The Suarez Myth: Chapter 14

Clair’s message did not disturb Saoirse’s certainty, and that was because she had no certainty left to disturb. 

No, it troubled something far older and smaller than certainty. Something she did not have language for, lying there in the dim blue hour beside a sleeping husband whose hand had fallen heavy across her thigh as though even unconsciousness could not forget possession. The phone’s silence after the buzz had become charged in her hand on her chest, like an object in a room after a glass has shattered and been swept away.

She lay still a moment longer, listening to Roman breathe. The sea beyond the shutters was not yet visible, only audible in its slow black movement against the rock below. Her body ached with that deep, private soreness that came after nights with him when she could not tell whether she had been loved or overrun. The two sensations lived too close together now. She had stopped trying to separate them.

Her eyes remained open.

And because she did not want to look too directly at the new message, not yet, not while he was there beside her and the room still smelled faintly of sex and salt and his skin, her mind moved elsewhere in the way frightened minds sometimes step sideways into old corridors just to avoid the one immediately before them.

Before Roman, there had been years in which no one expected anything graceful from her. That was the first fact.

No one called her quiet like it was a virtue, or mistook her stillness for depth. It was simply the way she had learned to move through rooms that were not built for her. She had been shy in the practical sense, not the decorative one. She was the sort of girl who folded herself small at the edges of gatherings and left early enough that no one had to watch her say goodbye.

Even at university, where people liked to pretend youth made everyone equal, she carried a private caution in her body, as if the world might turn without warning and leave her standing in the wrong doorway with no explanation.

She had not thought of herself then as damaged, only easier when quiet.

London had suited that version of her in some ways because it was indifferent. Indifference was easier than scrutiny. In the flat she shared during her last year of university, the windows sweated in winter and the kitchen always smelled faintly of wet dishcloth and over-boiled pasta, but no one watched her too closely. Her flatmates rotated in and out of romances and deadlines and political awakenings, mugs multiplied mysteriously, milk vanished, the boiler clicked like an irritated throat. She had liked the anonymity of that. She liked being one pale girl among many lives, carrying library books to her room and making tea badly and pretending not to hear when couples fought through the wall.

Nina, of course, heard everything.

Nina heard tone shifts over the phone. She heard swallowed words. She heard what Saoirse was trying to brighten over with a laugh, and would say, with almost infuriating gentleness, You don’t have to sound fine for me, you know. But Nina lived between cities. She had family everywhere and was often two hours by train and several emotional climates away, in a life that always felt slightly fuller, warmer, and more peopled than Saoirse’s own. Nina had cousins and school friends, exes she still loved a little, and women who borrowed her earrings and called her at midnight and expected to be answered. 

Nina loved Saoirse sincerely, but from the middle of abundance. Saoirse loved Nina from the edge of things.

As for Sinead, that was something else entirely.

England had taught Saoirse the geography of estrangement almost better than it had taught her literature. London for school, Newcastle in memory, and Belfast before that, though Belfast belonged less to memory than to atmosphere like rain on old wood, her parents’ nonexistence so absolute it had become mythical, her grandmother’s hands red from washing up, the particular Sunday silence of small houses. 

Sinead remained in that other northern life she had never quite shared with her except by accident of blood and legal obligation. They spoke rarely and badly. Sinead had a way of making even ordinary concern sound like accusation. You eating? You sleeping? You still writing all that stuff? Beneath every question, there was always another one, unasked but audible enough: And what good has any of it done?

So Saoirse learned to edit herself depending on the audience.

With Nina, she was brighter than she felt. With Sinead, flatter. With university friends, quieter than bright girls were supposed to be. With men, if she could manage it, agreeable just long enough to be left in peace.

It was old weather in her nervous system. The kind of thing you stop naming because it has always been there.

At the residency in Madrid, before Roman, she had begun to imagine a different sort of life, one in which no one was looming. It had been enough to feel almost radical. The city was clean in a way London rarely was. Even the winter light there looked curated. 

She lived in a narrow apartment with two other writers, one Catalan novelist with dramatic hands and a weakness for borrowed scarves, the other a Chilean essayist who smoked on the tiny balcony and said very beautiful, very useless things about loneliness while asking no questions at all. Saoirse liked both of them in the shallow, merciful way residency people like each other, intensely for six weeks, perhaps, and then never fully again.

They all performed seriousness differently.

One man wore black turtlenecks and spoke of exile as though it had happened personally to him in four separate countries. A woman from Dublin weaponized brightness and asked aggressive questions at every seminar to prove she had one. Another poet who was soft-faced, sweet, mostly harmless, once told Saoirse at breakfast that her work made him feel as if someone were trying not to scream in another room. She thanked him because she did not know what else to do.

She spent much of that winter in small galleries and public readings where people clapped politely and then drank warm wine while pretending the evening had mattered more than it had. Her poems landed strangely in those rooms, too careful in some places, too exposed in others. She was not one of those young women who arrived already aflame. Her talent was quieter. She wrote as if standing just outside the thing itself, watching it happen and trying not to be noticed by it. Her tutors at university had called the work controlled, precise, disturbingly mature for your age, which made her feel both proud and vaguely accused.

She had not expected the residency, which may have been why it felt less like triumph and more like a reprieve.

The email arrived on a dull March afternoon while she and Nina were sitting cross-legged on the carpet of Nina’s first “big girl” South London flat, eating toast directly from the pan because neither of them owned a toaster that worked. Saoirse read the message twice before saying anything, the words “merit-based placement” and “winter term in Madrid” blinking quietly on her screen as though they had mistaken her for someone more serious. 

Nina snatched the phone from her hand, shrieked, and began making extravagant plans about cheap flights and scandalous Spanish poets while Saoirse sat very still beside her, trying to calculate what it meant in the quieter language of survival. 

What was left of the inheritance her grandmother had left her, the last careful act of a woman who had worried about her long after death, would stretch a little farther in Spain than it would in London. Long enough, perhaps, for a year of writing without panic. After that, she imagined she would return, find some polite job involving books or students or translation, something that allowed evenings for poems no one paid for. It did not feel like a grand future, only a narrow bridge across the next few years of her life. 

But when Nina pulled her into a fierce hug and shouted, “Madrid, Saoirse, can you believe it?” She laughed too, because sometimes a narrow bridge was enough reason to cross an ocean.

When had she stopped thinking about money so completely? 

The last time she could remember trying to pay for anything was years ago, not more than three months after meeting Roman. They were together as she stood at the counter of a small shop near his Madrid apartment building, her card already in her hand. It was just a notebook and a pen, the sort of purchase she had made a hundred times without thinking.

The shop assistant had begun wrapping everything she’d touched in soft paper and into a shopping bag, when Roman gently patted Saoirse’s hand away. 

“I’ve got it,” he said, as if clarifying something administrative. “They’ll sort it out.”

“It’s fine, I can—”

“I know,” he said gently before a small pause. “It’s easier.” He glanced at her briefly, and that was all.

She hesitated for half a second. Then she slipped her card back into her bag and went with him. He nudged her out of the shop with no explanation or visible transaction beyond the quiet understanding that the exchange had already been absorbed somewhere beyond her. 

Now, she couldn’t remember the last time she checked the balance of her own account, or if she still had one.

In those days before Roman, she’d believed writing might save her from becoming too legible. Not save her financially, of course. She knew enough about the world to understand that poems did not rescue anyone from rent. But writing gave shape to the parts of her that otherwise remained fog. It let her decide where to stop a sentence, move pain into lines and line breaks and little white silences she controlled absolutely. 

On good mornings, she wrote at the residency desk in a pair of socks with holes in the heel and felt lucky. On worse mornings, she carried her favorite notebook to bars or museums or churches and sat where no one knew her enough to interrupt the rhythm of her thoughts.

That had been the life Roman interrupted. A life with no witness, but also, no curator.

She had not been happy all the time. She had been lonely in ways she did not discuss, and hungry often enough to make coffee feel medicinal, and frightened occasionally by how easy it was for days to pass without anyone touching her shoulder or saying her name. But she had still belonged to herself in those small, unimpressive ways that only become visible later, after they have been traded in.

She used to choose things without noticing she had chosen them. Which café, which poem to read aloud, whether to answer Nina now or later, whether to go home to the residency kitchen and endure the performative talk of other young writers, or keep walking until the city dimmed enough to feel like hers. She used to disappear by intention.

She remembered one particular evening from that winter with absurd clarity. The memory rose whole, complete with the smell of wet pavement and wine and old wool. She had left a reading early because one of the men there had insisted on explaining her own poem back to her, and she could feel herself becoming impolite. 

Outside, Madrid was cold in a dry, elegant way that made London’s damp seem vulgar. She crossed the street to a small bar where the lights were low and kind, and no one needed anything from her immediately. She had ordered one glass of red, opened her notebook, and written down, without much thought, a sentence about snow as a form of mercy.

No one had yet come over or decided that her stillness meant something rare. She had simply been there. Twenty-one, tired, underdressed, a little guarded, trying to make a life from paper and rented time, carrying inside her the old education of girlhood: be quiet, be small, be useful, be grateful, do not ask for too much, leave before anyone can leave you first.

And then, someone had begun to watch her as though she had already entered an important story.

She had been sitting there perhaps twenty minutes before she noticed the man across the room watching her in the patient way of someone studying a painting whose technique he had not quite deciphered. 

Later, she would understand that it was the way she listened when people spoke nearby, from a quiet habit of mapping the air around her before moving through it, that had caught his attention first. Most people mistook that kind of stillness for shyness. Roman did not. He recognized it immediately for what it was.

+

He had knocked twice already.

The water kept running, and she still hadn’t answered. Roman swore under his breath before kicking the bathroom door open with that terrifying quiet that always hollowed her bones.

She was crouched on the floor against the far wall, her arms wrapped around her knees. He let himself exhale because, for a split second, he thought she might’ve fainted and hurt herself. His eyes moved quickly, following the direction her eyes were pointing toward, across the room to the vanity, the porcelain basin as pale as her skin, the phone resting face-down on the brown marble counter.

He stepped inside, crouched beside her, and took her chin in his hand.

“Saoirse.” His voice was controlled, but something beneath it simmered. He inhaled slowly through his nose. “Come with me.” She did not move. “Saoirse, come.” The command came softer this time, too soft.

He helped her to her feet, wrapping a pristine white towel around her shoulders. His hand lingered briefly, as if confirming she was steady again. Then he brushed the nightstand as he pulled her toward him, sliding the phone safely away from the edge of the counter before guiding her back into the bedroom.

He made her sit on the edge of the bed and studied her for a moment longer, as if deciding whether the disturbance required intervention or simply time. He didn’t want chaos.

“I’m not chasing this,” he murmured, making her skin flush with shame. “If something is wrong, you’ll bring it to me once you’re calm.” He didn’t wait for her response. Whatever had shaken her would surface eventually. It always did.

He left the room, left her to self-regulate.

When the door clicked shut behind him, the bedroom seemed capable of swallowing a person without him in it. It was quieter, yes, but not calmer. The air still felt wrung out, heavy with everything that had not been said. Her hands rested in her lap, clenched tightly together as the towel slipped from her shoulders.

She stared down at the floor, at the edge of the rug where it met the cold stone tiles, at the fine threads along the border, at one corner beginning to fray. It seemed absurd how quiet the room was, considering the chaos in her head.

Her skin still ached where he had touched her last night. Her throat ached from the words she had not spoken. Eventually, she rose and crossed the room slowly, as though made of glass and ghosts.

Her phone was still on the bathroom vanity. She went and picked it up, unlocked it, and opened her notes. There, half-written, sat the message she had begun drafting for Clair. A response she had started that year but never finished, never sent. She saw the red dress at the dinner party. It all felt like something from another lifetime.

