“I did,” she said. “It’s exactly where I left it.”

“You hummed Édith Piaf. Every morning. I never told you how much I missed it until I didn’t hear it anymore.”

Chloé felt something sharp and unfamiliar. Not jealousy. Territorial.

Chloé had ended things with Luc in the spring, which in Paris is a kind of sacrilege. You do not shatter a heart when the chestnut trees are blooming. You wait for November, when the sky is the color of a week-old bruise.

The apartment was warm, smelling of mulled wine and Gauloises. She spotted Luc immediately by the window. He had grown a beard—a tactical one, she decided, designed to suggest depth. And beside him, a woman. Not a model, which was a relief. A historian, as it turned out. Named Margot. She laughed with her whole face, and she touched Luc’s sleeve when she made a point.

She thought about what came next.