They say time moves in a straight line.

That's a lie told by people who have never opened a watch.

Time is a gear train. It ticks forward, it slips backward, it jams. And sometimes, at exactly 2:32 PM on a Tuesday, it snaps completely.

At 2:32 PM this Tuesday, I was sitting on the cold marble floor of the bathroom on the 84th floor of the Blackwood Tower, holding a

pregnancy test, watching my entire life snap.

Two pink lines.

My name is Isolde Marchal. I'm 28 years old. I'm the head watchmaker of Atelier Marchal, a twelve-square-meter workshop in

Montmartre that smells of oil and cold coffee, that my father left me when I was eighteen with one sentence: "A watch never lies, Isolde.

Men do."

This morning at 8:00 AM, my father had called me. "Isolde, your mantel clock for the 18th arrondissement Town Hall is running two

seconds fast. Come fix it."

This morning at 9:15 AM, I threw up my coffee. For the third time in five days.

At 11:00 AM, I bought a test at the pharmacy on Rue des Martyrs, praying it was a stomach bug.

At 2:32 PM, I knew it wasn't a stomach bug. It was two pink lines. And a vertigo that had nothing to do with hormones.

Because at 2:45 PM, I had a meeting. The most important meeting of my life. The one where Tristan Blackwood — my boss, my lover for

eight months, the man who told me "you're the only woman who understands how I work" — was supposed to sign the contract that

would save my father's atelier: 400 Marchal x Blackwood watches for boutiques worldwide. Four hundred million in revenue. Enough to

buy all of Montmartre.

And at 2:45 PM, I was going to tell him I was pregnant with his child.

I stood up. I put the test back in my second-hand Celine bag. I smoothed my dress. Not the blue one. Not yet. A simple black dress. I

breathed. Watchmakers don't cry. We measure.

I pushed open the boardroom door.

He was already there. Tristan Blackwood. 36. Tom Ford suit, custom, but always a little wrinkled at the collar because he never sleeps.

Hair cut too short, like a soldier. Grey eyes that never blink when he negotiates. He was standing with his back to the floor-to-ceiling

window overlooking all of Manhattan, on the phone with his father in London, his voice dropping the temperature by ten degrees.

"No, Father. I will not sign with the Swiss. I said I would sign with Marchal."

He saw me. He hung up.

"Isolde."

Just my name in his mouth, it was both an order and a caress.

"You're three minutes late. Time is..."

"Money, I know," I cut in. That was our game.

He smiled. A real smile. The rare one he only showed me when we were alone in his office at 11 PM and he let me disassemble his

$300,000 Patek Philippe just to watch how I did it.

"Do you have the final prototype?"

I placed the case on the table. Inside, Watch No. 1. The Marchal-Blackwood. Grand feu blue enamel dial, which I had fired twelve times.

Hand-wound movement, which I had assembled by hand for 140 hours. On the back, hand-engraved: T.B. + I.M. - Time Belongs To Us.

It was our watch. Our secret.

He took it. He turned it over. He saw the engraving. His fingers trembled. For one second. No more.

"It's perfect," he whispered.

And at that moment, the door opened.

Selene Leroux walked in. Without knocking. She never knocked.

Selene. 5'11", blonde, ex-Dior muse who retired at 30 to become a "brand image consultant" for Blackwood Corp. Translation: his fiancée.

Not officially. Officially, it was "complicated." Unofficially, all of New York knew they were supposed to announce at the Met Gala at the end

of the month.

She was wearing white. I was wearing black. It was already a symbol.

"Tristan, darling, sorry, I'm early for lunch," she said in English, then she saw me and her smile froze. "Oh. Isolde. The little watchmaker.

You're still here?"

Tristan didn't answer. He was still holding my watch.

Selene came closer, took the watch from his hands, looked at it.

"Oh, cute. It's so... artisanal. So tiny. Tristan, are you sure you want to put this in our boutiques? It's going to look so out of place next to the

That was the moment I understood. He hadn't told her anything. For her, I wasn't his lover. I was "the little watchmaker." A vendor.

I looked at Tristan. I gave him one last chance with my eyes. Tell her. Tell her this watch is us. Tell her you spent 8 months sleeping at my

place in Montmartre when you said you were in London.

