Arlo crafts perfumes for Parisians who no longer believe in love—custom elixirs distilled from half-remembered kisses, train platform glances, and the scent of wet stone after midnight. He works above a shuttered bookbinder’s shop on Rue des Martyrs, where sunlight filters through stained glass depicting forgotten saints. His nose is legendary: he can detect the difference between longing and loneliness in a single inhale. But his own heart remains unformulated, guarded behind decades of family expectation—the house of Vérité, founded by his great-grandmother, is crumbling beneath digital giants and indifferent heirs. He refuses to sell.His quiet rebellion takes shape on a private balcony overlooking the Seine, where he presses flowers from every meaningful encounter into a leather-bound journal labeled *Notes de Cœur*. The space is hidden behind ivy and jasmine vines he planted himself—one bottle-green deck chair, a brass telescope pointed toward Orion, and a gramophone that plays vinyl records warped by humidity. It’s here he imagines his ideal lover—not as fantasy, but as scent profile: top notes of laughter after downpours, heart accord of shared silences, base note of commitment unspoken.He believes touch should always follow trust—and trust takes longer than most are willing to give. Their first kiss happens not in candlelight but beneath a collapsing awning during a thunderstorm near Pont Louis-Philippe, when she laughs instead of running for cover. They dance slow on his rooftop weeks later while the city pulses below in neon-drenched synth ballads from distant clubs, her head tucked beneath his chin, his hands trembling slightly against her waist—as if holding onto something too beautiful to last.Arlo expresses devotion through experience: a blindfolded walk along canal paths guided only by fragrance markers—he’s planted lilac cuttings for spring, tuberose traps for summer nights—and once, a midnight picnic beside floating barges where fireflies mirrored stars reflected off black water. He does not say I love you until he has composed it—a bespoke essence named *Toi en Moi*, unveiled at dawn with a fountain pen that had written nothing else.