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 mention the twins less. She simply started mentioning them less.

On the fourth 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 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 fresco 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. 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 wool 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, their wedding day that was 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 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 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. She closed her eyes.

The Suarez Myth: Chapter 11

Saoirse was fifteen.

Her grandmother had just died. She met Sinead for the first time at the long, dreary funeral that followed, a fuzzy-haired ginger in dark jeans and a black oversized t-shirt who refused to enter the actual church building and didn’t look that much older than her. 

She said to her just outside the church doors, “You can stay with us until school ends.” Us was Sinead, her husband Dermot, and a brother whose name Saoirse never spoke aloud again.

She was sixteen the winter she moved into Sinead’s house, but calling it a house felt generous. Newcastle had been manageable with its grey skies, school corridors, her grandmother's gentle fussing, but Saoirse couldn’t live in her house alone, and Sinead, as her only living legal guardian, refused to move in. 

That year in Sinead’s flat felt like a shift into something colder. It was more like a narrow hallway pretending to be a home. It was old, its carpets smelled of damp twilight and old curry, its windows were always closed because they got stuck when you tried to open them. The radiators clanked at odd hours like something was trapped inside. 

The first week passed quietly. Saoirse went to school a bus ride away during the day. Sinead worked nights at Tesco. Dermot slept odd hours. The brother, whom she hated to remember his name, was twenty-six. Too old to be leeching off his younger sister, yet still too confident to be unthreatening. 

He liked to “help” Saoirse carry things and to stand too close when she washed dishes. He drifted around the house like a draft, appearing and disappearing without sound. He had a way of standing too close behind you without touching, just close enough that you could feel your skin pull upward in warning.

Saoirse learned the rules quickly, the way quiet girls do.

Rule one: Don’t close the bedroom door.

Rule two: Don’t shower after dark.

Rule three: Don’t wake Dermot.

Rule four: Don’t cry where anyone can hear it.

She kept her head down, went to school, handed over her lunch card quietly when Sinead asked for it, folded Sinead’s work uniforms before leaving for class. She kept away from her schoolmates, who all thought her name and accent were weird, and her face was too pale. They called her “Angel Face” or “Ghost Face”, mostly the latter. She stayed small, polite, grateful, the shape of a girl living on borrowed hospitality.

But the brother kept watching her.

He often lingered in doorways, leaning against the frame like he owned the air around her. Sometimes, he’d speak soft, strange comments that made her stomach tighten.

“You’re growing fast.”

“You look older with your hair down.”

“You’re quiet. Quiet girls know things.”

Sinead ignored it. Dermot didn’t see it. Saoirse tried not to breathe when he was in the same room.

One evening, Sinead left her in the house alone with him.

Saoirse was putting away laundry when he appeared at the doorframe, leaning against it casually, his smile too slow.

“You’re a quiet little thing, aren’t you?” he said. “Quiet things don’t make trouble.”

She stepped back. He stepped forward, took a T-shirt from the basket, lifted it, inhaled it… and smiled again. Her blood froze. She tried to leave, but he caught her wrist.

“Don’t run,” he murmured. “You don’t want to seem afraid.”

She remembered her grandmother’s advice. Don’t scream unless someone can hear you. Don’t fight unless you can win. So she went still, stone-still.

He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, fingers lingering.

“You’ll grow up beautiful,” he whispered. “Dangerously so. Men will want to ruin you.”

She prayed he would let go. He did, eventually, but the message was clear. 

The night it happened again wasn’t any more special. Sinead was at work. Dermot was drunk. The brother knocked on her open door. She was sitting cross-legged on the cold carpet, doing a composition worksheet under the yellow light of a dying lamp. Her pencil shook a little. She always shook a little back then.

He stepped inside and sat on the bed, close enough that she felt the mattress dip and his breath warm the back of her neck.

“You shouldn’t be alone in here, you know,” he murmured. “Dangerous neighborhood. People don’t lock their doors around here.”

