The city always smelled different at night.
Elena Moreau stepped off the train and inhaled the sharp mix of rain-soaked asphalt, coffee from a late-night kiosk, and the faint perfume of strangers brushing past her. Paris had been left behind months ago; this city was supposed to be her clean slate, her place to breathe without the shadows of her past pressing in.
And yet, shadows had a way of following.
She tugged her suitcase behind her, her heels clicking against marble as she entered the grand hall of the Ravenhurst Hotel. It loomed like something out of an old novel—crystal chandeliers dripping with gold light, velvet drapes swallowing sound, and mirrors that seemed to multiply both beauty and loneliness.
Elena hated silence, but she also feared it. Silence meant memory. Memory meant pain. So she busied herself with the rhythm of small things—checking in, thanking the receptionist, pretending her pulse wasn't racing with the thrill and terror of starting over.
That was when she felt it.
A presence.
She didn't need to look to know someone was watching her. The sensation was too sharp, like heat pressing against her skin. Slowly, almost unwillingly, she turned her head.
And there he was.
Standing near the bar, a glass of something dark in his hand, was a man who seemed to belong to the shadows themselves. Broad shoulders framed by a black suit, jaw set with quiet defiance, eyes locked on her as if she were the only soul in the crowded room.
He didn't smile. He didn't look away.
Something inside her chest tightened, then burned. She told herself she didn't care—that he was just another stranger in another city. But Elena knew, in that silent collision of gazes, that this man was not going to stay a stranger for long.
And for the first time since she'd left everything behind, she felt her carefully built walls begin to crack.