She hesitated for a second before pressing delete on the old draft, then she went to the wardrobe and took the light silk robe from its hanger. Her hands had learned the habit of it. She slipped it on and tied the sash. The silk settled over her shoulders like a small correction that made her feel marginally more composed. Like someone who still possessed the ability to make choices, however small, however similar it was to what Roman would choose.

Saoirse had not truly slept, but morning crept slowly into the room, the light cautious of disturbing her. She curled into the chaise by the window, still wearing the robe. Her body ached. Her eyes were swollen from tears she had not bothered to wipe away. Outside, a small bird landed briefly on the stone balcony railing before lifting away again.

From downstairs came the quiet movement of boxes. The staff was already packing.

She stood again, restless, joints stiff, legs unsteady beneath her. Passing the gilded mirror, she caught sight of herself. Her soft hair was tangled, eyes rimmed red, a faint bruise darkening along her thigh where Roman’s fingers had pressed too hard in the night.

She looked like someone who had survived a war she had never agreed to fight. She touched the bruise, the fading red splotch, once, lightly, as if confirming it belonged to her.

She bathed and changed into something soft and simple again, a grey linen dress with long sleeves and a high neck. She did not bother with makeup or brushing her hair. She did not want to perform today.

Because earlier, in the bathroom, with the door quietly locked and the water running in the sink, she had done something she knew Roman would not like. She had called Clair Neumann.

The call had been brief. Clair answered on the second ring.

“Saoirse?” Her voice held a mild surprise. “Well. That’s unexpected.”

Saoirse had leaned against the marble counter, gripping the edge of it with one hand. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“You didn’t,” Clair replied. “And even if you had, I’d have survived.”

There was a pause, during which time Saoirse almost hung up. “I read your… messages,” she said finally.

Another pause, this one more attentive. “Ah,” Clair murmured.

“I didn’t mean to disappear,” Saoirse continued softly. “Life just… became very full.”

Clair’s voice warmed with something dry and gentle. “That tends to happen when one marries a Suarez.”

Saoirse tried to smile but could not quite manage it. “I’m happy,” she said quickly.

Clair did not contradict her. “Good,” she said instead. A beat passed. Then Clair added, lightly, “I remember thinking you listened to him even when he wasn’t speaking. Has anyone ever told you how closely you watch him?”

Saoirse felt her throat tighten. She had forgotten how clearly Clair had seen her. “I should go,” she whispered.

“Of course,” Clair replied. “Saoirse?”

“Yes?”

“I only wanted to check if you were still there.” The words lingered for a moment between them until Saoirse ended the call.

She stood there, the phone still in her hand, with the faint, irrational sense that she had done something that would push Roman away. She quickly slipped the phone onto the counter to distance herself from it with a small, instinctive caution she couldn’t quite explain. 

She stood very still, as though waiting for the room itself to react, the rush of the running tap numbing her.

Standing in the bedroom now, the memory of that sentence still hovered faintly in her mind. I only wanted to check if you were still there, clashing with her current need to calm herself so she could return to Roman calm. 

Her time was up before she could manage it. Portia came into the room. 

“Signora,” she said gently in accented English that still sounded Italian if you didn’t listen well enough. “Signor says you should meet him in the conservatory.”

Saoirse nodded once. She walked slowly, deliberately, like a ghost dragging the weight of memory and dread down the polished floor. Each footstep echoed more loudly than it should have barefoot.

She reached the conservatory doors when the sunlight had fully spilled in, illuminating the marble floors and manicured greenery.

Roman sat at the long glass table, a small espresso steaming in front of him. He didn’t look up right away, but when he did, he smiled. She stepped in like a woman walking into a performance she hadn’t rehearsed for. The door clicked shut behind her, and Roman gestured to the seat opposite him with a flick of his fingers. 

“Sit. You haven’t eaten.”

Saoirse walked over and lowered herself into the soft, cushioned dining chair. A maid appeared like clockwork with a delicate breakfast tray of croissants, soft-boiled eggs, and some fruit. Her stomach recoiled at the sight of it all.

Roman watched her. He picked up his demitasse and took a long, slow sip of espresso. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, dark velvet box, placing it before her on the table. 

“Open it.” She did, with fingers that felt too light. Inside lay a brilliant, pale pink diamond ring, princess cut. “It’s new. I had it made for you,” he said.

For a second, something unguarded moved through her. At first, it was careful gratitude, but she had learned to offer that for the things that passed through generations before her, those pieces, like the diamond and sapphire bracelet, that came with history and expectation already set into them.

So she shifted into something smaller and more immediate. This ring had not belonged to anyone else. It had not been chosen by a woman she would never meet, or worn before she was even born, in rooms she had never seen. It had been imagined for her, measured to her hand, brought into existence because he had thought of her and decided it should be.

“Thank you,” she whispered, and meant it.

Roman’s gaze flicked briefly to her hand, as if already seeing it on her finger, already placing it into the rooms where it would be read. What he saw was a day in their Barcelona family villa months ago, when he opened their bedroom door quietly on his return from a fortnight-long trip.

Lisa and the other nanny were there, standing just by the doors. But over the years, he had learned to open doors without the little domestic clatter that announced a man’s presence before he had chosen to be seen.

The bedroom was warm with late morning light. The coastal sunlight came differently from anywhere else. It carried a dry, pale brightness that made fabrics glow and softened the edges of everything it touched.

He stopped just inside the threshold, and for a moment, he did not move.

Saoirse was sitting against the headboard, one knee drawn loosely beneath the thin white linen that had slipped down her shoulder. Her light, copper hair, still slightly tangled from sleep, fell over one side of her chest in a heavy wave. She looked exactly as she often did in the first hour of the morning. She looked soft, pale, almost translucent in the light.

But there were two small bodies with her.

One of the twins was tucked against her chest, his round cheek pressed into the hollow of her collarbone as she held him securely with one arm. The other sat in the bassinet beside the bed, kicking softly at the embroidered blanket with the slow, uncoordinated determination of a child still discovering her limbs.

The room was quiet except for the soft, breathy sounds babies made when they were content.

Roman felt something inside his chest shift in a way that was both familiar and still faintly unbelievable. For a second, just a second, he allowed himself the indulgence of standing there without composure.

The sight was… absurdly perfect.

Saoirse’s skin was the cool porcelain tone he loved so much. Now, he couldn’t wait for the Capri sun to fade from it. Pregnancy’s brief softness was passing, leaving her close to lean again, delicate, almost glasslike in the morning light. Her freckles were faint across the bridge of her nose, her lips still full from sleep.

She looked like a painting someone had left unfinished in a quiet museum.

And those children, his children… Roman had built companies that moved sovereign capital across continents, negotiated with men who controlled global utilities, and dismantled competitors who believed themselves untouchable. He had spent most of his adult life inside rooms where nothing mattered except leverage and patience.

Yet none of it produced the strange, private satisfaction that lived in moments like this. He had chosen her, and she had given him this.

Back in that room, when Saoirse looked up, sensing him, her eyes were clear, pale grey, open in the way that had first disarmed him years ago as they lifted immediately to his face. The expression that appeared there was so simple it almost made him smile. It was relief and warmth, the quiet certainty that the person she most wanted to see had entered the room.

“Roman,” she said softly, careful not to disturb the baby in her arms. That small shift in her voice when she said his name.

He stepped forward slowly. Outwardly, he remained exactly what he always was. His expression did not betray the flood of satisfaction he felt looking at the three of them. But internally, the thought returned, the same one that had been repeating itself with increasing frequency since the twins were born. Extraordinary luck that he had managed to secure something far more fragile than power ever was.

Saoirse adjusted David slightly in her arms and smiled up at him. “Look at them,” she whispered, as if she had just discovered them herself.

Roman came to the side of the bed. He looked first at the children. David blinked slowly at him with heavy-lidded seriousness, while Mariana, in the bassinet, watched everything with bright, curious eyes. They were both healthy, strong, and perfectly formed, perfectly resembling them both.

Then he looked back at Saoirse. His hand reached out and brushed lightly through her hair, smoothing the loose ginger strands back from her temple. The gesture was gentle, the same slow, rhythmic motion he used whenever he wanted to steady her attention.

Her eyes followed his hand instantly, exactly as he expected. His mouth curved slightly.

“You’ve been busy,” he said quietly.

She laughed softly, the sound warm and unguarded. “I woke up, and they were already awake,” she said. 

He studied her for another moment. He was immensely proud of the children she’d given him, but what pleased him most was the way she looked at him. Even in that peaceful domestic moment, surrounded by the small chaos of infants and blankets and morning light, her gaze still carried the same uncomplicated admiration that had first captivated him.

Roman had never pretended to himself that admiration did not matter. It mattered a great deal. He leaned down slightly and touched the top of David’s head, then glanced toward Mariana’s bassinet.

“They seem satisfied,” he said.

Saoirse’s smile deepened. “They are.”

Roman straightened again, his expression settling back into its usual calm. But inside, beneath that calm, the feeling remained. He had expanded an empire in the external world. But this quiet room, this woman looking up at him with complete trust, these children who would one day carry on the legacy, this was the part of his life that made the empire worth continuing.

He left for Geneva two days after that, but when he returned again, she was waiting for him. She was always waiting for him.

“You’ve done exactly what was needed,” he said now in Capri, almost absently, continuing a thought he had not voiced. “Everything is… in place. Two healthy children and no complications that matter.” His tone remained even, but something in it softened just slightly, acknowledging a result he considered rare enough to note.

“I don’t overlook that,” he added, quieter now. “You’ve given me something special.”

She stilled. There was something in the way he said it, a kind of acknowledgment that felt… close enough to praise. For a moment, she didn’t breathe. It wasn’t the words themselves. It was the fact that he had said them at all, that he had marked it, her, the twins.

Her throat tightened, a small, unexpected warmth rising in her chest before she could stop it. It felt, fleetingly, like being seen in the quieter way that mattered more with him. It was the way he noticed outcomes, noticed her when something aligned.

His fingers tapped once, lightly, against the table before stilling. She lowered her eyes, afraid that if she held his gaze too long, something in her would give itself away too quickly and completely. He reached for his espresso again, as if the moment had already passed.

“They’ll do well,” he said like an afterthought. “There’s no reason they shouldn’t.”

She nodded, her fingers curling lightly around the edge of the ring box.

He didn’t say thank you, or I’m happy, or I love them. But those simple statements weren’t him. Something else in his steady, assured voice settled over her like a quiet hand. And she felt, with a kind of fragile certainty, that he was happy and he did love them.

“It’s appropriate that you return properly. There’s been enough absence. People will want to see that you’re still… here.” His eyes lifted back to hers. I only wanted to check if you were still there. “You’ll wear it to host the foundation gala when we land. I want everyone to see what we’ve rebuilt.”

Saoirse understood now as she looked at the gleaming gem again. The ring was gift, marker, and signal. Something that would speak before she did. She closed the box gently, her pulse faintly unsteady.

After their late breakfast, she stood before the mirror in their bedroom, her hair finally stretched and pinned thanks to Portia, her lips muted, her body enclosed in another silk dress, pretty as clouds. The ring caught the light each time she moved her left hand, a soft, deliberate dazzle that sat beside her engagement diamond and seemed to belong there already.

Her grandmother’s voice echoed faintly again. Anyone can love your laughter, but the right one will love your silence too.

Saoirse smiled at her reflection, lifting her hand just slightly, as though testing the weight of something she’d newly given away. She was silent and loved, in his way.

Old silver suitcases stood half-zipped near the staircase. The sea outside the windows was at peak brightness, depthless.

Roman had showered. He stood in shirtsleeves at the terrace doors, reading something on his phone, his posture untroubled by anything. Saoirse watched him from the edge of the bed, breathing in his scent.

