Brent had read the same paragraph three times before he realized he wasn't absorbing a single word.
The document lay open on his desk, margins neatly annotated in his own handwriting, clauses highlighted with precision that usually grounded him. Tonight, it did nothing. His gaze drifted to the window instead, to the muted glow of Paris beyond the glass.
The city looked different at night—less performative, more honest. Streetlamps cast pools of light on wet pavement. A couple lingered beneath an awning across the street, laughter low and unguarded.
He leaned back in his chair and exhaled slowly.
Yvette's face surfaced in his mind without invitation.
Not as she had been earlier that evening—quiet, thoughtful, clearly carrying something—but as she often was with him: relaxed, present, real. The way her shoulders loosened when she stepped into her apartment. The way she forgot to mask her emotions when she was focused on food, on technique, on something she loved.
