The villa’s sunroom smelled faintly of old books and fresh citrus. Celeste sat cross-legged on the low couch, a loose linen wrap knotted at her waist, hair pulled back with a clip that kept slipping free. The breeze rustled the sheer curtains behind her as she flipped through the second draft of Still Life.
Across from her, Mara Lorusso, aged twenty-eight year old, hair pinned up messily with a pen, sleeves rolled to the elbows of a faded linen shirt, watched her like she might flinch at any second. She’d flown in from Rome that morning, half breathless, still clutching her laptop like armor.
“You wrote this whole thing in three weeks?” Celeste asked, flipping a page with a fingertip.
Mara’s voice was soft but quick. “Yes. Well. The first bones of it. I had the idea for a year, but… the