Last night, she had spent the entire drive back from the villa party turning one question over and over in her mouth like a stone she could not swallow. The twins, Madrid, Barcelona. But she still could not bear to shift the air, not after the financier and the warmth in the car and the sex after and the Clair call and the ring. For the first time in months, Roman’s attention was steady and near, but she could feel too many variables tearing at the tenuous balance.

He turned from the terrace. “You’re quiet,” he said.

She gave a small shrug. “Tired.”

He studied her face for a beat longer than usual. He crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed. Close, but not touching yet.

“What is it?” he asked. The gentleness made it worse because now she had to decide. She could say nothing and keep the warmth intact, or she could ask.

Her hands twisted in the fabric of her dress until she stopped herself and smoothed it out. “Nothing,” she said lightly.

He waited. That was his press, expectant silence. She swallowed.

“I was just thinking,” she began, and immediately hated the way her voice thinned, “About the twins.” She felt her pulse spike, waiting for the shift. It didn’t come. Roman didn’t withdraw, stiffen, or correct her. Instead, he leaned back slightly and reached for her hand.

“They’re well,” he said quietly. She searched his face. His expression was open, almost soft. “You think I’d let anything happen to them?” he asked.

“No,” she said too quickly.

He brushed his thumb once over her knuckles. “You don’t have to carry everything at once.” He reframed her maternal urgency as burden and positioned himself as the one who could carry it, and she felt the relief move through her body before she could stop it. He was not angry. She had not ruined the mood.

“I just don’t want them to think…” she trailed off.

“To think what?”

“That I left.” She remembered standing in her grandmother’s kitchen the week after the funeral, watching Sinead move through drawers, a stranger rearranging a house that wasn’t hers. No one had explained what would happen next. Things had simply… shifted. She didn’t want her children experiencing that feeling.

He looked at her for a long moment. “You didn’t leave,” he said. The words were steady. “They’re where they need to be.” A pause. “And you’re where you need to be.” There. Two structures and two balanced placements.

Her throat tightened because the sentence felt both comforting and narrowing. “Will they come to Madrid?” she asked softly, the question slipping out before she could edit it.

He held her gaze. “We’ll decide what makes sense,” he said. We. The word was deliberate. It sounded collaborative. It was not.

She nodded slowly. She could feel the edge of another question rising, When? How long? Why didn’t you say? But she saw the cost of pushing further. The cost was distance. She had tasted distance for months. She would not risk it now.

Roman watched the calculation cross her face. He recognized it the way he recognized stress fractures in negotiation, the moment resistance considered holding, then chose not to. 

He shifted closer and cupped her jaw gently. “You trust me,” he said, but not as a question.

Her breath caught. “Yes.” The word came easier than she expected.

He kissed her forehead. “I’m not taking you away from anything,” he said quietly. “I’m bringing you into something.”

Her body leaned toward him without her permission. He lay back on the bed and pulled her with him. She went because warmth expanded around him like gravity. She rested her head on his chest, listened to his heartbeat, and let the question about the twins dissolve into the larger, softer hope that maybe in Madrid, he won’t travel so much, and maybe this closeness will last.

When she finally felt the calm unfurl deep within her… “You seemed unsettled this morning,” he said.

She lifted her head slightly, enough to look at him without fully leaving the shelter of his shoulder. She thought the danger had passed, that the bathroom and the call had dissolved into insignificance.

“I was thinking about the twins,” she said quietly.

He did not answer immediately. Then he shook his head once, almost absently. “No,” he said softly. “That wasn’t it.” The words were not accusatory. They were simply… certain.

Something tightened in her chest as the air thinned. His gaze moved across her face the way it did when he was reading a room in a negotiation, waiting to see what shifted under pressure. Her fingers tightened briefly against the fabric of his shirt before she forced them still again.

“It was nothing,” she said.

He watched her a moment longer. Then, almost lazily, he said, “Portia mentioned you’d been awake before the house.” A beat passed. “And the water was running for quite a while.” He said it the same way he might comment on the weather, a small logistical observation, nothing more, but the implication hung quietly between them.

Saoirse felt heat creep up her neck, and the quiet precision of his statement landed. Roman simply waited. For a few seconds, she thought he might press further. When he didn’t, she tried to imagine simply letting the silence hold, but the pressure inside her chest was already building, the same anxious instinct that always rose when she sensed him noticing something she had not yet explained.

“I spoke to someone,” she said suddenly. The words came out softer than she intended.

Roman did not move. “To whom?” he asked. His voice was calm, curious almost.

“Clair… Neumann.” The name felt strange in the room, but Roman’s expression did not change, so Saoirse rushed to explain before the silence could grow heavier. “She texted me last night,” she said. “I didn’t answer then. I only… called this morning. It was brief.”

Roman watched her the entire time, so she felt the familiar urge to justify herself further, to smooth the moment before it could harden.

“She just wanted to check if I was alright,” Saoirse added quietly. “That was all.”

Roman’s gaze stayed steady. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then he exhaled lightly and leaned back against the headboard.

“That sounds like Clair,” he said.

The simplicity of the response startled her. “You’re not… upset?” Saoirse asked before she could stop herself.

Roman glanced at her. “No.” Then he added, almost thoughtfully, “Clair has always felt clever about noticing gems no one else does.” His thumb brushed once along Saoirse’s wrist. “I imagine she noticed you.”

Saoirse lowered her eyes. “I didn’t tell her anything,” she said quickly.

Roman smiled faintly. “I didn’t think you would.” The warmth in his tone loosened the tightness in her chest at once. He brushed his thumb once along her jaw and pulled her back against him. “You don’t have to hide things like that,” he murmured. The sentence sounded generous, but after a moment, he added, lightly, “Though I would prefer not to have her analyzing my wife.”

Saoirse nodded against his chest. “Of course.”

“You think too much when you wake up before me,” he said calmly. His tone had already shifted, the conversation gently redirected somewhere else, but a small part of her remained very still inside herself.

Roman’s hand moved to her hair, slow and steady. The conversation was over, and yet, even as she relaxed against him, she wondered whether he had truly learned something new… or whether he had already known exactly what he would hear before she said it. Because he didn’t ask what exactly had unsettled her. And yet somehow, impossibly, it felt as though he already understood more than she had told him.

He stroked her hair slowly. It was the same rhythmic grounding. He felt the structure settle with no force or raised voice required, just pressure in the right place.

The right place was her fear of coldness, her craving for proximity, her instinct to align, to belong to something.

In the late afternoon light, her breathing slowed. Outside, the sea moved indifferently against stone. Inside, the system completed as the discreet staff finished packing, suitcases closed. 

In the evening, they would leave Capri, and she would tell herself she chose this.

The sea was unusually bright by sunset, as if trying to convince her she would miss it. She had fallen asleep at some point. For a moment, she didn’t remember what day it was. Then she did. She was returning with him to Madrid. The word settled in her stomach like metal.

Roman was fully dressed now, buttoning his cuff with the same calm efficiency he used before meetings in Madrid or Geneva. Her foreboding from last night had proven itself correct. The softness of Capri had drained from his posture over the last few hours. Just… gone.

He kissed her forehead as she sat up in bed. “It’s time to go,” he said. “Portia and the others will help you dress.”

Her phone was downstairs again. As she descended the stairs barefoot in a light crepe dress just glamorous enough to serve for a gala, the marble felt colder than it had a week ago. Her phone lay on the console, black screen waiting.

She picked it up.

For a moment, she pictured the nursery in Barcelona, filtered light through white curtains, Lisa and Lucia and the nurses moving softly, the twins still in sleep-warm states, their mouths slack, unaware of geography. Her thumb hovered over the contact.

Roman’s voice floated faintly from the entryway as he spoke on his own phone to Javier.

She could call just to hear them breathe and say she loved them. But something else pressed in. If she called, she might cry. If she cried, Roman would see it. If he saw it, the air would shift. If the air shifted, this closeness might narrow.

She lowered the phone, locked the screen, and set it back on the console. The choice felt like discipline. She picked it up again when she had composed herself, her eyes fixed on the diamond rings on her fingers, new and old, and the diamond-sapphire heirloom he’d given her for their last anniversary dangling on her wrist. 

As they boarded the launch to leave the island, Roman placed his hand on the small of her back, and she leaned into it.

He did not drive today. Capri had ended.

Behind them, the cliff island remained electric blue and indifferent. Ahead of them, Madrid waited. And somewhere in Barcelona, two infants slept beneath ceilings their mother had stopped picturing before she spoke, without knowing she had just made a choice that didn’t include them.

When they arrived at the airstrip, the jet sat waiting. Javier was on the tarmac in his sharp, dark suit, tablet in hand, and no wasted motion. Roman was already elsewhere. He stepped out of the car and shifted, almost imperceptibly, into another dimension. His shoulders squared differently. His voice lowered in tone but sharpened in precision.

“Zurich confirmed?”

Javier nodded. “Signed at nine. Albrecht’s people are recalculating exposure.”

Roman smiled faintly. “Let them.”

They walked toward the aircraft side by side, conversation flowing without effort about liquidity, pressure points, names that meant nothing to Saoirse but carried weight in the air. She followed a step behind.

“Good evening, Señora,” Javier said suddenly, turning his head just enough to acknowledge her.

Saoirse blinked, caught off guard by the sound of her own presence being named. “Good evening,” she replied softly, a fraction too late. For a moment, she had been certain she had slipped entirely out of the frame.

Roman’s gaze flicked toward her, brief and unreadable, something faintly amused passing through it as if he had noticed the delay, the small startle. His hand brushed lightly against the inside of her wrist as they walked, an almost absent gesture that was more corrective than affectionate.

Then, he was speaking again. “Have them hold the line until we land,” he said to Javier. “No adjustments before I see the numbers myself.”

The conversation resumed without pause, shifting to Spanish as soon as they were settled in the plane’s cabin. She felt it as a physical loss, like stepping out of warm water into the wind. He didn’t look back to see if she felt it. He simply assumed she would adjust.

And she did.

The Suarez Myth: Chapter 13

The Capri afternoon light had gone honey-soft by the time they returned from the water. The villa was quiet, the sea still audible through the open doors like a long breath moving in and out of the cliffs somewhere below.

Saoirse had just stepped out onto the terrace from the poolside, barefoot, still damp from swimming. The stone was warm under her feet. Roman stood near the balustrade with a glass of something pale in his hand, watching the horizon as if all the boats below belonged to him, the way he sometimes watched negotiations unfold with still patience, knowing time itself would eventually align.

She paused, uncertain whether to sit or go inside for a towel. The small uncertainty lingered in her chest out of habit, longer than it should have. Not even so long ago, moments like this knotted her stomach. In Madrid, London, Barcelona, she’d measure the room before moving through it. Sit now or later? Speak or stay quiet? If she chose wrong, the warmth in Roman’s eyes might close like a door.

She had learned to read the smallest signals. The tilt of his head, the quiet that meant he was thinking, the quiet that meant she had interrupted something he considered important. Every step toward him required calculation. Now, the calculation didn’t need to arrive.

“Come here,” he said without looking at her.

Her body moved before the thought finished forming. Two steps. Three. She stopped beside him, close enough that the fabric of his soft yellow shirt brushed her arm when the breeze shifted. 

Roman glanced down at her, faintly amused, as if the movement had always been obvious. “Cold?” he asked.

Her mind arrived a moment later, and for a brief second, something inside her flickered. Why did I move so quickly? But the question dissolved almost as quickly as it appeared because standing beside him felt… easier.

She would have stood there, wondering if he wanted her closer or not, whether crossing the terrace without invitation would seem childish, or worse, needy. The uncertainty she used to carry in moments like this, the careful self-measurement, had simply vanished. And the hesitation she’d felt across the terrace had disappeared the moment she closed the distance.

He reached toward her, pushing a strand of damp hair behind her ear with the absent familiarity of someone adjusting something that already belonged where it was. 

“Better,” he murmured.

