It was the opening night of Paris Fashion Week. Théodore was at the reception, cataloguing faces the way architects catalogue facades — with detached precision. Then Valentina walked in, late, unapologetic, in a dress the colour of deep water.

He did not introduce himself that evening. Instead he found her name in the programme and wrote a single line on a card, left at the coat check: You were the best thing in the room and you knew it.

She kept the card. They have been inseparable since.