Aurélie didn't remember the last time she woke up smiling.
But that morning, after the Winter Charity Ball, she found herself with the sunlight warming her cheek, and the ghost of Elio's words still lingering like perfume on her skin:
> "Tell me to stay, and I'll never leave."
She hadn't told him to stay. Not exactly. But she hadn't pushed him away either.
And that was something.
That was everything.
She wrapped herself in her cream robe and stepped barefoot into her kitchen. Paris was quiet. Even the clatter of the city seemed distant, muffled by the thin veil of snow resting on the rooftops.
She didn't expect him to call. Not so soon.
But he did.
Her phone vibrated just as she finished steeping her tea. She saw his name. Just a name. No heart emoji. No ridiculous nickname. Just: Elio.
She smiled despite herself and picked up.
"Bonjour," she answered softly.
His voice was calm, lower than usual. "You sound like the start of a love song."
She laughed, leaning against the kitchen counter. "And you sound dangerously awake for 8 a.m."
"I've been up since six. Thinking."
"About?"
There was a pause. Then, "About how to see you again without making it feel like I'm rushing you."
Her breath caught. There it was again. That gentle persistence. He never barged through her doors — he simply stood outside and waited, hand on the doorknob, gaze patient.
"You could always ask," she said.
"Then I'm asking."
She sipped her tea to stall the smile rising in her cheeks. "I have a free evening tomorrow."
He didn't cheer, didn't joke.
Just: "Then I'll see you tomorrow."
And that was that.
---
The following evening, they met on the Pont des Arts — the bridge once famous for its padlocks and promises. It was quieter now. No tourists, no crowd.
Just them.
Elio wore a wool coat, collar up, scarf slightly loose. His hands were in his pockets, but his eyes lit up the moment he saw her.
"You're late," he said, smiling.
Aurélie stepped beside him, cheeks flushed from the cold. "You're early."
He offered a silent truce with a sideways grin. "We're both exactly on time, then."
They stood in silence for a moment, the Seine beneath them whispering its ancient secrets.
Then Elio spoke. "Did you ever put a lock here?"
She shook her head. "Too many locks are meant to be broken."
"I put one," he said quietly. "With a girl I didn't even love. I think I was trying to convince myself I could."
Aurélie tilted her head. "Did it work?"
"No," he replied. "But I'm glad. Because if it had… I might not be standing here now."
She glanced at him. "You say things like that, and I forget how dangerous you are."
"I'm only dangerous to people who lie to themselves."
She looked out at the water. "I've lied to myself for years."
Elio's voice softened. "Then maybe it's time we both stop."
---
They wandered along the river afterward, talking about everything but their feelings — which, ironically, revealed everything.
Aurélie told him about her childhood in the countryside before the city swallowed her family whole. About a treehouse she'd built herself. About reading Jane Austen under the stars.
Elio spoke of Milan, of afternoons with his nonna, of the first time he realized beauty could be a currency — and how that scared him.
"I used to think," he said, "that if someone fell for the surface, they didn't deserve the depths."
She nodded slowly. "And now?"
"Now I think people deserve a chance to prove they can dive deeper."
---
They ended the night in a small café tucked into a corner of Le Marais. Dim lights. Wooden chairs. Vinyl jazz playing from a dusty speaker.
Aurélie sat across from him, hands wrapped around a cup of hot chocolate she hadn't touched.
"I'm scared," she admitted.
Elio didn't flinch. "Of what?"
"Of needing you."
He leaned forward slightly. "Need isn't always weakness."
"In my world, it is."
"Then maybe your world needs rewriting."
She met his eyes. "What if I disappoint you?"
"You will."
She blinked. "That's not very romantic."
"It's honest," he said. "You'll disappoint me. I'll disappoint you. That's what people do. But if we're still here after that… maybe it means something."
A silence.
Then she whispered, "I don't know how to do this slowly."
He smiled. "Then let's be slow together."
---
Over the next few weeks, they began something that wasn't quite dating and wasn't quite pretending anymore.
No press release. No Instagram post. No drama.
Just Elio walking her to her studio when she worked late.
Just Aurélie attending one of his shoots — not to supervise, but to watch quietly from a corner.
Just shared glances across the room that spoke louder than any contract clause ever could.
Lina, of course, noticed.
"So," she said one afternoon as Elio adjusted a jacket backstage, "we're in the twilight zone of maybe-relationships now?"
Elio shrugged. "It's better than the frozen zone."
Lina raised an eyebrow. "You're in deep."
He looked down at the cuff of his sleeve. "Yeah. I know."
---
Meanwhile, Aurélie found herself sketching again. Not for clients. Not for contracts. Just for herself.
And, almost accidentally, Elio's silhouette appeared in many of them.
His eyes. His hands. His quiet strength.
She even drew one of them on the bridge — side by side, not touching, but leaning into the same wind.
It was the most intimate drawing she'd done in years.
She folded it, tucked it into her notebook, and said nothing.
---
But nothing beautiful stays untouched for long.
One morning, a rumor surfaced online.
A leaked photo of them leaving the café, smiling — candid, unmistakable.
The headline screamed:
> "From Contract to Connection? Elio Moretti and Aurélie Saint-Claire Spotted Again — And This Time, It's Not Business."
Aurélie saw it first.
Her stomach twisted. Not because of the photo. But because she hadn't prepared for the world to see what she hadn't even named yet.
She called Elio.
He picked up instantly.
"You saw it?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Are you okay?"
He chuckled. "I should be asking you that."
She bit her lip. "We never defined what this is. And now... the world thinks it's theirs to define."
Elio paused. "Do you want to hide?"
"I don't know."
"I won't push," he said gently. "But I won't lie either. If someone asks, I'll say the truth."
"What is the truth, Elio?"
Another pause.
Then: "That I'm slowly falling for the woman who once told me not to fall at all."
Aurélie felt the walls inside her shift.
Again.
Maybe that was all this was — slow earthquakes inside a girl who thought she was solid marble.
But she wasn't marble.
She was just human.
Maybe... finally... becoming whole.