Saoirse let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. And in that breath was the quiet realization that being near him made the world simpler because, for the first time in as long as she could remember, she didn’t feel like she was guessing where she belonged.

For long stretches of her life, her existence meant nothing to anyone. Nina cared, sometimes. But Nina’s life had always been full of other people who loved her and whom she loved back. Roman was the first person who ever looked at Saoirse as if her presence altered the air.

On the eighth day, she forgot.

They were walking along a cliff path, her hand in his. “I can’t wait to tell the twins about this place when they’re older,” she said, smiling at the sea.

He stopped walking just for a fraction of a second, then continued. “You don’t have to narrate everything for them,” he said.

“I wasn’t—”

“You’re here.”

The statement was simple and absolute, and she felt the correction… just like every time she’d brought up her writing when they’d just got married. Only this time, it was clearer, sharper. It wasn’t about the children, was it? It was about presence and undividedness. She swallowed.

“You’re right,” she said quickly, and he smiled. Warmth restored. He brushed his thumb over her knuckles. She felt something click. If I center him, he returns. If I fragment, he cools.

That evening, she did not mention Barcelona or anything beyond the horizon in front of them. And he was radiant.

By the tenth morning, the villa no longer felt foreign. Roman woke earlier now. He had stopped sleeping through the night. Saoirse learned the rhythm of his days. When he rose, when he showered, and how long he stood on the terrace with his espresso before speaking. She began waking seconds before he did, in anticipation.

She chose a pale linen dress for breakfast. When she entered the conservatory where he preferred to have their meals during the day, he looked up once. His gaze moved over her before he nodded, and her shoulders loosened enough for her to breathe in the jungle of foliage around the large sunny room. She had chosen correctly.

Later that afternoon, he corrected her posture in front of Portia, with a light hand at her waist and, “Stand straighter.”

She did, immediately. Portia looked down as Roman removed his hand.

Sex returned that evening.

He did not touch her for most of the day. They swam and walked. They spoke in fragments about Madrid, about Bibiana’s vision for the foundation, about nothing at all. He brushed her hand once at dinner, then withdrew it.

When they returned to the bedroom, she stood before the mirror brushing her hair again, and he came behind her but did not touch her. She dropped the brush on the vanity. He waited. She felt it, the waiting. Her shoulders softened. Her chin tilted slightly back. Invitation without asking.

He stepped closer, moved his hands to her waist, and she hoped he was noticing how small it had gotten since the pregnancy. But then, his hands stopped.

She swallowed. “Roman,” she said softly.

He stepped away, removed his watch, set it down deliberately. She felt the loss before it happened. By the time he returned to her, she had already turned toward him, already reached, and that was what he wanted.

He kissed her slowly, measuring, his hand guiding her at the back of her neck. She leaned into it. This time when he entered her, he did not rush. He watched her face for doubt but found only need.

Afterward, he stayed inside her until she stilled. That was new too. He was anchoring, showing ownership through duration. When he finally withdrew, she felt the absence like a draft in the room. 

He turned her onto her side and wrapped around her, his mouth at her ear. “You’re steadier now,” he murmured in observation.

She exhaled. She was doing it right.

The next day, he tested something else.

They lunched with only two staff members present. He handed her the wine list. She looked at it for half a second, then handed it back to him. “Choose for me.” It was a tiny yet huge gesture.

He did not smile, but his fingers brushed hers when he took it. Electric approval.

They dressed separately on day 13, but before long, he stepped into her dressing room behind her as she fastened an earring.

“Come here.” She went immediately. The movement was fluid, unconscious. He adjusted the clasp of her necklace at the large mirror, and let his fingers linger at the base of her throat, and she realized what she had done. Her eyes met his in the mirror. Something in her chest fluttered. He watched her watch herself.

“You trust me,” he said. She nodded, and in that nod was something new. He had given her tenderness, vulnerability, praise, and fragments of his own fear, so her obedience felt like devotion.

Somewhere deep beneath the sea wind and marble light, Roman understood exactly what he was building.

The sea was loud that night. Wind pressed against the shutters in restless intervals, making the villa feel less like a sanctuary and more like something perched at the edge of exposure.

Again, Saoirse lay on her side, knees drawn loosely toward her chest. Again, moonlight slipped through the slats and striped the sheets in fractured silver. Roman was behind her, close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him, but not the weight of him.

She had begun to recognize the distance between proximity and contact. It was becoming a language.

“You’re thinking again,” he said. His voice was low.

She exhaled slowly. “I keep wondering if they’ll remember me as the kind of mother who left.” There it was, the twins again. 

“They’re eight months old,” he said.

She nodded. The wind pressed harder against the shutters.

“I don’t know how you do presence so instinctively,” he said suddenly. The confession entered the room like a dropped glass. He continued, as if the words surprised him too. “Amancio demanded obedience. Allegra demanded composure. No one asked for… presence.”

He shifted slightly closer and continued, “I learned to make myself indispensable. It’s the only position that doesn’t get discarded.”

She felt her throat tighten. Her body softened before she meant it to.

“I don’t know what it means to be loved,” he whispered. “I know what it means to be necessary.” He exhaled against the back of her neck. “When you pull away,” he said quietly, “when you talk about anything else… I feel unnecessary.”

She rolled onto her back to look at him. The moonlight carved sharp planes across his face. “You’re not unnecessary,” she whispered.

He held her gaze. “Then don’t make me compete.” The words were so quiet she almost missed them. It was a deep plea, and something inside her shifted in response. She did not want to resemble the unpredictability he feared.

He reached for her then, slowly. His hand moved over her waist, paused, then rested at her hip. “Come here,” he murmured. She slid even closer, pressing into his chest. He inhaled sharply, almost relieved. “You see?” he said softly. “You know.”

Know what? She didn’t ask. 

“But not tonight,” he said. The interruption sent heat spiraling through her.

She blinked. “Why not?”

He brushed his thumb along her jaw. “Because I don’t want it to be a reaction.” The words sounded principled. It was restraint as virtue. But something coiled tighter inside her. Again, her body felt unfinished.

The next morning, he was radiant. He swam, rode a dark Arabian, laughed, let her choose the wine at lunch.

And that night, when she reached for him, he let her hand rest against his chest without moving to meet it. She felt the distance, the temperature lowering to just cool enough to register.

“You’re tired,” he said.

She withdrew her hand quickly. “Yes.” He kissed her forehead. She turned onto her side, facing away from him, and lay awake.

By the end of the second week, the villa felt like a sealed system with no outside world. No Nina, Bibiana, Fr Pedro, Marcela, or the twins. And that absence had begun to ache. She missed the babies in the mornings most, just the weight of them, the scent of milk in their hair.

Once, she opened her mouth. “I wonder if—”

He looked at her attentively. She stopped mid-sentence.

“They’re fine,” he said. She nodded and did not try again.

Later, alone on the balcony, she pressed her palms to the stone railing and let herself miss them silently.

That night, he spoke casually. “We’ll leave for Madrid in two days.”

She went still. Madrid shifted something in her chest. “To live?” she asked carefully.

“For now,” he said. “Barcelona is too intense.” Intense. She didn’t know whether that meant her or the twins.

“And the twins?” she asked before she could stop herself. She took the risk, and the air cooled just a half-degree.

He rolled onto his back. “They’re well looked after.” Her stomach tightened as she calculated. If she pressed, the temperature might drop further. If she didn’t, she might lose something unnamed. He turned his head to look at her. “You want to bring them into Madrid’s rhythm?”

The question sounded open, but it wasn’t. She understood that Madrid meant society, exposure, his world. The twins meant interruption… competition.

“I just—” she began.

He placed his hand on her throat to ground her. “You’re finally where I can see you,” he said quietly. She felt the meaning beneath it. If the twins came, her attention would divide. If she insisted, she would choose them over alignment with him. Her pulse quickened.

“I don’t want to lose this,” she said. And it was true.

He removed his hand slowly. “We won’t,” he replied. But he did not answer the question about the twins.

She lay awake long after he slept. Fear and hope tangled in equal measure. Fear of losing him again to travel, hope that Madrid meant proximity, fear of asking too much, hope that if she stayed calibrated, he would choose her.

By the next evening, she was watching him instead of the sea, watching for signs, watching his mood for openness or invitation. He let her. When she turned toward him in bed that night, placed her palm flat against his chest, and whispered his name, he let the silence stretch until she almost withdrew. Then he caught her wrist.

“Stay.”

She froze there, and he rolled over her slowly, eyes locked on hers. When he entered her, it was fully calibrated. He said small things like “Here,” “Look at me,” and “Don’t disappear.” She came too quickly, and he whispered against her mouth, “There you are.”

Afterward, she felt dizzy with relief that she had also brought him back to her. He lay on his back, one arm draped over her waist.

“You see what happens when you center us?” he said quietly. She nodded. She did see.

He did not withhold that night, but he also did not linger. He fell asleep first, and she lay there understanding something she could not yet name, that the sex was now regulation.

When she woke before him the next morning and moved to leave the bed, he murmured, half-asleep, “Come back.” She returned without hesitation because she needed the warmth. Somewhere deep inside her nervous system, an equation had formed. Closeness equals safety. Alignment equals heat. Distance equals cool air she could not survive.

Capri glowed still. The sea shimmered. The small villa remained painfully quiet. And by the time the impromptu invitation to a private yacht dinner arrived on the 16th morning, she felt reset enough to take on the world again. He had adjusted the thermostat, and she had learned to adapt to change before he ever spoke.

Early that morning, while it was still pitch dark outside, Saoirse lay awake beside him, aware of the quiet in a new way, unwilling to sedate herself and risk missing any part of his rare presence.

Her phone was not in the bedroom. She’d stopped moving around with it months ago, and even less so now that they were together and on vacation. Roman had once said gently, almost academically, that constant notifications eroded attention. Privacy was invaluable and required boundaries.

She had agreed.

The phone lived downstairs now, on a marble console in the sitting room. Restless, she dropped the rosary she’d been mindlessly praying on, stood from the bed, walked out to the main hallway without shutting any doors, and went down there, just to walk and feel motion. They had spent the whole day sitting in the garden, she, rereading a book she’d read thrice before as he took four long conference calls back-to-back, the first bit of work he’d done since they got here.

When she heard a vibration, it was so faint she couldn’t tell it was her phone at first. It sounded like a trick of the dark inside her head. It was the second distant, mechanical buzz that reached her, the sound of the real world nudging into the limbo she’d built around herself.

She turned toward it, the only phone on the old console, and stood very still. When last did she get a message that was not from Roman? Certainly not at 2:17 a.m. Nina no longer texted and hardly called, and even then, only during daylight. What was the time difference between Italy and England? 

Her heart began to climb without permission. Was it Lisa? Did something happen to the twins? But she knew they would call Roman first if it was anything serious involving their babies.

The marble floor was cold under her feet as she walked to it. The villa was cavernous at night, like something hollowed and listening. The phone glowed faintly where it rested.

Unknown number. She hesitated before opening it.

Hey porcelain girl,

The words blurred slightly as she read. For a moment, she saw a version of herself who had laughed too loudly at a mezze bar with her writer mates at the Madrid residency, the way Clair had laughed with red lipstick on at that dinner party where they’d first met. Her stomach tightened.

Not sure if this is too forward. I just found a photo of us from your wedding. I was wearing that god-awful fuchsia dress with the ruffles. Do you remember?

Anyway, you’ve been on my mind lately, so… hi. 

- Clair from your dinner party

I hope you don’t still search his face to approve every word

Her breath caught.

It was so simple, so innocent, so random, yet her fingers went cold because it was so specific. Search his face before you speak. She hadn’t thought about Clair or her first text in years, but she remembered showing Roman immediately, his easy dismissal. Women like Clair are threatened by stillness. A tremor traveled through her that made the phone tremble in her hand. She had believed him.

