Vivienne's POV
He replied and I never sent a time or a place.
He didn't ask.
That was Charles. He never pushed into silences that weren't his. He waited at whatever pace something actually needed and didn't pretend otherwise.
I sat in my apartment that evening with the journalist's words and felt something move underneath me.
Not collapse. Nothing dramatic. More like walking across a floor you were certain was level and feeling it tilt slightly under your foot. Not enough to fall. Enough to make you stop and look down and wonder how long it had been that way without you noticing.
Someone in the cosmetics industry.
He had been watching someone in the cosmetics industry.
---
I had walked into The Harlow on an ordinary afternoon and seen a man in a white shirt and believed I had foun
