People spoke around her in French and English, their voices weaving together like threads in a fabric she was only beginning to understand.
Alina noticed it first in the mornings.
The cadence of the town shifted with the sun. Early light spilled over stone walls and narrow streets, turning everything softer, warmer. The air carried the scent of bread before it carried voices—fresh loaves pulled from ovens, paper bags crinkling, footsteps slowing as people stopped to greet one another.
It was autumn.
Not the sharp, brittle kind she remembered from New York, where the season felt rushed, impatient, always halfway toward winter. This autumn lingered. Leaves changed color without drama. Gold and rust settled gently into the landscape, as if the earth itself had decided to rest.
She walked to the morning market most days.
At first, she went with purpose—buying fruit, bread, small necessities. Then, gradually, purpose gave way to curiosity. She learned which stalls opened earlier, which vendors smiled before they spoke, which ones remembered her preferences even when her French failed her.
"Bonjour," they greeted her, polite but unintrusive.
"Bonjour," she replied, her accent careful, restrained.
Sometimes the conversation drifted into English when they sensed her hesitation. Sometimes it didn't. Either way, no one pushed. No one pried. No one demanded explanations.
She listened more than she spoke.
That became her quiet observation.
She listened to the way locals discussed weather and wine with equal seriousness. To the laughter that rose and fell naturally, unforced. To disagreements that ended not in victory, but in compromise.
No one asked where she came from in a way that felt interrogative.
No one asked what she used to do.
And most notably—no one asked who she used to be married to.
The absence of that question felt almost surreal.
In New York, her identity had always arrived before she did. Alina Voss, wife of Darius Voss. People adjusted their tone the moment they heard the name. Conversations tilted. Expectations shifted.
Here, she was simply Alina.
A woman who bought bread in the mornings. Who paused to admire produce arranged like art. Who walked slowly, as if learning the pace of her own footsteps again.
She began to notice the small rituals of the town.
How shopkeepers closed briefly in the afternoon, unapologetic about rest. How cafés filled not with laptops and urgency, but with conversations that stretched unbroken for hours. How people greeted one another not to network, not to gain—but simply because they shared the same streets.
She found herself breathing differently.
Deeper.
Less guarded.
It felt—unexpectedly—like living in a new dimension.
Not because everything was unfamiliar, but because nothing demanded that she perform.
In the afternoons, she often sat at a café near the edge of town, where the tables overlooked a slope of gardens and distant water. She ordered coffee slowly, sometimes pointing instead of speaking, smiling when the server corrected her pronunciation with gentle amusement.
She didn't mind being corrected.
She didn't mind being unknown.
Back at the house, the days settled into a rhythm that felt earned rather than imposed. Mornings at the market. Afternoons reading or working lightly, never forcing herself into productivity. Evenings spent walking through the garden, watching the light change its mind.
At night, she slept deeply again.
The kind of sleep that came not from exhaustion, but from safety.
Meanwhile, across an ocean and several time zones away, Darius was growing increasingly dissatisfied.
The private investigator sat across from him in a quiet office, files spread neatly on the desk between them. Too neatly. Darius had learned to recognize the difference between preparation and insufficiency.
"She boarded a flight to France," the PI said calmly. "We confirmed that."
"And?" Darius prompted, fingers steepled, patience thinning.
"And after that, her trail goes cold."
Darius's jaw tightened imperceptibly.
"She didn't use her usual credit cards," the investigator continued. "No hotel bookings under her name that we can trace directly. No social media activity. No public appearances."
"You're telling me she vanished," Darius said flatly.
"I'm telling you she was careful," the PI corrected. "Deliberately so."
France.
The word lingered unpleasantly in Darius's mind.
He had expected New York. Or London. Somewhere predictable. Somewhere within reach of the circles she already knew. Somewhere where she would be forced, eventually, to surface.
France complicated things.
France suggested intention.
"She doesn't speak French fluently," Darius said, more to himself than to the investigator.
"That doesn't mean she's helpless," the PI replied evenly.
Darius leaned back in his chair, irritation simmering beneath his composure. He had assumed—wrongly, it seemed—that distance would weaken her. That time would soften her resolve. That she would reach out, eventually. Ask for help. Ask for access. Ask for something.
Instead, she had disappeared.
Not dramatically. Not defiantly.
Just… quietly.
Which, Darius realized with growing unease, was exactly how she had left the marriage.
"Keep looking," he said finally. "Expand the search."
The investigator nodded, gathering his files. "She'll surface eventually."
Darius wasn't so sure.
Back in Èze, Alina stood at the edge of the market as vendors began packing up for the day. The sun dipped lower, casting long shadows across stone. She adjusted the scarf around her neck, the fabric light, familiar now.
Someone nearby laughed, the sound bright and unguarded.
She smiled without thinking.
For the first time in a long while, she wasn't running from anything.
She was simply learning the rhythm of a new place.
And letting it teach her who she could be when no one was watching.