Standing in the dim sitting room now, her thumb hovered over the screen. For a moment, the old reflex of transparency tried to surface, but something in her chest resisted. She didn’t know why she was… pausing. Or why her mouth let out a soundless sob.

Upstairs, Roman opened his eyes and felt an absence. He rolled onto her side of the bed to find it cold. He waited, and soon enough, slow footsteps on the stone floor approached their room. Saoirse returned, shut the doors, and slid back under the sheets carefully.

When she settled her back into his chest, he heard her tight breathing, and it sounded like pre-decision.

“Everything alright?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

He did not press. He lay there, staring into the dark, recalculating something he couldn’t yet see.

Portia brought the invitation in as the sun rose. It was a small, discreet card delivered by launch from the mainland when the sender could’ve simply telephoned. The soirée was aboard the Aurelia, a Hausmann vessel anchored off the southern coast. Roman read the card once and tossed it toward his nightstand without looking.

“Of course,” he said. The Hausmann cold war had been simmering for years through quiet boardroom maneuvers across Geneva and Rotterdam, but their families had always maintained the appearance of civility in public.

Saoirse watched him. “Do we have to go?”

He glanced at her. “This isn’t serious,” he said, reaching for her under the sheets. “It’s theatre. Philanthropy and champagne.” He smiled, tilting her chin up gently. “And you look very good in theatre, mi amor.”

She dressed without asking what he preferred. That was new too. The question no longer formed in her mouth. She had learned, without any explicit instruction, that Roman liked her calm more than her questions. Calm meant fewer choices. Fewer choices meant fewer chances to misstep. So even without asking, she wore what she knew he’d prefer, a barely white silk dress that fell cleanly, long-sleeved, nothing sharp, no jewelry except the obsidian studs he gave her on a whim days ago.

When she stepped out of the dressing room, he looked at her once but held his gaze as he took her in. She felt the evaluation, waiting without knowing it. He crossed the room and stooped to straighten the strap of her heel with two fingers, then adjusted the fall of the fabric at her waist in one smooth movement, small corrections intimate enough to look like care. He didn’t say why.

“There,” he said. She nodded. She had not asked what needed correcting, but she knew there would be something. “Good,” he murmured, as if confirming something only he could see. Her chest loosened even though she hadn’t realized it was tight.

The yacht was obscene without appearing so—white hull, brushed steel rails, the kind of restraint that cost more than display. The Hausmann matriarch herself stood near the entrance. Ingrid was tall, composed, wearing black cotton that refused to wrinkle. She and Allegra had been great friends but were painstaking about pretending not to be. Her gaze was cool and assessing.

Roman’s hand rested lightly at the small of Saoirse’s back as they stepped aboard.

“Roman,” Ingrid said with a thin smile and an air-kiss of controlled warmth, then her eyes shifted to Saoirse.

“Carrot.”

Saoirse smiled, and Ingrid’s lips curved. Roman’s circle had taken to calling her that because of her hair (and apparently, how hard it was to pronounce her name), but she hadn’t heard it in a while. It reminded her just how long it had been since she was outside. 

Throughout the evening, champagne flowed as Roman predicted. Laughter rose and fell, and they circulated and watched.

The yacht was anchored just far enough from the Capri marina that the harbor lights looked like a scatter of gold across the water. Music drifted lazily from the upper deck, the kind of soft jazz people in this world preferred when they were drinking expensive wine and pretending the night might last forever.

Saoirse stood beside the railing, one hand lightly curled around a glass she had barely touched. The sea air moved gently through her hair, loosening the careful waves Portia had pinned that evening. Roman stood beside her, one arm resting along the polished wood rail behind her shoulders.

From a distance, they looked exactly the way people always described them. Elegant, untouchable, slightly mythic, which was precisely why the teasing came so easily in Roman’s inner social circle.

A group approached from the lounge area, two couples and a man Saoirse recognized from Madrid. They had all been drinking for a while, the easy looseness of old money and long familiarity settling around them like a shared language.

“Roman,” one of them called casually.

Roman turned slightly, his expression already composed. “Eduardo.” He and Roman had attended the same boarding school.

Eduardo clasped his shoulder and nodded toward Saoirse with a grin that was warm but mischievous. “And the famous Carrot herself.”

Saoirse smiled automatically. She had heard the nickname since the first weeks Roman had brought her into these circles. Most of the time, she didn’t mind it.

Eduardo’s wife, Clara, leaned in to kiss her lightly on both cheeks.

“Darling,” Clara said, stepping back and looking her over in the easy, appraising way women in their world often did. Then she tilted her head slightly. “You’ve filled out a little.”

It wasn’t said cruelly. In fact, Clara sounded almost approving. But the words landed sharply as Saoirse felt the familiar tightening in her stomach before she could stop it.

Clara laughed lightly and touched Saoirse’s arm. “Oh, don’t look so alarmed,” she said. “It happens to everyone the first time. You’re still practically a child.”

Saoirse smiled politely, but the smile came a fraction too quickly. Without meaning to, her eyes flicked sideways to Roman, who was watching Eduardo with an unchanged amused expression. She felt a brief, sharp relief, followed immediately by something colder. Clair’s text.

Another man chuckled beside her. “24 and already producing heirs,” he said. “Roman moves quickly.”

The words stirred a memory she hadn’t quite managed to shake since the winter after they found out she was pregnant, Roman on that call in London when he said something about her getting round, him standing in the bedroom doorway in Madrid weeks later, watching a stylist struggle with the zipper of a dress that had fit perfectly a month before.

“You’re rounding out,” he’d said again, lightly, as if noting a change in weather.

Roman’s arm shifted slightly behind Saoirse, his hand came to rest lightly against the small of her back. It was warm and steadying, yet the contact made her suddenly conscious of the exact place his hand rested, the curve of her waist, the softness there that had gotten leaner but not quite returned to what it had been before the twins.

She kept her shoulders relaxed. In their world, composure was the first rule.

“Careful,” He said mildly to their small audience. His tone was calm, almost amused, but the room around them adjusted to it.

Eduardo raised his hands in mock surrender. “Relajarse. We’re admiring her.”

Clara nodded toward Saoirse again, still smiling.

“You were so impossibly thin before,” the other woman said. “It’s almost reassuring to see a little softness.”

Saoirse laughed softly with them, but she could feel the words hanging in the air between herself and Roman. Softness. She wondered, suddenly and painfully, if he was thinking the same thing. Her fingers tightened faintly around the stem of her glass. His presence beside her was so potent that it made the moment worse.

Eduardo leaned against the railing opposite them, looking between them.

“You must admit, though,” he said lightly to Roman, “our Carrot has grown up quickly.”

Roman’s expression remained composed. “She was never a child,” he said simply, but it didn’t quite close the conversation.

Clara laughed again, clearly oblivious to Saoirse’s discomfort. Eduardo lifted his glass toward Saoirse. “To early success,” he said.

Roman’s hand moved slightly again at her back, a slow, reassuring pressure. He was trying, but he wasn’t treating the exchange as anything serious. To him, this was exactly what it was in their circle, the social noise of light teasing, theatre.

Saoirse managed a small smile. “David and Mariana are worth it,” she said softly without looking at any of them.

Clara beamed.

“Oh, of course they are,” the other woman chipped in, then gave Saoirse another quick look.

“And honestly, you look wonderful. Roman has clearly taken excellent care of you,” Clara said.

Roman gave a faint smile at that. “Always.”

The group drifted into other conversations almost immediately. The moment dissolved into boats, a charity event in Milan, some gossip about a banking merger. But Saoirse could still feel the heat in her cheeks. She felt oddly exposed, as if the light on the deck had grown brighter. So she kept her gaze on the harbor lights.

Beside her, Roman was speaking with Eduardo again, perfectly at ease in quick Spanish. She wondered what he thought of all the comments, or if knowing his exact thoughts would be worse.

He glanced down at her when they were alone again. “You’re quiet,” he said, calm, curious, and not too concerned.

She shook her head lightly. “I’m fine.”

Roman studied her for a second longer. Then his thumb brushed slowly across the back of her waist, an absent, rhythmic gesture meant to soothe.

“They meant it kindly,” he said.

Saoirse nodded. “I know.” She did know. Knowing made the tightness in her chest harder to explain because that wasn’t what troubled her. What troubled her was that he had not contradicted them.

Roman watched the water for a moment before adding, almost absently, like he’d read her mind, “I loved how you looked before the twins.” He said it the way one notes a detail about architecture, and turned back to her. “But you’ll come back to it. You’ll return to yourself soon enough.” He smiled at her in a way that said his words were meant to comfort her, yet she could not tell whether he was reassuring her… or warning her.

She smiled faintly. He always sounded so certain about the future. Eduardo returned to ask him something about burn rates, and Saoirse lifted the glass in her hand to her lips, then remembered it was her first sip all evening.

On a whim instigated by Ingrid’s Italian son-in-law, the yacht docked, and half of the party transitioned into a late evening visit to the Villa San Giusto, a name that appeared on inner-circle invitations and nowhere else, an old Neapolitan estate temporarily leased by a Franco-Italian patron couple who collected sculpture and ministers with equal appetite.

The outing was described as informal, the patron couple simply wanting to host friends, which, as Roman soon translated, just meant the old family was testing attendance lists, a charity line-item laundering alliances, and everyone pretending the art was the point.

Roman would normally decline such a change of plans. Social theatre bored him unless leverage hid beneath it. But this one seemed to be safe and strategic enough to justify, and light enough to preserve the illusion of leisure. Or he was just in an agreeable vacation mood.

On the short drive up the coastal road to Villa San Giusto in one of about a dozen black Hausmann saloon cars, the world outside the windscreen might as well have been moving scenery. Saoirse watched Roman’s profile, his calm, and felt the familiar, shameful hope rise again: maybe Madrid means he’ll stay. But she didn’t say it. She didn’t want to risk asking for too much.

The villa terrace overlooked a slow sweep of Mediterranean blue. Guests clustered in small groups, the air salted with conversation and restrained laughter. Roman’s hand rested at the small of her back as they entered, anchoring her there. The anteroom smelled of lemon leaf and expensive stone cooled by the moon. Music drifted from somewhere inside, just enough to imply ease. 

People did not rush them. They noticed, calculated, then approached in pairs, never alone. Roman’s presence made even confident men choose their words more carefully. The hostess in linen kissed Saoirse’s cheek and called her love without meaning it. Roman exchanged a few restrained greetings. He was polite in the way men were when they didn't need anything.

Saoirse stayed slightly to his left, simply placed. She didn’t want to call too much attention to herself or her body. It looked romantic, the way his hand settled at the base of her spine as they moved through the terrace, an absent touch like habit, the kind that made people assume intimacy.

A French diplomat’s wife, older than both of them, asked Saoirse about Madrid. “Will you find it freer than Barcelona?” The question was harmless, but Saoirse felt the moment stretch. Freer? She felt Roman’s gaze waiting.

“Freedom has nothing to do with location,” she said softly, “It has more to do with clarity.”

The diplomat’s wife tilted her head. “And have you found clarity?”

Saoirse smiled. “I’m finding it.”

Later, a Hausmann attempted charm. He complimented her foundation work despite her absence for months before the twins were born. He asked about her Irish upbringing, leaning slightly too close. She remained warm, but when his hand brushed too near her elbow, Roman appeared at her side without urgency, and the air shifted. The older man stepped back instinctively. Roman met his eyes for exactly one second.

After he drifted away, Roman asked, “You’re comfortable?”

“Yes,” she replied. And she was.

As dusk gathered, guests were invited inside for aperitifs. The host’s effortlessly chaotic daughter told a story that involved politics and too much wine. Laughter erupted. Saoirse laughed too, and Roman watched the way her body angled toward him even when he was across the room. 

