Instinct told her meeting him, continuing this dalliance, was a bad idea. She knew better. She knew she should be more careful. She’d just been feeling so reckless, and the alcohol had gone to her head. She still felt ill. Regret and a two-day hangover, the breakfast of champion writers everywhere. Great.

So why was she even considering meeting him? She should blow him off, let him disappear into the fabric of the city, like she was trying to do. Connections were the last things she wanted.

He wouldn’t like it. She could tell he’d been very interested in her. A strong miasma of desire and dread filled her. You are a stupid fool, Justine. To risk all you’ve overcome to please yet another man. She wanted to see him badly; she didn’t ever want to see him again.

She took the funicular to the top, surprised to find it empty. The path was also quiet in the early morning. She walked in silence for a few moments, her sole companion a small black cat with white socks who mewed happily in a friendly French manner when she stopped to scratch his ears.

Constantine was right. As she emerged from the winding, leafy path from the funicular and made her way to the church grounds, the city unfolded before her. Rooftops and cathedrals, the lone skyscraper in Montparnasse straight ahead, the aggressive, thrusting buildings of La Défense to her right. Greens and golds and white, painfully beautiful to behold. It was as if she were the only person standing on the top of the world. The white marble of the cathedral so perfectly lit in the sun, the brightness nearly burned her eyes.

She shut them, took a breath. This was something she’d wanted for so long, and here she was, feeling more alone than she’d ever been.

Ethan.

The name came like a whisper on the breeze.

What was he doing? Did he miss her? Was he so thrilled to have her out of his house, his life, that he was planning a huge party?

She shouldn’t have done it this way. But she knew if she’d told him she wanted out, really out, divorce and separate lives out, he would talk her down from the ledge and she’d be stuck. He was so good with his words when he wanted to be. A clean break, disappearing from her life, it was the only way. She wasn’t strong enough to do it otherwise. She was so broken lately. The past year had been hell incarnate.