Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Serena
The next morning, I do not go to Marché d’Aligre. That’s discipline.
I go to a bakery near the Canal Saint-Martin, eat a chausson aux pommes still warm enough to soften the paper bag, and spend the late morning walking through Belleville because I need a neighborhood that does not know I am waiting for anything.
I take notes on a tiny place with excellent coffee, a storefront selling spices in open sacks, and a Vietnamese lunch spot where the broth is clearer than most people’s intentions.
I write for three hours in the afternoon, answer Diana’s comments on Lyon, and pretend the tarragon on the desk has not become a small green reminder of a moment I try to diminish.
My resolve crumbles however, because by the following morning, I am back at Marché d’Aligre—not accidentally—I’m not insulting either of us by pretending otherwise.
The sky is clearer than it was two days ago, with a pale blue openness that promises heat later and gives the market a brief, merciful softness before the day hardens.
The vendors are already louder, already deeper into their work.
Crates stack higher. Apricots glow like small suns.
A fishmonger lays crushed ice over his display with a flat metal scoop, his movements rhythmic and sharp.
The coffee stall is crowded, and the woman in the red scarf gives me one look before pouring my coffee without asking.
“You came back,” she says.
“I did,” I say.
“For the market or the trouble?” she asks.
I pause with the cup halfway to my mouth.
Her expression does not change.
“The market,” I say.
She hums as if she accepts lies only when they are well dressed.
“Of course.”
I drink the coffee. It burns my tongue again.
I move through the stalls slower than I did the first morning, not because I need less, but because I am listening to the market differently.
The first visit to a market is about orientation.
The second is about trust. You learn which vendor remembers faces, which stall changes the front layer of fruit before the old stock beneath it, which people are kinder before seven and which ones become kinder only after they have sold enough to feel generous.
I buy figs because they are ripe enough to demand it. I buy a little round of goat cheese from the same woman who corrected me last time and now corrects me with slightly less devastation. I buy cherries I do not need. I do not go to the herb stall immediately.
That would be obvious.
I make it fifteen minutes.
Then I go.
He is not there.
The disappointment is small and sharp enough to embarrass me.
I tell myself that is useful information, then immediately decide I do not want the information and reach for basil with more focus than basil requires.
“You are going to punish the leaves,” a voice says behind me.
My hand stills. I close my fingers lightly around the basil stem, then let it go before I bruise it and prove him right.
When I turn, Damien is standing at the edge of the stall with a canvas bag over his forearm, no coat, no pretense of having arrived by accident.
The morning light catches the silver at his temples.
He is wearing a pale blue linen shirt today, sleeves rolled, collar open, the fabric soft from heat and movement.
His dark trousers are simple, his shoes practical, his posture infuriatingly at ease.
He looks like a man who has slept. I find that irritating because I have not done so with any particular success.
“You’re late,” I say.
His brows lift. “Was there an appointment?”
“No.”
“Then I am exactly on time,” he says.
“That is a very convenient philosophy.”
“It has served me well.”
“I’m sure it has served you,” I say.
“I’m less certain about everyone else.”
His mouth curves. “Good morning, Serena.”
There is that problem again, my name in his voice, low and unhurried, as if the syllables are something he has decided to taste before breakfast.
“Good morning, Damien,” I say.
The herb vendor from the first morning looks between us and reaches for paper with the air of a woman preparing for entertainment.
He glances at my basket.
“Figs, cherries, goat cheese, basil.”
“Your powers of observation remain intact,” I say.
“You avoided the tarragon.”
“I already have tarragon.”
“So you came back for basil.”
“I came back for the market.”
He looks at me for one beat too long. “Of course.”
The vendor laughs under her breath.
I look at her. “You’re not helping.”
The vendor says in French, “I am helping myself.”
Damien answers the vendor in French, “That is the only honest kind of help.”
The vendor nods approvingly. “He understands.”
“I’m very happy for both of you,” I say.
He reaches past me, not touching this time, and chooses basil from the back row.
His forearm comes close enough that I catch the scent of him beneath the market.
Soap. Coffee. Something clean and faintly herbal, as if the morning has decided to cooperate with him.
