Because she wasn’t coming back. The knowledge crackled up and down the back of her spine. In spite of everything that had happened today, she hadn’t known that for sure until right now. Her time at Du Jour was done.

Her head spun. How to tell Vivian she was taking the job Simon had offered? That was a whole new conundrum. Vivian obviously hadn’t seen Simon’s departure coming either. Two knives in her back within minutes of each other. And now Jules was aiming a third.

No. It wasn’t like that. Jules wrung her hands again. This professional move could be a great thing for her, yes. It could be great for their relationship too. They could make this work.

They had to. Because Jules loved…

She put a hand over her heart and clutched the thick material of her sweatshirt.

“Are you all right?”

She looked up to see that Vivian had returned and was frowning in concern. Before she could help herself, she reached out imploringly.

Looking no less concerned, Vivian came forward and took Jules’s hands in her own. When Jules tugged, she sat back down on the couch and gasped when Jules cradled her face and kissed her forehead, hard. At that, she went very still.

When Jules pulled away, still holding her face, Vivian said, “You’re not coming back.”

The words hurt like a punch to the gut, but Jules’s hands stayed where they were and she kept looking into Vivian’s eyes.

Vivian’s face was pale, but she held her lips in a steady line, her expression all too familiar: that of someone used to being disappointed and ready to soldier on anyway.

“You were right before,” Jules sighed. “We can’t keep doing both—our jobs and being together. I just didn’t want to admit it.”

“And now you have a backup,” Vivian said bitterly. “How convenient.”

Jules dropped her hands and stared at her. “Oh, come on.”

“‘Come on’ what?”

Jules reached for her again, but Vivian waved her hands away. “If you’re leaving, why won’t you let me help you find something? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

There’s something wrong with that, Jules’s inner voice muttered, just like when she’d gotten the email from Modernity. Again, it made no sense, and if she didn’t have a job offer on the hop already, she might have felt differently.

She had the offer, though. And it meant she wasn’t beholden to her lover—however well Vivian meant—for her livelihood.

“It’s a job,” she said. “It seems like a good one. The sort of job you’d encourage me to take, I’d think. Uh, at least it’s not in London. Ha, ha.”

The joke definitely didn’t land. Damn.

“No,” Vivian said coldly. “It’s right here in New York, courtesy of Simon Carvalho. Right after he…” She trailed off.