Chapter 4
MILA
After the art showing, Paris felt … nearer.
Not friendlier. Not softer. Just closer, like the city had stepped an inch into my personal space and was waiting to see what I did about it.
I tried to go to sleep that night like nothing had happened.
I brushed my teeth, washed my face, folded my dress over the back of my chair with almost aggressive care—like neatness could press the moment flat, make it harmless. I climbed into bed and stared at the ceiling until the lights outside my window shifted from amber to gray.
Connor Ward.
The full name kept replaying, not because it was romantic—if anything, it was blunt—but because of what it had done to him. The way his body had gone still the second it was spoken. The way his gaze had sharpened like a knife being lifted.
I’d grown up around men who thought they were intimidating. Men who used volume and swagger like armor. Connor’s intimidation lived somewhere else entirely. In restraint. In the way his silence felt intentional.
And in the fact that he’d known my name.
I told myself he’d heard it somewhere benign. That someone had said it while I was ordering coffee or talking about my project. That he’d simply … listened.
But my mind was annoyingly thorough when it was avoiding something.
He’d said my name like he’d already decided what it meant.
I rolled onto my side and pressed my face into the pillow, trying to smother the heat that kept creeping up my throat.
I wasn’t a teenager. I didn’t get undone by a man’s attention in a room full of art.
Except, apparently, I did.
In the morning, I woke to the sound of someone arguing with their lover on the street below—French words spilling out in fast, emotional bursts.
I couldn’t translate most of it, but the meaning was unmistakable.
Anger. Desire. The familiar intimacy of people who knew exactly how to hurt each other and did it, anyway.
Paris, I decided, did not believe in subtlety where emotions were concerned.
I made coffee in my tiny kitchen and burned it because I got distracted watching the steam curl up from the mug like it was trying to escape. I ate a piece of bread standing at the counter and checked my phone even though I’d told myself I wouldn’t.
No new texts. No unknown number. No message that said, I found you after.
Of course, not.
The ridiculous part of me—the part I pretended didn’t exist—felt disappointed, anyway.
I spent the morning at the residency, trying to throw myself into work like work had ever been a reliable form of self-control.
The warehouse was bright with light, cool enough that my fingertips ached until the radiator finally clicked on.
People drifted in slowly, still half-asleep, still holding themselves at that cautious distance artists seemed to prefer.
I set up my prints on the wall, rearranging them twice, then three times, pretending I couldn’t tell I was stalling.
Amaya Delgado arrived with her usual aura of nonchalance, a scarf looped around her neck, hair damp like she’d showered in a hurry. She lifted a hand in greeting.
“You look tired,” she said in accented English.
“I’m adjusting,” I replied, which was what I’d started saying anytime I didn’t want to admit the truth.
She eyed me for a beat, then nodded as if she understood exactly what I meant. “Paris is … demanding.”
“That’s one word for it.”
She smiled, slow and knowing. “Did you stay long last night?”
My stomach tightened. “You saw me?”
“Everyone saw you,” she said, and then, when I stiffened, she added, “Not like that. Just … you were there. New people are always noticed.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “I left early.”
“But something happened,” she said, like it was an observation, not a question.
My cheeks warmed. “What makes you say that?”
Amaya shrugged. “Your eyes are loud today.”
I snorted despite myself. “That’s unsettling.”
She laughed and walked away, leaving me to stare at my prints and wonder if my face had betrayed me more than once.
Luc Fournier wandered past, headphones still on, coffee in hand. He glanced at my work with the kind of quick appraisal that felt both dismissive and unnervingly accurate.
“You like doors,” he said in French.
I blinked. “Pardon?”
He pulled one headphone off. “Les portes,” he repeated, slower, pointing at the images on my wall. “You take many doors.”
“Oh.” I glanced at the photos. A door cracked open. A hallway. A shadow beneath a threshold. “I guess, I do.”
He studied me for a second, then put his headphones back on. “Doors mean choice,” he said, and walked off as if he hadn’t just dropped a line that made my skin prickle.
Choice.
That word had haunted me since the night before. The way Connor had looked at me when I said he’d been following me. The way he’d said coincidence like he knew exactly how much truth he was allowed to give.
And the way he’d asked if he could come find me after. Like my answer mattered.
élodie arrived just before noon, her presence making the room feel more organized without her doing anything at all.
She wore a black coat, her hair pinned back, mouth unsmiling.
When she entered, people straightened unconsciously, like they’d been reminded that they were being watched by someone who could actually see.
She moved through the studio slowly, stopping at each person’s work with the patience of someone who didn’t waste attention. When she reached mine, she didn’t speak right away. She just looked.
I waited, heart tapping.
Finally, she said, “These are different.”
“They’re still mine,” I replied.
“That’s not what I mean.” Her gaze flicked to me. “You’re closer.”
“Closer to what?” I asked, and instantly regretted it.
élodie’s mouth curved, faint and sharp. “That’s the right question.”
She reached out and tapped one print with a single finger—my photograph of the door from my apartment, the one I’d taken after I saw him. The one that looked like nothing and felt like everything.
“Why this?” she asked.
I could have lied. I could have said it was about thresholds, about private spaces, about the city’s obsession with what was hidden.
Instead, I said the truth in the safest shape I could find.