The proximity is brief, polite, and entirely unreasonable.
He hands the basil to the vendor.
“You chose from the back,” I say.
Damien looks at me. “So did you.”
“I was about to.”
“No,” he says. “You were overthinking the front bunch.”
“I was assessing.”
“You were threatening it.”
The vendor wraps his basil while pretending not to enjoy this.
I lift my chin. “You’re very confident for a man who lost the tarragon.”
He takes the wrapped basil and pays.
“I lost a bunch of herbs. I’m recovering.”
“You’re brave.”
“I try not to make a performance of it,” Damien says.
I look away before he can see how close I come to smiling.
The vendor hands me a bundle of basil without my asking.
I glance down. “I didn’t choose that.”
The vendor says, “I did.”
Damien says, “She has excellent taste.”
The vendor looks pleased. “Better than both of you.”
“That would not surprise me,” Damien says.
I pay for the basil because arguing would only make the woman happier.
When I tuck it into my basket, Damien steps slightly aside to let two older women reach the stall. He does not crowd me. He never does. Somehow that makes the space around him harder to ignore.
“You’re working today?” Damien asks.
“I’m always working,” I say.
“I believe that.”
“You say it like an accusation.”
“I say it like recognition.”
That slips beneath the banter before I can stop it.
I look at him.
His eyes are on mine, not amused now, not testing. The market noise moves around us, but for one second, the space between us narrows into something quiet enough to hear.
Then a man behind Damien shouts about apricots, and the market returns.
I shift the basket on my arm. “Are you working today?”
Damien says, “I’m always working.”
“Convenient answer.”
“Accurate one.”
“You stole my line.”
“I improved it.”
I laugh despite myself.
His gaze drops to my mouth for a fraction of a second. It is not long enough to be rude. It is more dangerous than that. It is long enough to be real.
I turn toward the aisle. “I should go.”
“Where?” Damien asks.
“Somewhere that does not involve you correcting my produce selections.”
“That narrows Paris considerably.”
“It’s a large city. I’ll manage.”
Damien walks beside me without asking. Not too close, not too far. It happens so naturally that I make it three stalls before I realize I have allowed it.
“Are you following me?” I ask.
Damien looks at a crate of apricots as we pass. “No.”
“You are walking in the same direction.”
“I was going this way.”
“So you are coincidentally beside me.”
“That is what the word same means.”
I glance at him. “You’re very difficult.”
“I have heard that from reliable sources.”
“I believe them.”
He looks at the cherries in my basket.
“Those are good.”
“I know.”
“You should eat them by the canal.”
That stops me and I turn to him fully.
“That sounds suspiciously like a suggestion.”
“It is.”
“Do you usually make plans with women over stolen tarragon and market cherries?”
“No,” he says.
The answer is too quick to feel polished. I should leave that alone, but I don’t.
“Why not?” I ask.
His eyes hold mine. “Because I don’t usually want to.”
The market keeps moving. Someone brushes past my shoulder. A vendor calls out a price. The sun catches on the brass scale at a nearby stall. The basil in my basket releases its scent into the warming air. The whole world remains busy enough to pretend it has not heard him.
I hear him.
Every word.
I adjust my grip on the basket because my hand has tightened around the handle.
“That was direct.”
“I find it saves time,” he says.
“It also creates complications.”
“Only if the answer matters.”
I look at him for a long second. That’s the problem with direct men.
They do not give you much space to hide behind misunderstanding.
He’s not asking for anything extravagant.
He is not promising, persuading, or arranging the moment into romance.
He is simply standing in a market in a rolled-up linen shirt, looking at me as if he would very much like to continue the morning and has no intention of pretending otherwise.
My calendar today includes notes, one lunch reservation, and a late dinner I can move without injuring the piece.
My better judgment says to keep walking.
My instincts have been having a better week than my caution.
“Fine,” I say.
Damien’s expression does not change much, but something in his eyes warms. “Fine?”
“For the canal,” I say. “Not for whatever you think you just achieved.”
“I achieved the canal.”
“Barely.”
“I will accept barely.”