Julian fled the family dinner with defeat's bitter residue clinging to his tongue, reverberating like a death knell in his skull.
The chateau's oppressive walls receded in the rearview, but he veered from the penthouse route.
its marbled halls promised only Eleanor's phantom disapproval and Isabelle's lingering expectations, another velvet-lined prison in a life of them.
He wandered rain-drenched avenues in the Mercedes, wipers battling the relentless sheets, Paris's nocturnal glow fracturing into amber and scarlet ribbons.
Aimless miles later, Le Baron emerged in the 8th. A gilded den of vice he hadn't frequented since pre-marital recklessness.
The bouncer, broad-shouldered and impassive, registered his face amid the queue and waved him past with a silent incline, the velvet rope p
