Chapter 44

• The boutique was still. Not silent, exactly, but quiet in the way that followed a storm. A thick, heavy quiet. Like the walls remembered everything that had been said, every click of a camera lens, every question that was asked with a smile but meant to cut deep. The press had left late, long after the sun dipped behind the neighboring buildings, but even now their energy still clung to the room like perfume that wouldn’t lift.
• I hadn’t slept properly yet.
• I’d drifted into a restless, aching sort of stillness sometime after dawn, curled on the velvet sofa in the back with a blanket over my legs and my phone tucked under one hand. I didn’t dream. My mind was too full. Too alert. Too aware that everything could shift with the next notification.