The restaurant is on the fourteenth floor of a building that Rhys helped restore six years ago, which he mentions with the quiet particular pride of someone pointing out a thing they made better, and I file it alongside everything else I am collecting about him, the novel at twenty three, the early arrivals, the way he reads buildings like people.We are shown to a table by the window.The city is spread below us like something deliberate, all light and movement, and I sit across from him in the green dress and he is wearing the grey shirt and we look at each other across a table that has candles and good stemware and absolutely no agenda beyond this."Martin Raymond asked me not to make Vivienne the public villain," I say. "I told him I had already made that choice."Rhys looks at me across the candles. "You protected her.""I protected her child," I say. "Different motivation."He is quiet for a moment. "She sent me a message today," he says. "First time she has contacted me directl
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