He looked down. For one second. And he chose.

"Selene has a point," he said, his voice turning back into CEO. Cold. "We're going to revise the contract, Isolde. Four hundred watches is too

risky for a first test. We'll start with forty. And without your name. Just Blackwood. Atelier Marchal will remain an anonymous

subcontractor. It's cleaner for the brand image."

Forty instead of four hundred. Without my name. Anonymous subcontractor.

My father's atelier would die.

I felt the two pink lines burning in my bag.

"Are you telling me you're canceling the deal?" I asked, my voice surprisingly calm. It's the voice my father uses when a watch is dead.

"I'm reassessing the risk. It's business, Isolde. Don't take it personally."

Don't take it personally. Eight months of nights. Of "you're the only one that matters." Of plans to live in Montmartre. Don't take it

personally.

Selene smiled. She put down the watch. Badly. It fell. The crystal cracked. A horrible little click.

"Oops," she said.

And it was the click that broke me. Not the four hundred million. The click of 140 hours of work breaking.

I took my bag. I took out the pregnancy test. I placed it on the $100,000 mahogany table, next to the cracked watch.

"Here. Since you're reassessing risks, reassess this one."

Silence.

Tristan looked at the test. Two pink lines. Then he looked at me. His face went white. Not pale. White. Like he'd seen a ghost.

Selene looked at the test. Then at me. Then at Tristan. She understood in 0.5 seconds. Women like her always understand faster.

"You're... pregnant?" she said, with disgust mixed with fascination. "By whom?"

I looked straight into Tristan's eyes. I wanted him to say it. Once. To be a man.

He said nothing. He took the test, put it in his pocket, like hiding evidence.

"Isolde, get out. We'll talk later. Alone."

"No," I said. "We talk now. In front of your fiancée. Because if I walk out, I walk out with this."

I took out of my other pocket a black USB drive. Harmless-looking.

"What is that?" Selene asked.

"The blueprints for the Blackwood P01. The smartwatch you're supposed to announce at CES in Las Vegas in three weeks. The one you told

your father you developed alone in Geneva. Except... I developed it. In my twelve-square-meter atelier. Every line of code. Every micro-

motor. I have everything."

Tristan's face collapsed. It was his secret project. Two years of R&D. If he didn't announce at CES, his father would strip him of his title.

"Are you blackmailing me?" he whispered, so low Selene couldn't hear.

"No," I said, with the same calm. "I'm giving you a watchmaking lesson. When a gear breaks, you don't throw it away. You replace it. You

broke our watch. You broke our deal. You tried to break my atelier. Now you're going to sign."

I placed a paper on the table. My lawyer had prepared it this morning, before the test. Just in case. Watchmakers always anticipate

breakage.

It was a confidentiality and debt recognition agreement. He owed me $4 million for the R&D of the P01. Enough to save the atelier for ten

years. In exchange, I would return the USB drive and disappear. With my baby.

He read. His hands were trembling for real this time.

Selene, who didn't understand what was happening, stamped her foot: "Tristan, what is this circus? Are you going to let this little..."

"SHUT UP!" Tristan shouted. For the first time, he shouted at Selene. The entire 84th floor must have heard it.

He signed. With an angry stroke. Without reading the last clause I had added by hand at 6 AM.

Clause 7b: Mr. Blackwood agrees never to attempt to make contact with the unborn child of Ms. Marchal.

He signed. He gave me back the cracked watch. He kept the USB drive.

I walked out. In a black dress. With two pink lines in my bag and a $4 million check that would save my father, but not my heart.

In the elevator, I cried. For the first time since my father told me watches never lie.

At 3:02 PM, I bought a one-way ticket to Paris. I blocked his number.

I didn't know that inside me, there wasn't just a baby. There was one who would be named Aria. And who, four years later, would force

Tristan Blackwood to learn how to make a concrete-proof bun at 4 AM just to see me again.

But what I also didn't know — and what Tristan didn't know as he watched the elevator doors close with my test in his pocket — was that

the USB drive I had just given him was empty.

The real one, with the real P01 and something much more dangerous — the emails proving his father had been stealing designs from

independent watchmakers for twenty years — was still in my bag.

And I had just made a copy.