He had always trusted pressure more than persuasion. Pressure revealed the structure of things. With Saoirse, he was beginning to understand where it worked. He noticed the way she moved before thinking. It was the same quiet satisfaction he felt when a negotiation settled exactly where he expected it to.

She always returned to him after each conversational orbit, subtly drifting back within range. Then he would step away again without telling her. He moved deeper into conversation with two Italian ministers and waited. Would she remain where she was or recalibrate? It took less than a minute for her eyes to scan, locate him, and shift. She joined a nearby cluster that put her within his line of sight again, and he felt the same clarity he had in the Rhône tower with the Valcárcel brothers. Something in him quieted.

On the terrace after midnight, she stood beside him without touching. The sea was almost violet. A photographer asked for a photograph of the hosts with “our distinguished guests.” Roman placed his hand at her waist, and she leaned into him before the camera flashed. It looked romantic. It was. But it was also reflex.

Someone asked her gently, like a test disguised as charm, “Are you enjoying Capri?”

Saoirse smiled. “It’s… beautiful.” Not yes or no, but a safe, pretty answer. Roman didn’t react, but the warmth of his hand didn’t change, and that was the reward.

Someone else asked about the foundation. Saoirse answered in simple, polite, unambitious sentences, like a woman describing a hobby rather than an institution. 

When the sharp-eyed woman pressed, Saoirse paused, and Roman spoke smoothly beside her, taking the question as if it had been directed to him all along. He relieved her of the need to continue, and she exhaled almost inaudibly. She hated how grateful she felt. The relief was physical, like pain stopping.

Later, she stood alone against an upper gallery railing, the sea out the large stained-glass window below darkening. The air smelled like salt and aperitif. 

Roman had stepped into a private room with the patron couple and the Hausmann son-in-law who’d invited them here, to discuss some business she knew nothing about. They’d been gone for several minutes, so she let herself think of the twins only for a moment, their soft breathing, the warm weight of them. The thought sharpened, and she swallowed it down quickly, as if swallowing could keep it from showing on her face.

A man approached her. He was younger than Roman and handsome in a way that relied too much on mirrors. A financier she didn’t recognize, although his surname landed like a stamp. Someone from Zurich, someone whose family had been rich long enough to believe it was character. He spoke softly, as if he were doing her a kindness by not making it public.

“I’ve been meaning to meet you,” he said. “Roman never introduces you properly. It’s a shame.”

Saoirse gave a small laugh because she didn’t know what else to do. “It’s a small party,” she said. “I’m sure we were bound to run into each other.”

He smiled at her as if she had flirted, and leaned slightly closer. “You’re quieter than I expected… and so exquisite.”

Her stomach tightened. The old survival rule surfaced in her body before her mind. Be pleasant, be small, let the danger move past you. She felt her smile hold in place like a mask.

“I’m tired,” she said simply, hoping it would end it.

Instead, his gaze dropped to her neck, the obsidian studs, and the soft pulse there. His hand lifted too near. A tremor ran through her. Panic’s cousin, the one that arrives when you realize you’ve stepped outside the perimeter without meaning to.

Then Roman appeared as if he had always been there, and the man had failed to notice.

“Good evening,” Roman said pleasantly.

The financier straightened. “Roman. Of course.” A laugh that was suddenly wrong. “I was just—”

Roman’s smile was faint, almost indulgent. His hand came to Saoirse’s waist, warm and certain. Her body moved closer on its own. His thumb brushed once, lightly, against her side, a private signal that said you’re fine.

She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

The financier said something about “apologies” and “no offense meant” and drifted away quickly, like a man remembering his own mortality. Roman watched him go, expression unchanged.

Then, as if he were commenting on the weather, he said softly to Saoirse, “He’s with Heller & Kamm, isn’t he?”

She blinked. “I… I don’t know.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Roman murmured, but his eyes stayed on the man’s retreating for one last beat, calm and absent, the way you looked at a name you’d later cross out, a future consequence filed away like paperwork.

“We’ve indulged them long enough.” He turned back to Saoirse. “Do you want to leave?” he asked, voice gentle enough to sound like care.

Her throat tightened with gratitude so immediate it embarrassed her. Yes. But she didn’t want to say it too eagerly. She didn’t want to look like she couldn’t survive without him. She swallowed. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Roman’s mouth curved slightly, as if that were the correct answer. “We’re ready,” he said, and the evening rearranged itself around his decision.

On the drive back to their launch in one of Ingrid’s personal Rolls, Saoirse rested her head lightly against the seat, eyes closed. “You were quiet tonight,” she said, remembering Eduardo and Clara’s comments on the yacht.

“So were you,” he replied. 

She opened her eyes. “Did I say something wrong?” The question escaped before she could stop it.

He turned his head slowly toward her. “No.” A pause. “You said exactly enough.”

Her breath eased. Exactly enough. That was the metric now. Darkness pooled over the windshield. She folded her hands in her lap, quiet again, but this time her quietness felt safer, like something she could hide inside. She stared out at the sea and felt the two opposing truths exist in her at once. The same frightened hope that Madrid meant fewer weeks alone, and swallowed dread about the twins, where they would be, when she would see them, whether she was allowed to ask.

Roman didn’t speak for a long time. Then, almost casually, he said, “We leave tomorrow night.” Her heart kicked. For a second, she wanted to ask, Barcelona? David and Mariana? But her mouth stayed closed. He glanced at her once, briefly, as if he could hear the question she didn’t ask. His tone remained calm. “You’ve missed Madrid,” he said.

Saoirse nodded because nodding was easier than begging. Somewhere in her body, relief had learned to disguise itself as agreement.

Back at their island villa, in the dim light of the bedroom, he stood before her again, watching. She waited, and the silence stretched. He stepped closer, placed his hand under her chin, lifted it. “You don’t have to think so hard anymore,” he said quietly. The statement was almost kind because he believed it. He believed he had simplified her world, reduced noise, removed chaos, and provided structure.

He kissed her once, slowly. Then stepped away to undress.

She stood there longer than necessary, and in that stillness, something flickered. Many things had changed, and she’d felt it most during this outing framed as nothing, which was how Roman preferred to name things that mattered. 

Tomorrow, they would leave. But the evening lingered in her mind. Clara’s voice. You’ve filled out a little, the word “softness,” and Roman’s calm silence beside her. Until the stupid mess with Marco, he’d stopped touching her or looking at her without clothes on.

She drew a slow breath. Her grandmother, even Nina, had constantly called her too thin. Roman was the first person to love precisely that about her.

She didn’t notice she hadn’t moved until Roman came up to her again, naked this time. His hand dragged once through his hair before he reached for her, the movement sharper than the rest of him. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, deepening it before she could decide how to respond. This was how it happened now, his ache for control masquerading as passion. She kissed him back because this was still rare. It was now how they fixed things and stayed close, how she stayed safe.

He nudged her down into the mattress, kissing her harder, pulling her robe apart like he needed her bare skin to stay grounded. When he entered her, it was almost desperate. His mouth found the hollow of her throat, his hand gripped her thigh hard enough to leave the faintest shadow of fingerprints, one of those sudden buried surges that seemed to live just beneath his composure, released only in fragments. It wasn’t directed at her, never quite that clean, but it sometimes surfaced in him without warning, something older than the moment, something he only ever allowed himself to release with her.

She cried out from pleasure, pain, and something more nameless, a release and a fracture. His rhythm was unrelenting. Her hands clutched the sheets. She didn’t know if she wanted it to stop or never end. He murmured things against her skin that she couldn’t quite hear.

It wasn’t until after, when he collapsed beside her, his breath slowly evening, that she realized she was shaking.

She curled up away from him. Silent tears slid down her cheeks. Her body was humming, hollowed out, overwhelmed, and he was already falling asleep, as if nothing had happened and they hadn’t both just fallen off a cliff again.

Saoirse stared at the ceiling. The room felt even more cavernous, a thousand times more than it was, like the bed was an island floating in a vast, cold sea of marble and shadow. Roman’s breathing had settled into a low, steady rhythm beside her, so calm, nothing like the man who had moments ago stripped something from her with whispered devotion.

She blinked at the dark until her lashes stuck together with the wetness of her unconscious tears. She rolled gently onto her side, facing away from him, and folded herself in. Her knees to her chest, arms tucked in like a child bracing against thunder. She could still feel the ghost of his hands on her hips, his mouth along her throat, the warmth of his breath at her ear.

So why did it feel as though something had been emptied from her rather than poured in? She hadn’t said no, hadn’t even wanted to. She had wanted him. She had wanted to feel close to him again, to believe his words about rebuilding her, protecting her, and loving her. She wanted to believe that the pain he carried inside himself softened him, that his brokenness made him safe. She stared into the darkness, eyes wide open, until the ceiling blurred.

Maybe this was what love was supposed to feel like. Maybe this was how powerful men loved, on their terms, through her silence.

Behind her, he shifted slightly in his sleep, and one heavy hand landed on her thigh. Even in dreams, he anchored her like a leash. Her eyes fluttered shut so she could disappear just for a minute, but a sound broke the silence. Her phone. She’d brought it upstairs after Clair’s text.

She blinked slowly, still curled into herself, not quite ready to move yet or remember what time or day it was. 

Sleep took her in the blink of an eye.

The next time she opened hers, the sky was lightening, but the sun wasn’t up yet, and neither was Roman. She forced herself to uncurl, prying her limbs apart like peeling open something bruised. Her hand slipped across the bed to her nightstand and found the phone face down near the edge. 

She pulled it closer, carefully, careful not to wake him.

The Suarez Myth: Chapter 12

The year was 1968, and the war was called The Baltic Freeze.

During a labor crisis in Northern Spain, a man named Gott, a middle-aged Hausmann heir, exploited a temporary regulatory freeze surrounding some Suarez holdings to secure two North Sea freight routes Roman’s grandfather had been negotiating. Felipe Suarez never forgave the Hausmanns.

He responded with a brutal undercutting of Baltic steel rates, starving Hausmann margins for nearly five years. The families never declared hostility, but from that point forward, every joint venture was a chessboard.

In the 1990s, Fried Hausmann discreetly funded a minority stake in a Portuguese refinery bid Amancio had been courting. The bid failed, and the refinery went bankrupt two years later. Suarez acquired it at half the value. Hausmann lost nothing publicly but gained nothing either, so the war became quiet attrition.

Roman grew up on these stories. It was family history. He watched Amancio track Hausmann movements obsessively and knew from his acquaintanceship with Fried’s son that their party did the same. Allegra preached silence. His grandmother treated the Hausmanns like inevitable inconveniences.

And while the Hausmanns never attacked directly, they were always on the lookout for weakness. Weaknesses in dynastic warfare often arose through succession disputes, public scandals, and heirs who fractured under pressure.

Roman sometimes feared Saoirse’s incompatibility with his world, her mistaking their freedom and considerable means for independence, but most of all, he feared exposure. He knew how families fall. He knew the Hausmanns once acquired a majority stake in a Scandinavian freight company after an affair and divorce exposed liquidity strain. He knew every single heir the de Witts quietly pulled credit from because they appeared unstable.

He knew old families were patient.

So when Saoirse appeared vulnerable to anyone but him, when she had panic responses, became emotionally unpredictable, or made independent financial decisions, he saw liability, and liability invited predators even if he never said the word Hausmann aloud.

Like the times she forgot to wait for him to answer a question directed at her in public. Like the time in London before the twins. She may have been pregnant already. Regardless, she was always too forward when they were in her city. 

It was a luncheon in a private dining room at Somerset House overlooking the Thames with frosted glass, white linen, and a view engineered to imply discretion. Duplessis’s people were there with a minor sovereign delegate. Javier, precise as always, sat at Roman’s right. The conversation drifted toward the expansion of a logistics channel through Morocco, an idea still in its exploratory phase with nothing binding or official.

