There was silence in the gallery, the kind of fragile and almost sacred silence that only comes in the late afternoon, when the walls are filled with the breath of the paintings and the city outside the windows recedes like a shipwreck.

Emily stood at the new exhibit, gazing into the delicate brushstrokes on the canvas. Evening revision had become her habit. Here she felt herself neither curator nor collaborator, but something more - a link between the viewer and the artist. Art always spoke to her in a special language. Like her father's voice when she was a child, when he first took her to a small private museum on the outskirts of Brooklyn.

- You're still here," Sebastian's voice echoed behind her. Not loudly, almost apologetically.

Emily flinched. She hadn't noticed him enter.

- I love it when the gallery comes to a standstill," she said without turning around. - At such moments you can hear what the painting really wants to say.

He stepped closer. He was wearing a gray cashmere jacket, the smell of expensive tobacco and citrus cologne touched her lightly. Yet he didn't disturb the space - rather, he complemented it, like something already familiar, dangerously familiar.

- What does this one say? - he nodded at the painting in her hands, but his gaze was still fixed on her, not the canvas.

- 'I want to be understood,' Emily smiled and finally looked up at him. - 'But I'm not sure that's possible.

Their gazes met. There was a lot in that look: weariness, respect, interest. And something else-something neither of them wanted to admit yet.

- Did you ever doubt that you had chosen the right path? - She asked suddenly. The question came out of her own mouth.

Sebastian lowered his eyes. He was silent for a few moments, as if he were going over the years, the cities, the faces.

- Every day," he said at last. - But then I remember... one day in Paris. I was standing in front of Delacroix's "Weeping Madonna." And for a moment, she looked at me. Not from the canvas, for real. I realized I could no longer live without art. Not as a collector, not as a person.

Emily held her breath. There was something more than a memory in his voice. It was a confession. Silently, she turned away to hide how softly her lips trembled.

- You're one of the few who actually feels," she whispered. - Not just looking.

He stepped closer. Just a little. Not touching. Just sharing space with her.

- And you're one of those people who hears. Even the things no one speaks aloud.

Their breaths merged. Time seemed to stop, leaving them alone with the silence in which a whole hurricane raged.