Chapter 6
Distance changed the shape of everything.
Davis became a ghost Naomi learned to recognize by absence—his chair empty in meetings, his name removed from email threads, his presence erased with professional efficiency. No one said anything out loud, but everyone felt the shift. In an office that fed on proximity and power, disappearance was its own language.
And Naomi was fluent in it now.
New York didn’t slow down for heartbreak.
The city gleamed louder than ever—fall settling in with sharp air and sharper fashion. Black coats. Gold hardware. Invitations printed on thick card stock. Naomi found herself attending events she hadn’t even known existed months ago: gallery openings in Tribeca, private dinners in Chelsea lofts with ceilings like cathedrals, fashion previews guarded by men in suits who didn’t smile.
She was becoming someone else.
Or maybe she was becoming herself faster than she’d expected.
She looks like she belongs here now.
The thought startled her.
It wasn’t Davis’s.
It was hers.
She stood at the edge of a rooftop party overlooking Midtown, champagne flute sweating in her hand. The city stretched endlessly—money stacked on money, light layered on light. A man beside her talked about venture capital like it was weather.
Naomi nodded, smiled, drifted.
Everywhere she went, doors opened.
Everywhere, she felt the hum.
She didn’t use it. Not directly. But the ability had grown sensitive, attuned to rooms, to currents. She could feel when conversations tipped. When outcomes softened. When the world leaned.
Power didn’t always announce itself.
Sometimes it whispered.
Two weeks after Davis asked for distance, Bellamy & Co. announced the Paris trip.
Luxury house. Emergency pivot. Senior staff only.
Naomi’s name was on the list.
She stared at the email long enough that her screen dimmed.
Paris meant elevation. Exposure. The kind of opportunity people waited years for.
Paris also meant Davis.
His thoughts hit her before she even saw him at JFK—tight, controlled, unresolved.
Just get through this.
The plane lifted through clouds heavy with rain. Naomi watched the city fall away, a familiar ache settling in her chest. Somewhere between the Atlantic and exhaustion, she slept—and dreamed again.
This time, it was her mother.
They stood in a hallway Naomi didn’t recognize, walls lined with photographs of women she half-knew—aunties, cousins, ancestors whose eyes felt too sharp.
“You hear because you love,” her mother said softly.
“That doesn’t make it right,” Naomi replied.
“No,” her mother agreed. “It makes it dangerous.”
Naomi woke with her heart racing.
Paris was unreal.
Stone and elegance and the particular confidence of a city that had been wealthy longer than anyone alive. Their hotel overlooked the Seine, balconies dripping with wrought iron and ivy. Naomi pressed her forehead to the glass, breath fogging the view.
She felt small.
And powerful.
The first night, there was a dinner—private, candlelit, fashion royalty gathered around linen and crystal. Naomi wore a dress that moved like liquid, her hair sleek, her face calm.
Davis sat across from her.
He didn’t look at her at first.
Don’t.
She sipped her wine.
Conversation flowed around them in multiple languages. Naomi tracked it all easily, instinct guiding her. She offered insight at the right moment, let silence do its work when it mattered more.
Across the table, Davis watched her.
She’s changed.
The thought was threaded with something like awe. Something like regret.
After dinner, the group spilled onto the terrace. Paris at night shimmered, intimate and vast. Naomi stepped away, needing air.
She felt him before she heard him.
“You’re everywhere,” he said quietly.
She turned. “You’re the one who came to Paris.”
A beat.
“I didn’t think you’d be like this,” he said.
“Like what?”
“So…untouchable.”
The word landed wrong.
“I’m still me,” she said.
No, you’re not.
His thought was sharp, conflicted.
“You don’t call,” he continued. “You don’t reach out.”
“You asked for distance.”
He exhaled. “I didn’t ask you to disappear.”
Silence stretched.
Paris glowed around them, indifferent to their history.
“I stopped using it,” she said suddenly.
He stiffened. “Using what?”
She met his eyes. “Whatever you think I was doing.”
His thoughts stuttered.
I want to believe her.
“You don’t trust me,” she said softly.
“I don’t trust myself around you.”
The honesty cut deeper than anger.
They stood there, city between them, desire coiled tight and dangerous.
Later that night, Naomi lay awake in the hotel bed, window cracked open to the sound of the river. Davis’s thoughts brushed against her again—softer now, less guarded.
I miss her.
Tears slid silently into her hair.
The next day, everything went wrong.
A presentation collapsed. A key decision-maker walked out. Tension rippled through the room like static.
Naomi felt the ability surge—loud, insistent, begging.
She could fix this.
She could save everyone.
She could save him.
Her gaze met Davis’s across the room. Sweat beaded at his temple.
If this fails—
She acted.
Just once.
The shift was immediate. Too clean. Too perfect.
The decision-maker returned. Apologies offered. The deal revived.
The room exhaled.
Davis stared at Naomi like she’d struck him.
Later, alone in a marble hallway lined with art older than countries, he confronted her.
“You said you stopped.”
“I did,” she said, shaking. “Until I didn’t.”
His thoughts were chaos now—betrayal, longing, fear colliding.
“You don’t get to decide when my life needs correction,” he said, voice breaking.
“I couldn’t watch you fall.”
“I didn’t ask you to catch me!”
The words echoed.
Something inside her cracked open fully.
“I love you,” she said. “That’s the truth.”
The silence that followed was brutal.
Finally, he said, “I don’t know if that’s love—or possession.”
She flinched like he’d struck her.
That night, Naomi packed her bags early.
She didn’t go to the farewell dinner.
She left Paris before dawn, the city still asleep, beauty wasted on grief.
On the flight home, the ability went quiet.
No thoughts.
No whispers.
Just silence.
She pressed her hand to her chest, panic rising.
Had she lost it?
Or had it left because it was done with her?
Her phone buzzed as the plane landed.
Davis: I need time.
She closed her eyes.
Because for the first time since New York—
She couldn’t hear him at all.
