Tessa's POV
No sooner had we stepped out of Hardin's ward than we saw a lady stride past us majestically, her whole aura flushed with confidence, the way she carried herself so effortlessly, and how the guards bowed and let her through without a single word—it already spoke volumes that she wasn't just anybody at all.
I had taken the elevator down and was already at the parking lot, ready to order an Uber, when it dawned on me that my phone wasn't with me.
"s**t," I muttered, the word finally pulling Julian—whom I'd been avoiding for a while now—into speaking to me.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, but I didn't even respond. Not because I didn't want to, but because I wasn't ready to reopen a chapter I'd already closed back in Paris.
"Tessa," he called after me again, catching the worr
