Chapter 179

• The morning after Julian’s speech, the boutique felt unusually still. There was no hum of early customers yet, no footsteps on the pavement outside, just the faint sound of the kettle coming to boil in the back. I had arrived earlier than usual, partly because I wanted the quiet and partly because my mind was still turning over the words Julian had spoken the night before.
• He had surprised me — not with what he said, because I knew those truths already, but with how openly he gave them to a room of strangers. He had always been steady, but his steadiness was often private. Seeing him put it into words had stayed with me in a way I had not expected.
• I was halfway through arranging the scarves near the window when Claudia came in. She was carrying a paper bag from the bakery down the street, the kind that always smelled faintly of warm bread even before it was opened.