Chapter Twenty-Five: Paris Isn’t a Place—It’s a Mirror
The Palais des Beaux-Arts rose from the Seine like a monument built from other people’s expectations.
It was beautiful.
Immaculate.
Gold trim. Marble arches. Ceilings so high they dared you to speak loudly beneath them.
Lena arrived alone.
Not because Nikolai didn’t offer to come.
But because this wasn’t his entrance to make.
She stepped from the car in a tailored charcoal coat, hair slicked back, no jewelry except for the thin silver band she wore on her thumb—the one she’d found in Berlin, simple and sharp as a blade.
A crowd waited by the steps. No screaming fans, no chaos. Just photographers. Curators. Critics with folded arms.
The kind of people who nod slowly when they disapprove and blink slowly when they approve.
She
