The morning after the Harrington event I woke up early.
Not from restlessness. Not from the residue of the evening or anything Damien had said standing at those windows or any of the complicated feelings I might have expected to carry home from a room that had contained that much history. I woke up early because I always woke up early and because my body had long since stopped treating difficult evenings as reasons to lose sleep.
I made coffee. Stood at the window. Watched the city come awake the way it always did, floor by floor, light by light, without asking anyone's permission.
Then I went to work.
The week moved the way weeks moved when Lumière had momentum behind it, which it did now, more than it ever had. The Paris approval documents. Three supplier calls. A mentorship session
