The days in Paris didn't stretch—they folded.
Mornings blurred into nights, and time bent around them as if the city had conspired to make space for this fragile, burning pause. Amelia painted more than she slept. Daniel wrote in a leather-bound journal he never let her read. They lived like the world couldn't touch them.
But even the most perfect stillness begins to stir.
It started with the phone calls.
Her agent. The gallery's director. An interview with Le Monde. The offer from Berlin. A collector's interest in an exclusive series.
Each call reminded her of what waited outside this cocoon she'd built with Daniel.
Each time she answered, he watched her—not with jealousy, but with something more painful.
Understanding.
He knew this wasn't forever. They were living on borrowed time.
---
One evening, as soft rain laced the windows, she stood in front of a new canvas. It was different—chaotic, undone, a storm of movement and muted reds. She hadn't named it.
Daniel came up behind her, his arms folding around her waist.
"It's angry," he murmured.
"It's scared," she corrected. "Of losing what it finally allowed itself to want."
He didn't speak for a long time. Then:
"I booked my return flight."
Her breath caught. "When?"
"Three days."
It wasn't a betrayal. It was inevitable. But it still cracked something inside her.
She turned in his arms, her voice rough. "Why does it feel like every time we let ourselves be whole, something demands we break again?"
"Because maybe wholeness," he said gently, "isn't something we find. Maybe it's something we fight to keep."
She touched his chest, her voice a whisper. "Then let's fight."
---
Their last night was the quietest.
No wine. No music. Just skin and breath and the ache of loving in the shadow of goodbye.
She traced his spine with her fingertips, memorizing it.
He kissed her inner wrist, where her pulse thrummed.
Neither said I love you. It was too sacred for a night that demanded silence.
But in the morning, when he stood at the door with his bag slung over his shoulder, she handed him a small envelope.
Inside was a sketch. Of him. Sleeping. Vulnerable. Beautiful.
And written beneath it, in her handwriting:
"You are my unfinished masterpiece."
---