Chapter 10
Renee had seen galleries before—New York ones, all sharp lines and whiter-than-white walls, spaces that felt more like sterilized labs than places for art to breathe.
But the Marais?
The Marais was a different universe.
Lucien led her down a narrow cobblestone street that looked like it had been stolen straight out of a forgotten century. Lanterns hung from wrought-iron brackets, casting warm pools of light along the old stone façades. Every doorway seemed to whisper secrets; every window glowed with stories.
He stopped in front of a 17th-century townhouse—tall, elegant, and unapologetically ancient. Ivy curled around its balcony railings like it had been holding on for dear life for hundreds of years.
“This,” Lucien said with a flourish, “is where your exhibition will be.”
Renee’s breath tangled in her throat.
It didn’t look like a gallery.
It looked like the kind of place where royalty once whispered scandals behind heavy tapestries.
“You’re kidding,” she said.
Lucien’s smile was soft, but knowing. “I don’t joke about art. Or destiny.”
Destiny. The word made her pulse skip, like someone had tugged on a thread she’d been trying to ignore.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of old books and lemon polish. Wide wooden beams stretched across the ceiling, darkened by time. The floorboards creaked under their weight, the kind of creak that announced history, not disrepair. Sunlight poured through tall windows with glass so old it warped the world outside.
“New York likes to pretend age is a flaw,” Lucien said, walking ahead of her, his hands in his coat pockets. “Paris prefers its scars.”
Renee’s fingers brushed a stone archway. Cold. Solid. Imperfect.
She swallowed. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s honest,” he corrected. “Just like your work.”
Her cheeks warmed. Compliments from Lucien always felt like baited hooks—gentle, earnest, but designed to reel her into something bigger than herself.
He pushed open a double door, revealing the main exhibition room.
It stole her breath.
A chandelier hung like a frozen explosion of crystal. The walls were washed in soft ivory, cracked subtly in places where the plaster had settled over centuries. The space felt intimate but grand, worn but noble—everything Renee’s art had been aching for.
She imagined her canvases here.
She imagined people staring, whispering, trying to decode the girl behind the hood.
She imagined her heart hung up on the walls, framed for strangers to dissect.
Terrifying.
Thrilling.
A beginning she hadn’t dared to ask for.
Lucien stepped beside her. “Do you trust me?”
The question slid through her like a blade—because trust was the one thing she’d run out of. Owen had emptied her of it. The world had mocked it. New York had starved it.
But Paris…
Paris had given her new air.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Lucien shrugged lightly. “Good. Only fools trust easily.”
He turned toward the light-filled room. “But trust the art. It will carry you farther than any man ever could.”
Renee exhaled, long and shaky.
For once, she believed him.
The Marais, with all its charm and centuries-old gravity, felt like it was drawing her into its orbit—whispering that maybe this time, she wouldn’t crumble.
Maybe this time, she would rise.