Saoirse had read the brief the night before. Roman had left it open on their sitting room table. She had asked a few questions, and he had answered them without paying too much attention.

When the Moroccan delegate turned to her, smiling lightly, it felt almost playful. “And would the foundation support education initiatives along the channel? It would make the optics… elegant.”

She knew the answer. Roman had dismissed the idea privately as premature “charitable noise before building structure,” but the proposal had stayed with her. She had considered how it might soften resistance locally. Before she could overthink it, she spoke. “We’ve been exploring something along those lines,” she said. “If the infrastructure aligns.”

The room shifted slightly with interest. People always wanted to hear what she had to say. Roman simply placed his fork down with quiet precision as Javier’s eyes flicked once toward him.

The Moroccan delegate brightened. “Ah. That would change the tone entirely.”

Roman smiled then. “We explore many things,” he said. “Execution is another matter.” And the temperature adjusted.

The conversation moved on, but in the backseat of the car afterward, he watched the river recede through the window until they were close to home. Without turning toward her, he said, “Don’t preempt me in rooms where capital is present.”

Her stomach tightened. “I wasn’t,” she said carefully. “I thought—”

“That’s the issue.” His voice was level. “You thought out loud.” Silence. “I would have aligned it properly. Now they expect something that doesn’t exist.” Expect. It hung heavier than a reprimand.

She stared at her hands. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you meant well,” which, somehow, made it worse.

When they reached the Belgravia house, he stepped out before her and extended his hand as usual. But that night, when she leaned toward him in bed, he remained still.

He knew the risks when he’d chosen to marry her, even without Bibiana’s constant reminders. He had been warned about dilution, but not in that word. No one in his family spoke crudely about blood anymore. They spoke only of alignment and shared systems, marriages that simplified maps.

He’d had other prospects, daughters of their circle. He’d dated at least 20 in the first 10 years of his adulthood. Long courtships, short ones, a few that only lasted a week and a half. When he turned 30, Bibiana had entertained a luncheon with the Lindholm girl from Copenhagen, educated in Lausanne, glacially composed, heiress to sovereign advisory contracts that could have braided neatly into Suarez infrastructure. She had observed, gently, that this Lindholm girl would have required no translation of the expectations of their world.

At 35, one of his aunts, Allegra’s sister, had floated the idea of a Hausmann niece. Hamburg-bred, maritime blood, the sort of marriage that ended wars. Marcela, who didn’t care much for family affairs, cared enough to point out that, with the Hausmann niece becoming a Suarez, the Baltic Freeze would disappear from history without a board vote. 

Even the Ferraras had made an oblique inquiry with one of their many daughters for a steel-seeking possibility.

Roman pretended to listen. Then he met Saoirse like serendipity at a bar, of all places. Then he declined them all without spectacle, although Amancio was very loud and clear about how out of the question the Hausmann niece was from the moment she was mentioned.

The women in his world dazzled constantly. They were trained to. But Saoirse never braced herself when he entered a room. There was no inheritance behind her. He didn’t have to appease some competing dynasty or face a mother calculating grandchildren’s surnames. She was unencumbered in all ways. And in a life constructed entirely of negotiations, she felt dangerously unstructured. She was both risk and no risk at all. He told himself that was why he married her, for efficiency.

There would be neither boardroom tension disguised as Christmas dinner nor subtle tug-of-war between capital streams. These were the things that plagued his childhood. Memories of Allegra’s parents, who held a coastal resorts monopoly, openly leveraging him for more and more Suarez stakes, still kept him up at night.

The dream always began with the same room, the long dining room in Liguria where his maternal grandparents hosted their summer councils. Even in sleep, he could smell the sea through the open shutters and the faint medicinal polish they used on the walnut table.

He was small again. Nine, perhaps ten. His feet didn’t reach the floor from the carved chair. The adults spoke as if he were furniture. His grandfather sat at the head of the table, thin fingers steepled over a folder of documents. His grandmother’s golden bracelets chimed softly each time she turned a page. Across from them sat Amancio, expressionless, already understanding exactly where the conversation was going.

“Of course,” his grandfather said calmly, as if discussing rainfall. “When Roman assumes position, your coastal portfolio should revert to our line.”

His grandmother nodded once, eyes sliding briefly toward the boy at the table as if acknowledging a chair that might someday be moved. “Half the resorts,” she added. “The Suarez fleet needs warm-water anchorages anyway.”

Amancio’s voice remained neutral. “Suarez does not exchange operating infrastructure for hospitality concessions.” Mariana had probably made him memorize those words.

“Not exchange,” the old man corrected mildly. “Integration.” The word hung in the air.

Roman remembered the strange stillness of that moment. The way the adults continued discussing percentages and easements and future grandchildren as if he were not sitting three chairs away listening to the value of his life being apportioned across a map. He remembered his grandmother’s hand reaching over to rest briefly on his shoulder, measuring him.

“You’ll understand one day,” she had said.

Roman woke abruptly.

The Barcelona bedroom was dark, the sea somewhere beyond the terrace glass. For a moment, the scent of salt and walnut polish still clung to the back of his throat. He sat up slowly, hand pressed against his ribs.

Thirty years, and the dream had not softened. He could still hear the word “integration” the way his grandfather had said it. He rose from the bed and crossed to the window. Below, the garden lamps traced quiet lines through the palms. Somewhere in the house, a door closed softly, staff finishing the night rounds.

Behind him, Saoirse slept curled into the white sheets, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the faintest crease between her brows as if even in sleep she was thinking about something she couldn’t quite name.

He watched her for a long moment. There was no map behind her or grandparents calculating shoreline concessions through the spine of a child. No family waiting to braid her surname into a capital structure. She was just a girl who had walked into his life without an agenda and somehow believed that the rooms he inhabited belonged to him rather than to the networks surrounding them.

The thought steadied him.

Saoirse allowed him to build around her without resistance. How could he not fall in love with that? In marrying outside blood, he had given himself something none of the alliances his family proposed could ever provide, a house that belonged entirely to him. And in private, in moments he did not dissect, he admitted no woman raised inside old European corridors would have ever looked at him the way she did.

The Suarez name was old and solvent enough that it did not require strategic matrimony to survive. They were now consolidating outward, not upward. So when he married Saoirse, educated but unconnected, carrying no dynasty behind her, it caused a stir — the Hausmanns felt rebuffed because of their niece — but there was no open resistance.

The old families adjusted with grace. Invitations continued. Toasts were made. The wedding was well attended. Duplessis still sent couture to Barcelona before gala season. Lindholm still extended credit lines without hesitation. No one was unkind.

But they were precise. Saoirse was received politely, placed correctly, and left alone. No one sought her confidence because there were no shared grandmothers in Swiss boarding schools or inherited summers in Portofino or mutual cousins threading through Madrid and Milan. Old money excluded with familiarity.

And Saoirse had none.

Meanwhile, her own world receded with frightening efficiency.

Her few university friends’ texts often went unanswered once travel intensified, and they found the trip across the ocean and multiple countries to visit her exciting but difficult to balance with their demanding schedules of survival. Roman’s calendar did not accommodate casual drop-ins anyway. Even before the twins, when Roman would sometimes approve for Emilio to arrange for her to invite someone between her world and his for lunch — perhaps an art curator or a literary professor — they arrived dwarfed by the architecture, too careful and apologetic.

The two spheres simply failed to touch.

But Roman saw only alignment. His wife was protected, spared the pressures of interacting with the world. His world did not reach for her, and he did not offer her to them. And slowly, without confrontation or decree, Saoirse became a woman who existed primarily inside his Suarez walls.

He married her because she felt clean. He married her because he could contain her. He told himself those were the same thing.

Now, Capri was presented as an escape when, in truth, it was consolidation.

All the alliances his family had suggested would have come with their own councils, tables, and quiet conversations about what Roman Suarez could be traded for. Saoirse had arrived with nothing to trade, which meant no one would ever sit across from him again and speak about the future of the Suarez empire as if he were merely a corridor through which another dynasty might expand.

He turned back toward the bed and slid beneath the sheets beside her. In a life constructed almost entirely of negotiations, that absence still felt like the most radical decision he had ever made.

The next morning, he would take her to Capri, and for at least ten days, there would be no measuring the weight of his name. Just the two of them. And that’s precisely the point, he told himself as sleep finally returned.

+

Roman insisted on driving.

Saoirse had assumed the usual entourage would be waiting at the airstrip when they landed in Italy. Javier, Emilio, a driver in dark linen, perhaps even a discreet security tail. Instead, Roman waved the suited driver away before she could process it.

“I’ll take us,” he said, already opening her door.

The gesture startled her more than the words. It had been years since she’d seen him behind a wheel.

The car was silver, low, European, understated, and it moved like something engineered for escape. The road from Naples curled along the coast in a ribbon of sun-struck asphalt. The sea flashed between cliffs like broken glass. 

She watched his hands on the steering wheel, his bare wrists uncharacteristically watchless. He drove with quiet focus, one hand loose at twelve, the other occasionally resting on her thigh as if to confirm she was still there. It was like a blast from the past when they were unmarried. Once or twice, he’d driven her around Madrid at night just to see the city but not mingle with it.

The twins’ absence pressed against her ribs. She had kissed them too many times before leaving. She saw them now as they snuggled in their fluffy white cribs. Lisa assured her they would sleep through the night. Marta had promised to send hourly updates.

She told herself she needed this, but she sat in the passenger seat, her hands folded in her lap, stiff as stone. Roman’s presence was heavy beside her, too heavy, too quiet. Her stomach hadn’t stopped turning since they left Spain. 

The car sped on through the winding roads of the Campania countryside, sun bleeding orange across the large rocks ahead. A monastery rose in the distance, perched high and removed from everything.

Roman glanced at her once when she fell too quiet. “You’re thinking.”

“Just about our babies.” Her voice was so thin it almost broke.

“They’re fine.” The words were simple and final. “This weekend is for you. For us to recalibrate.”

She nodded too quickly, but she didn’t trust this version of herself anymore. She was just tired of feeling unsure and alone. The road curved ahead. The wind entered through the open windows, lifting strands of her hair. Roman reached out and tucked them behind her ear, eyes still on the horizon.

“You’ve forgotten what it feels like to not be needed by everyone,” he said lightly. She didn’t realize until later that he had not included himself in that sentence.

The villa was private in a way that felt intentional. It was a white stone with multiple terraces and a view that erased most of the rest of the mainland. No staff visible or hum of activity, only cicadas and distant water. 

Saoirse walked into the main hall barefoot through cool marble, touching nothing, as if afraid to disturb the stillness. Roman followed more slowly, and right there at the center of the open-plan living area was a giant bouquet of fresh white roses in a short and stout black vase.

“Do we own this place, too?” She turned to him, and he stopped in his tracks.

“Not outright.” 

She remembered the Galicia property his mother had gifted them on their wedding day, how they hadn’t returned there since the honeymoon.

That evening, the sea’s pulse rose and fell beneath the cliffs like the sound of breathing. Saoirse stood by the window, wrapped in her soft robe, thinking of the twins. Roman was at the desk, tablet open, light ghosting across his face. They ate outside later than usual. It was a simple meal of lemon, olive oil, and fresh fish. He watched her eat.

“You look different when you’re not tired,” he said.

She laughed softly. “I am tired.”

“No,” he corrected. “You’re tense.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then didn’t.

Later, inside, he stood behind her at the balcony doors and wrapped his arms around her waist. For a long moment, neither spoke.

“I hated that Marco got so close,” he said. She stiffened. “Because… it reminded me that I can’t control everything.” The word control sounded weary in his mouth. “My mother used to pretend she wasn’t afraid,” he said quietly. “She thought that was strength.” He rested his forehead on her temple. “I don’t want you pretending.”

This was new. He rarely spoke of Allegra without polish. He hadn’t mentioned her at all since she passed. Saoirse turned in his arms.