She pressed her nails into her thigh, hard, but said nothing. Predictable girls are easy, he told her once. Quiet girls.

When she didn’t respond, he leaned forward, his hand brushing the crook of her elbow like a test, a question. Her whole body went rigid. A kind of cold rose through her bones, and he smiled as if he could tell.

She stood abruptly after a while, like someone yanked her upright by invisible strings.

“I have to shower,” she said, voice flat. “I have school.” She didn’t wait for permission. She walked out, her legs numb, her heart pounding so loudly she thought it might wake Dermot through the walls.

She locked herself in the bathroom — breaking rule two — and turned on the tap. Hot water roared into the tub. Steam filled the room. She sat on the closed toilet seat fully clothed, covering her ears with both hands, shaking so hard her fingers hurt. She stayed until the water turned cold, until her skin prickled, until her breathing slowed.

He didn’t follow, but the unnamed fear lived in her body now, permanent as bone.

When Sinead came home at dawn and found the bathroom light still on, she snapped, “Are you trying to drown the house, girl? Why’s it always something with you?”

Saoirse apologized. She always apologized. She learned that if you stayed very quiet, very still, very small, sometimes danger moved through you, past you. She carried that rule for years, into adulthood and university, into Roman’s world and their marriage. Silence meant safety. Stillness meant survival. Submission meant escape. She learned to become a ghost in that house, and she never told Sinead what happened, or Nina, not fully. She never even really told herself.

And when she finally told Roman one trembling night in Madrid in their early months together, she said it quickly, lightly, as if describing a dream, eyes turned away, hands trembling again. Roman had held her hand, jaw tense.

“I won’t let anything like that happen to you again,” he said. He swore to protect her. He gathered her into his arms and vowed, “No one will ever touch you again.”

+

Saoirse’s memory of Sinead’s house was little more than a vague outline now, but Roman carried the full, sharp truth she’d whispered to him years ago, in the beginning, before she learned to be quieter even in her confessions. He was in Singapore again, this time on an extended stay that had somehow turned into two months in and out between the country, Madrid, and Geneva, when the memory returned to him.

It hit him like a blade, and suddenly he wasn’t in his Tanglin temporary office complex anymore. He was back in his Madrid penthouse, early winter, three years ago.

Saoirse was still twenty-one, barefoot on his hardwood floor, her hair still wet from the shower because she was too shy to use his blow dryer without being shown how it worked. She wore one of his shirts, sleeves rolled twice over her wrists. The hem nearly brushed her knees. She sat curled on the sofa, knees to her chest, eyes too bright. They had been talking about nothing — books, London, her sister’s cruelty — when her voice suddenly thinned, went quiet, like something inside her slipped.

“There’s something I didn’t tell you,” she whispered.

He’d turned toward her, expecting something small like an unpaid bill, an old boyfriend, perhaps the shame of having grown up without a family. She always apologized for things she never should.

But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at her hands.

“There was a man in her house,” she said softly. “Her brother.” She swallowed. Her throat moved delicately, like a bruise blooming. “He… he used to come into my room.”

Roman’s back went rigid.

She kept going, as if she had rehearsed the words and they were now falling out of her faster than she could catch them.

“He touched me. Not once. Not just once. I never told her. Or anyone. I thought… I thought it was my fault because I was quiet. Because I didn’t push him away. Because I froze.”

Roman felt something crack open inside him. At the time, he didn’t know what it was, but now, he understood that it was the end of innocence, of his own capacity to love her lightly.

She kept talking, voice faltering but unbroken, “I didn’t know how to scream. I didn’t know how to stop it. I just— felt my body leave me. And afterward… I couldn’t remember parts of it. I still can’t. That’s why I hate dark hallways, and touching people’s arms, and closed doors.”

She wiped her face with the heel of her hand. “I don’t want you to think I’m damaged. I don’t want you to think I’m… weak.”

