Bianca had been sleeping better.
Not always—sometimes the ghosts still came, rustling in her sheets, whispering the names of men who had bought her silence. But when she woke tangled in Lucien's arms, the fear didn't stick as long. He never pushed. Never demanded. Some nights they didn't touch at all. He simply held her, his breath steady against the back of her neck, as if promising she didn't have to earn safety.
And that had become the most terrifying thing of all.
Because nothing in her life had ever come without cost.
So when she walked into Café Amour on a rainy Tuesday afternoon, the last thing she expected to feel was the old knot in her stomach returning. She'd meant to surprise Lucien. He was always writing there—sketching with a mechanical pencil in his worn notebook, drinking black espresso like it kept his secrets safe. Bianca had even worn the scarf he once said made her eyes look "comme les océans en colère" (like angry oceans). She'd hoped it might make him smile.
Instead, she found him seated in the corner, not alone.
A woman leaned across from him. Her coat was stylish, her lipstick a deep garnet shade. She was laughing—close, familiar. And Lucien was smiling too.
Not the soft smile he gave Bianca when she teased him, not the gentle one when he saw her after a long day—but a full, open smile. One he hadn't shown her in days.
Bianca froze.
It wasn't just the presence of the woman. It was the way Lucien leaned forward as if her words pulled him in. The way his hand brushed the woman's wrist casually, like it had done it before.
Bianca didn't approach. She turned around so fast the bell above the café door hadn't even stopped chiming before she vanished into the street.
She walked blindly for blocks, the drizzle soaking through her jacket. Her thoughts spun—irrational, maybe. But raw. Lucien hadn't said he was only seeing her. He hadn't promised monogamy. But wasn't that what all the quiet moments had meant? The wine. The long talks. The nights with no sex, just her head on his chest and his fingers in her hair?
Had she misread it?
Had she been foolish to trust again?
Her instincts screamed: Shut down. Run. You've seen this before. You've played the fool before.
---
By the time Lucien knocked on her apartment door that evening, Bianca had already replayed every second of the café scene a hundred times. She didn't answer.
He knocked again. "Bianca? It's me."
She opened the door slowly, eyes sharp. "Did you have a good time today?"
Lucien looked surprised. "What do you mean?"
"At the café," she said. "With your friend."
He blinked. "You were there?"
She folded her arms. "Should I not have been?"
"No—no, it's not that. I just didn't see you."
Bianca's voice was cold. "Clearly."
Lucien stepped inside. "That was Camille. My editor."
"Your editor touches your hand when she laughs?"
He paused. "We've known each other a long time. But it's not—"
"Don't," she said, voice rising. "Don't downplay it like I'm imagining things."
Lucien's expression darkened, not with guilt, but with something like pain. "I didn't think I needed to explain every relationship in my life to you."
"You don't," she snapped. "You're not mine. But don't expect me to keep opening up while you play boyfriend to every woman with a Parisian accent."
"Bianca, listen—"
"No!" Her voice cracked. "I trusted you. I let you in. And now I feel like an idiot for thinking it meant something."
Lucien stepped closer. "It does mean something. That's why I'm here. That's why I didn't go home with Camille, or stay for another drink. I wanted to see you."
"Right," she scoffed. "Because I'm the afterthought."
He flinched. "That's not fair."
"Neither is watching you smile at another woman like she's the only person in the room."
Silence fell between them.
Lucien's jaw tightened. "If this is how fragile your trust is—if one conversation can erase everything we've been building—then maybe you never really trusted me at all."
Bianca recoiled like he'd slapped her.
"I've never had anyone to trust," she whispered. "Don't talk to me like I'm supposed to know how."
Lucien's face softened, regret flashing in his eyes. "Bianca—"
But she stepped back.
"I need time," she said, her voice barely audible. "Please."
Lucien nodded slowly. "I'll wait. As long as it takes."
She didn't watch him leave.
Only after the door clicked shut did she let herself collapse against it, tears hot on her cheeks—not because she thought he'd lied.
But because she couldn't tell if she'd just destroyed something real… or protected herself from getting hurt again.
************************
Beneath the Silence
The days after the fight stretched like cold, damp sheets—unfolding one after another with no warmth between them. Bianca didn't return Lucien's calls. She didn't check her messages. She didn't even leave her apartment unless she had to. The city moved on without her, its rhythms unchanged, but for her, everything had slowed to a murmur of doubt and noise in her head.
She told herself she was fine. That this was familiar.
People disappointed you. That was the rule.
You didn't get burned when you never believed the fire could warm you in the first place.
Still, she caught herself looking at the door sometimes. Just for a second. Just long enough to hate herself for hoping he might knock again.
But Lucien didn't.
He respected her boundary—too much. And the absence, instead of healing her pride, scraped something raw in her chest. She'd accused him. Pushed him away. All to protect a part of herself that still didn't know how to stay open when things felt real.
The apartment felt smaller with each passing night.
She stopped lighting candles. Stopped playing music. The silence became its own companion, pressing against her ribs every time she lay in bed.
She tried to work.
There were always clients.
But she wasn't the same.
She no longer shifted into her performance like it was second skin. She noticed how drunk some men were. How rough. How careless. She noticed when they didn't look at her face. When they didn't ask her name. When they called her baby or darling or just grunted and tossed bills beside the bed like tipping a waitress.
It made her stomach twist. Not from shame. She'd buried that years ago. But from the sheer weight of how little she mattered to them.
Lucien had never touched her like that. Even when they made love, he moved like he was listening—to her body, to her breath, to the parts of her that had nothing to do with sex. And now, every time she closed her eyes with a stranger above her, she remembered him. His voice. His gentleness. His damn stubborn kindness.
And it made everything feel worse.
By the fifth day, she was back to sitting by her window at night, legs drawn up, the lights off. Just watching Paris exist without her.
She thought of painting again—remembered her dream, that version of herself that had long ago gotten lost. Would Lucien still want to see that girl if he knew how many masks she'd worn to survive?
She didn't know anymore.
But she missed him.
And that terrified her most of all.
---
It was late on a Friday when she found herself outside the café again, standing across the street in the shadows, coat pulled tight. Her breath clouded in the crisp evening air. The bell above the door jingled every time someone entered or exited, and Bianca counted each sound like a heartbeat.
Lucien wasn't there.
She didn't go in.
She turned and walked home.
But it was a start.
---
On Sunday, she opened his last message. It was days old now.
> I don't regret meeting you. I regret making you feel like you weren't enough. I'm here if you want to talk. No pressure. No judgment.
It wasn't long.
But it felt like someone had left the door cracked just enough to let light in.
She didn't reply.
Not that day.
Not the next.
But she started to paint again—just sketches at first. Shadows. Lines. Nothing anyone else would call beautiful. But they were hers.
And every time she dipped her brush in color, she thought of him.
She didn't know what came next.
But she knew this: she was tired of living in a cage she'd built herself.
If there was any chance that someone could see her, all of her, and not look away—maybe it was time she stopped hiding.
Even if it meant taking the first step alone.