages, one headache, and a coffee I forgot to drink before it went cold. The room has gone golden at the edges, and the city outside the window has shifted into that hour where everyone suddenly looks as if they are going somewhere more interesting than you are. I lean back in the chair and let my eyes rest on the ceiling because looking at the screen any longer will make me start editing sentences that are already doing their jobs.
My phone lights beside the laptop. For one dangerous second, my body thinks it’s Damien. That annoys me before I even look.
It’s Ethan. The name sits on the screen with the weight of a door I thought I had already closed.
Ethan: I am in London next week. I am coming to Paris after. Please do not say no. I just want to see you and talk face-to-face.
