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"Oh, my baby. Look at you."

Anne Beaumont opened the front door before Frank had even parked the car. She ran down the steps in her slippers and pulled Mira into her arms.

Mira had promised herself she would not cry in front of her parents. She lasted three seconds.

"I'm sorry, Mama," she sobbed into her mother's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. You told me. You both told me."

"Hush. Don't you dare apologize."

Her father came down the steps more slowly. Laurent Beaumont was a big, quiet man with flour-scarred hands, and he had not said a word against Dante in two years. He wrapped his arms around both of them and held on.

"Frank called ahead. He says you brought one suitcase," he said into her hair.

"I only took what was mine."

"Good girl."

Inside, her mother made hot chocolate the way she used to when Mira was small. They sat at the old kitchen table.

Mira told them everything. The cake. The papers. The photos. Celine's name at the bottom of the last message.

When she finished, her father's jaw was tight.

"Two years I watched you shrink in that house," he said. "Every Sunday, a little thinner. A little quieter. You stopped talking about baking. You stopped talking about anything except where he was and who he was with."

"I know, Papa."

"I should have said something."

"I wouldn't have listened." Mira wrapped her cold fingers around the mug. "I loved him too much to hear anyone."

Her mother reached across the table and took her hand. "You don't have to hear anyone now. You just have to decide what you want."

Mira stared into her hot chocolate. "I don't even know anymore."

Her father was quiet for a long moment. Then he got up, opened the drawer by the phone, and pulled out an envelope. It was cream-colored, with a gold seal on the back.

He set it in front of her.

Mira set her mug down too fast. Hot chocolate slopped over the rim. She knew that seal.

"The pastry school in Paris," she whispered. "Papa, I turned them down two years ago."

"Chef Moreau has written to me every year since. He says the offer stands as long as he's alive." Her father sat down again. "Your grandmother's apartment in Paris has been empty for five years. Take it. Go."

"But Papa. Sucre Doré..."

Her father held up a hand. "Sucre Doré has run for forty years without you working in a single kitchen, Mira. It can run a little longer."

Mira looked from her father to her mother.

Nobody outside this family knew. Her grandmother Hélène had built Sucre Doré from one small shop into the biggest bakery chain in the country, and she had kept her name off every sign. A private holding company. No interviews. No photos. The world thought the Beaumonts were just an old family that ran a few neighborhood bakeries.

Dante thought so too. He had never once asked.

"You know the Russo Group has tried to buy us three times this year?" her father said quietly. "Your husband's own company. I turned them down every time. He doesn't even know whose door he's been knocking on."

Mira covered her mouth with her hand.

"Take the offer, sweetheart," her mother said. "Not for Dante. Not against him. For you."

Mira looked down at the envelope. At her own bare finger beside it, the pale mark where the ring had been.

'Two years,' she thought. 'I gave him two years. I can give myself one.'

She picked up the envelope.

"All right," she said. "I'll go to Paris."

"Mr. Russo? I'm so sorry, sir. May I ask something?"

Dante looked up from his desk. His assistant, Paolo, stood in the doorway. His tie was crooked, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

"What is it?"

"My father had a fall last night, sir. He's in the hospital. I was wondering if I could take my laptop and work from his room for a few days."

"From the hospital?" Dante leaned back in his chair. For the first time in a week, he really looked at Paolo. The man looked like he had not slept.

"Take three days off," Dante said. "Actually off. Dana can cover for you."

Paolo's face crumpled with relief. "Thank you, sir. Thank you."

"Go. Be with your father."

Paolo was at the door when he stopped and turned back. "Sir? If you don't mind me saying. You should go home too. You look worse than I do."

Dante opened his mouth to argue. Then he glanced at the door to the small suite behind his office. He had been sleeping on the couch in there for six nights, ever since he had left Celine's guest room.

He had not been home in nine days.

The deadline he had given Mira had passed two days ago. The woman who used to call his office six times a day had not called once.

That was not like her.

"Maybe I will," he said.

"Rosa? I've got a bag of shirts that need washing."

Dante walked into the villa just after eight. There was no music from the kitchen. No smell of anything baking.

Rosa came out of the kitchen, wiping her hands. "Mr. Russo. You're home. Have you eaten? I can make you something."

Dante frowned. "Mira didn't cook?"

Even when they fought, there had always been a plate waiting for him in the oven. Every single night.

Rosa twisted the dish towel in her hands. "Sir... Mrs. Russo left. Six days ago, before sunrise."

"She left?"

"Her father's driver came for her. She took one suitcase." Rosa lowered her eyes. "She left some things on your nightstand."

Dante did not wait for dinner. He took the stairs two at a time.

The bedroom was exactly the same. Except the closet door was open, and half of it was full of dresses he had bought her. The white coat hung at the front.

On the nightstand sat the divorce papers. Her ring lay on top of them.

He picked up the papers. Her signature sat small and neat at the bottom of every page.

He had expected to feel relief. Instead, his throat felt tight.

He reached for his own ring, meaning to pull it off. That was when he saw the folded paper beneath the documents.

[My dearest Dante,]

He sat down on the edge of the bed and read.

The burnt caramel tart. The harbor festival. The night before college, when she was thirteen and told him she would marry him someday.

He had forgotten all of it. Reading it now, he could almost taste the burnt caramel.

[That isn't love. That's fear in a wedding dress.]

Dante's hand tightened on the paper.

[I hope one day you remember the girl with the burnt caramel tart, and not the wife who checked your phone.]

He read it twice. Then he saw the smaller writing at the bottom.

[P.S. The line through the settlement is not a mistake. And the screenshot I sent you is real. If you don't believe me, ask her.]

Dante frowned and pulled out his phone. He opened his messages and scrolled down, looking for Mira's name.

It wasn't there.

He scrolled again, slower. He typed her name into the search bar.

No results.

Two years of messages. Every "Will you be home for dinner?" Every photo of a cake she had made for him. Every goodnight he had never answered.

All of it was gone.

Dante stared at the empty screen.

"What screenshot?" he whispered. "And where the hell are our messages?"