“I’m thinking about access,” I said.
élodie’s eyes narrowed slightly, like she approved and didn’t want me to know it. “Good,” she said. “Access is always the point.”
She stepped back, folding her arms. “And last night?”
My pulse tripped. “Last night?”
élodie’s gaze stayed on me, unblinking. “You went.”
It wasn’t a question. Of course, she knew. She’d probably encouraged half the program to attend, if only to see who followed her orbit and who didn’t.
“Yes,” I said.
“And?”
“And what?”
élodie shrugged one shoulder. “Did you see something worth seeing?”
I stared at her, my mind suddenly blank. I wasn’t used to being interrogated about my personal life by a woman who treated art like religion.
I swallowed. “I met someone.”
élodie’s expression didn’t change, but something behind her eyes sharpened. “Did you?”
“It was brief,” I added quickly, because I wasn’t sure what I was admitting.
élodie held my gaze for a moment that felt like a test. Then she looked back at my prints. “Brief things can have long shadows,” she said, and moved on.
I stood there, cheeks warm, feeling like I’d just been seen too clearly by someone who didn’t even know what she’d seen.
The rest of the afternoon blurred into work. I tried to focus on editing, on sequencing, on my artist statement—which was currently a pathetic paragraph that sounded like it had been written by a robot.
I am exploring liminality. I am interested in thresholds.
I deleted it, started over, deleted again.
Around three, I left the studio and walked toward the river because my brain needed air and movement, and because if I stayed inside any longer, I would start imagining Connor’s voice saying my name again.
The streets were damp from last night’s rain. Paris looked polished in the aftermath, stone darkened, the sky pale. I practiced French in my head as I walked, rehearsing phrases I always fumbled.
Je voudrais …
Je cherche …
Excusez-moi …
I passed a boulangerie and decided impulsively that I would buy something I hadn’t tried yet. That I would speak French and not apologize for it.
Inside, the air was warm and smelled like butter and sugar. A woman behind the counter smiled.
“Bonjour,” she said.
“Bonjour,” I replied, heart thudding.
She rattled off a greeting that included words I didn’t know. I panicked and went with what I did know.
“Je voudrais … un … eclair?” I said, and immediately felt ridiculous because the word came out like I was choking on it.
The woman’s smile widened. “Au chocolat?”
“Yes—oui. Au chocolat.”
She turned, grabbed one with tongs, placed it on a tray. “Autre chose?”
I hesitated. My brain stalled. I wanted to say no, but I forgot the easiest word in the language.
“Non,” I blurted, then immediately added, “merci,” as if to make it less abrupt.
The woman nodded and told me the price. I heard a number. I did not understand the number.
I handed her a twenty.
She looked at it, then at me, then said something that sounded like a question.
I froze.
A man behind me cleared his throat. I turned, flustered. He was older, wearing a wool coat, eyes kind.
“She’s asking if you have smaller,” he said in English.
“Oh,” I said, mortified. “No. I’m sorry.”
He smiled slightly. “She can make change.”
The woman slid the eclair into a small bag and handed me my change, her expression still amused, not annoyed.
“Merci,” I said again, more quietly this time.
“Bonne journée,” she replied.
Outside, I exhaled like I’d survived something.
I walked with the pastry in my hand, feeling absurdly proud and equally embarrassed. It was a strange combination I’d been living in since arriving—confidence and humiliation braided together like they belonged.
Studying abroad, I realized, was just repeatedly proving to yourself that you could endure small failures without fleeing.
And then there was Connor, who made my failures feel … different.
Because in my head, he was the opposite of fumbling. He was control made flesh. The kind of man who probably spoke French without effort. The kind of man who knew the rules in rooms I didn’t even know existed.
It made my stomach dip.
It also made my mouth go dry.
I stopped by the river, leaning against the stone embankment, and ate the eclair slowly. Chocolate and cream and something almost sinful. I licked a smear of chocolate from my thumb without thinking and immediately felt ridiculous, like the act had been too intimate in public.
I glanced around.
No one was looking at me.
The city continued around me.
Still, I found myself imagining Connor watching. Not from across the street, necessarily—just the idea of his eyes on me, measuring, intent.
I hated that the thought made me warmer.
I hated it even more that I didn’t actually want to stop thinking about him.
On my way back to the apartment, I caught my reflection in a shop window and paused. Dark hair, slightly wind-tangled. Eyes too alert. Mouth soft from sugar.
I looked like myself. And also like someone who was becoming something else.
Later, my phone buzzed with a message from the residency group chat—Amaya posting a link to a small gallery opening. Luc replying with a single shrug emoji. Someone else offering to go as a group.
I stared at the screen, thumb hovering.
An invitation.
élodie’s voice slid into my mind, calm and merciless: You follow the invitation. You see who’s watching.
I didn’t know if Connor would be there. I didn’t even know if I wanted him to be.
That was the lie.
Of course, I wanted him to be there.
I typed a brief response—I can come—and hit send before I could talk myself out of it.
Then I set my phone down and stood in the middle of my apartment, suddenly too awake, too aware of my own body, of my breath, of the quiet space around me.
Paris didn’t make promises. It didn’t offer safety gently.
But it did offer possibility.
And apparently, so did men like Connor Ward.
I wasn’t sure which one would ruin me first.