“What do you want?” she asked. The question lingered between them like an offering as he studied her face.

“I want you steady,” he said finally. “With me.” With. It felt generous and almost healing. Was it a promise that perhaps he would stay closer, longer? He kissed her slowly, and when he pulled back and said, “Come here,” she moved toward him without thinking, feeling the speed and reflex in her body before her mind caught up. When it did catch up, she paused for a moment. He noticed. “What?” he asked softly.

“Nothing.” And it was true. It felt like nothing, like the inevitability of gravity.

In their spacious bedroom with the frescoed ceilings, she undressed in silence, aware of his reflection watching her in the mirror. He rose, crossed to her, and stopped a breath away. His fingertips brushed the back of her neck once, lightly, like a conductor testing the air before the music began.

As he slept, she lay awake listening to the sea and felt something inside her shift into place. It was easier here with few staff, no babies or interruptions, no one needing me but him. Maybe this is what I’m meant for. It felt like relief. It frightened her, but she did not follow the fear. She rolled into him instead.

The next day, they left that villa for the main island, and it appeared like a hallucination rising out of the blue heat.

Once more, Roman insisted on driving. He drove their launch from their great white yacht to the island jetty, waving away the attendants at the marina with a casual flick of his fingers. The boat cut through the water cleanly, the engine low and steady, his posture relaxed in a way she rarely saw in Barcelona.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said once, meaning the steering, the unnecessary exertion.

“I want to,” he replied without looking at her, yet the distinction felt important.

By the time they reached the second, much smaller villa of white stone tucked into the cliffside, terraces stepping down toward an impossible sea, the mainland had disappeared entirely. The world reduced itself to horizon and salt.

This new silence was almost medicinal.

They ate outside again as the sky turned violet. Roman poured wine and watched her taste it. He found it interesting that she was tasting these things for the first, second, or third time, and not the millionth, like everyone else he knew. He asked nothing about Barcelona or schedules, yet he seemed dangerously present.

“You look different,” he said again.

She smiled faintly. “Different how?”

“Less surrounded.”

She didn’t ask what that meant. The cicadas rose and fell in waves.

She had promised herself she would not bring up the twins immediately this time. She had promised she would let herself exist here without counting the hours between feeds. But the promise frayed quickly.

“I keep thinking about whether they’ll sleep through tonight,” she murmured. “Lisa said they would. But she hasn’t called, and sometimes, they wake together, and then it’s chaos and—”

“They’re safe,” he said. “Don’t make them your whole identity, Saoirse.”

She nodded and blushed and tried to swallow the rest of the sentence. When he stood and walked to the terrace railing, she followed after him. The sea was black now, the sky torn with stars. He rested both hands on the stone.

“I didn’t tell you something,” he said after a long silence. She waited. “I don’t like not being there.”

“For the twins?” she asked.

“For anything.” The wind lifted her hair across her cheek. He brushed it away absently. “When you told me about that house,” he said quietly, tilting away. “about him… I thought I could fix it. As if that’s how the world works. You get strong enough and make sure nothing touches you or those you love.”

She watched his profile in the starlight.

“I watched my mother endure things she would never name,” he continued. “She called it discipline. I called it…” He exhaled. He did not look at her when he said it. “I learned very young that the only way to survive a room is to control it.” He turned then, finally. “But… I hate that…,” he added, almost to himself. “I hate that I can’t predict how something will land on you. I hate that I can’t stand between you and every variable.”

There it was, the fear and exhaustion of the boy who watched Allegra hold her wineglass steady while something cracked behind her eyes.

“I don’t want you pretending,” he said. “I don’t want you swallowing things the way she did.”

She felt something inside her soften when she whispered, “I’m not pretending.”

“I know,” he replied. “That’s the problem.” He stepped closer. “You steady me,” he said, so quietly she almost missed it. “You don’t… exhaust me.”

“And I don’t want to share that steadiness with anything,” he finished.

He kissed her slowly again that night, and undressed her like he was learning her again. When he finally pulled back, he rested his forehead against hers. “Come here,” he murmured.

She moved toward him instantly. It was a small movement, a shift of weight, but she felt it, that reflex. She could have stayed where she was, but she didn’t.

The days unfolded in pale light and salt. He touched her shoulder when she stood too long in the sun. He guided her waist as they descended stone steps. He brushed his knuckles against the back of her neck while she read. He took her swimming at dawn. In Barcelona, he never let them near the coast.

“You’re brilliant,” he said once, watching her trace something in the air as she explained a restructuring idea for the foundation she’d nursed for the last couple of months she spent struggling to sleep at night. “You see systems people miss.”

She laughed. “That’s your line.”

“It’s yours too,” he corrected.

He asked her opinion at dinner and listened, really listened, when she answered. She felt expansive. Something that had been compressed in Barcelona was unfolding here in Capri under clean air.

They walked barefoot through town one afternoon, and he let her choose the restaurant. They sat unassumingly among the crowd, and he watched her eat gelato, pistachio lingering on her lips until he cleaned them off with his thumb and licked.

For a whole day, it felt like she had married a man, not an empire.

“I wonder if they miss me,” she said in the morning, almost idly, as they lay in bed. It was a small sentence, a mother’s reflex, yet the air changed, the warmth receded a degree.

“They’re safe,” he said again.

She turned toward him. “I know. I just—”

“They’re safe,” he repeated, softer this time, but she felt the distance like a draft as she froze in his dark irises.

That afternoon, when she reached for his hand in town, he took it, but his grip was looser and less automatic. That night, when she curled toward him in bed, he did not pull her flush against him. The lesson arrived in a temperature that said Your longing competes with me.

So she did not consciously decide to stop mentioning the twins. She simply stopped mentioning them.

On the fifth night, the sea was restless. They had spent the day swimming and lying in the sun, her skin flushed peach. He had watched her carefully, his gaze almost reverent.

She stood at the bedroom balcony doors in nothing but one of his shirts. He came up behind her, and she expected his hands to move. They didn’t. He stood close enough that she could feel his breath, but he did not touch her. The absence felt louder than contact.

“Roman,” she said quietly.

“Yes?” She waited for him to close the distance. Instead, he stepped back further. “Come here.” The words were soft.

She turned, and she went, again, before she asked herself why. When she reached him, he placed his hands on her hips and kissed her once, then stopped.

He climbed into bed. She stood there for a moment, heat pooling in her abdomen, unspent. It took her several seconds to realize he was doing it again. Withholding. Just as it had been before he got angry about Marco.

She lay awake longer than he did, listening to his breathing, feeling something in herself lean toward him, asking without words. At least, he was with her.

She woke up the next morning, alone in bed and still in his shirt. She stayed like that for a while, staring at the vaulted ceiling and the wide windows and the calm sea beyond, listening to the birds sing and trees rustle.

She grabbed her rosary from the nightstand, the only thing she'd unpacked herself when they first arrived, and said a few halfhearted Glory Bes until she was sick of it. Then, she stood and walked to the standing mirror, picking up a silver brush from the vanity beside it. Nina hadn’t called in weeks. Lisa hadn’t called since they got here, though she suspected Roman was behind that.

Gentle footsteps approached, and she smelled him step into their spa-like room. Her body shook a little when he walked up behind it, wrapped his arms around her waist, and met her gaze in the mirror. Even her voice shook when she said his name.

“Good morning,” he said. She leaned back into him, but her eyes in the mirror remained watchful, waiting. He took the silver brush from her hand and placed it perfectly on the vanity. His hair was damp, his torso shirtless, and she smelled the saltwater all over him from the sea.

His fingers caught the hem of the white woolen shirt draped over her shoulders—his shirt—and tugged it lightly, as if reminding her whose it was. Her chest rose and fell unevenly. She shook her head once, a reflex more than a refusal.

He placed his hand lightly on her throat, drawing the breath from her lungs, and tipped her chin upward so she had no choice but to meet his eyes.

“Do you love me truly?” he said softly.

Her breath faltered. Her brows furrowed. “I do,” like they were at the altar again, that wedding day a lifetime ago, in an entirely different world. 

“I know. Even when I hold back…” His thumb rested briefly against the pulse beneath her jaw. “...you love me. You can’t stop because I take care of you. I hold all your broken pieces together.”

Her eyes stung. A traitorous heat gathered low in her body, the way her thighs shifted before she could stop them, she hated it. Sometimes, she didn't like that he saw her so clearly and understood exactly how the machinery of her wanting worked, even when she wished it wouldn’t.

He turned her around and kissed her hard enough that the world collapsed inward around the contact. She kissed him back before she could think better of it, her hands clutching at the waist of his drawstring pants as though she needed the anchoring.

He lifted her easily and set her on the edge of the vanity dressing table. The room smelled of the water cologne he wore when he traveled, mixed with the seawater, as his fingers moved toward the strings over his groin. This was new. They’d never done it like this before.

“Wait,” she said suddenly, sharper than she intended. She pushed once at his chest, breath still unsteady. “Stop.” Everything in her felt tangled, his accusation about Marco still humming between them like a live wire, the humiliation of having to insist there had been nothing there, and the equally humiliating truth that none of it had lessened the pull she felt toward him now, especially after the last couple of days.

He stilled. For a moment, he simply looked at her. Then his mouth curved.

“Is that what this is now?” he murmured, voice roughened. She swallowed. “You want to pretend you still get a say?” Her cheeks burned. His kiss had left heat across her neck, blotched and visible. He leaned closer again, deliberately slow, his body boxing hers against the sturdy table. “You push me again,” he said quietly, “and I’ll show you what it means to not hold back, Saoirse.”

Her breath caught. Her fingers curled into the edge of the wood behind her, knuckles whitening against the polished grain. She couldn’t break eye contact, and all she could see in his eyes was pain and need that mirrored hers. So she heard herself whisper, “Then, do it.”

His jaw tightened. He gripped her chin and kissed her again like he was starved. It pulled her downward into a place that existed only between them. And Saoirse went. Her body answered him before her thoughts could intervene, as it always did. The fear still knotted in her chest shifted into something darker and more familiar. She kissed him back simply because she did not know how not to.

He pulled her forward and guided her outside the bedroom without breaking contact, his hands steady on her hips. Her back met a wall, the impact stealing the breath from her lungs. The silence between them fractured under the urgency of his movements, the way his body pressed close as if reclaiming territory he believed had briefly been threatened.

His hand slid slowly up her thigh, and his mouth brushed the curve of her ear. “You don’t need to want it,” he murmured. The words were almost gentle. “You just need to need me.”

A tremor ran through her. She did need him, but for the first time, as her fingers clutched the back of his shirt and the room narrowed to the heat of his body, a small and terrifying thought moved somewhere beneath the surface of everything she felt.

She wasn’t sure she could survive him.

It all ended on the bed, under the lofty, cloud-like white sheets, and they stayed in it for most of the day, in and out of sleep. Portia, the Capri housekeeper, served them a light lunch there, and somewhere in between, Roman read her Virgil from a dusty old first edition in Italian.

Tears streamed down her face as she rested on the white, breathable pillows, listening to his soft voice. She couldn’t understand a word, maybe that explained the tears, or maybe she was exhausted again.

Soon, the bedroom went dim in a quietness that was also perfectly still. Moonlight slanted through the shutters, casting fractured stripes over the bed. Saoirse lay on her side, her knees drawn in slightly, Roman behind her close enough for his breath to graze the back of her neck. Her eyes wide open, she’d never felt so quiet. Like someone finally found the switch in her brain and turned the world’s volume down.

When Roman’s low voice came back on, she flinched. “I want to rebuild what life stripped from you. I want to see you walk into every room like you belong there. I want to teach you what power feels like.”

She swallowed, and another silent tear slipped down her temple. She didn't say anything for a long time.

Then, “Will I still be me?”

“No.” He paused. “You’ll be more mine than ever.” He leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head as she closed her eyes.