Weak. The word detonated something ancient in him that smelled like Allegra's quiet terror and the way she held her wineglass steady while the world crashed around her. He closed the space between them in two steps. He knelt in front of her and took her face in both hands, his thumbs brushing the wetness beneath her eyes.

“Look at me,” he said. She did, her eyes were enormous, terrified, trying to be brave. “You were a child,” he said. His voice was low, so low she had to lean forward to hear it. “You hear me? A child. There is no fault, no blame, only me now.” Her breath shuddered. 

“And if he were alive,” Roman added, “I would kill him myself.”

She whispered something like a protest, but he silenced it gently, pressing his forehead to hers.

“You survived,” he said. “You survived something no one should survive. And you are here with me now.”

She had cried then, quietly, almost apologetically, into his chest. And he had held her so tightly she could barely breathe. That was the night she gave him everything. She gave him trust, and the rawest, truest version of herself. And that was the night Roman made a silent, irrevocable vow that no one would ever touch her again.

He decided, without noticing he had decided, that she belonged inside an unshakeable circle of protection. His protection. His walls. His rules. His silence. His house.

It was the nine-year-old boy watching Allegra bleed into lace and thinking, I will keep my woman safe. From that night onward, everything in him reorganized itself around her safety. The “stay here.” The “don’t worry about outside.” The “let me handle it.” The “you don’t need to go.” The “rest.” The “be calm.” He was saving her.

In Singapore now, staring at the elevator wall while that faint jasmine clung to the air, Roman felt something cold crawl up his spine. He remembered every detail she’d told him, the shape of her shoulders when she spoke, the tremor in her voice.

He remembered pressing her hands to his chest and promising, “You never have to be afraid again.”

So now, he had discreet, AI-assisted surveillance on all their homes. Barcelona was like Fort Knox. Every season, he had Marco and the other security guys make private security enhancements based on advancing technology. Smart-watch access for facial recognition triggers, movement mapping, and biometric logs, things Saoirse knew existed, but not to what extent. 

Marco oversaw the physical reinforcements. The house secretary, Fernando, coordinated the digital summaries so Roman received weekly anomaly reports, compressed and filtered. That night, between virtual meetings in the hotel suite, he opened the security digest once more out of habit. He’d been doing it a lot more in the last couple of months. 

There had been a delivery truck misrouted near the western gate. A gardener triggering a false perimeter alert after hours. A brief software recalibration. He scrolled.

A thumbnail caught his eye only because of its timestamp: 18:42. Sunset. The lemon grove path. He expanded it. At first, it meant nothing. Two figures at the far edge of the property. One in a pale shape that resolved into Saoirse’s dressing gown. He leaned slightly closer to the screen.

Marco stood in front of her, bent at the waist. His hand near her ankle, adjusting something, the strap of her sandal, perhaps. Her hand rested on his shoulder. The frame held for two seconds before the AI auto-paused to mark proximity. There was no audio, escalation, or further contact, but still, Roman did not blink.

The angle was imperfect, picked up only because the perimeter AI had widened its sweep after a recent firmware update. The main house cameras did not extend that far into the grove. She was outside the usual visual grid.

He replayed it. The physicality was minor, innocent even. But the expression…

Her face tilted slightly upward. It was open, and she was laughing, or nearly laughing. There was something unguarded in the line of her mouth. He tried to remember when he had last seen that expression directed toward him, but could not place it. He hadn’t even been back in Barcelona for the last two months. The days had just flown by.

Marco straightened, stepped back, and the moment dissolved. The clip ended.

Roman closed the window without flagging it. He did not call Fernando. He did not message Marco. There was, technically, nothing to reprimand. Security protocol did not forbid the staff from assisting his wife on uneven ground. Physical proximity was sometimes unavoidable. Still.

Marco should have called for Marta or one of the female staff members. Saoirse should not have been that far from the house alone. She was in some flimsy robe, unacceptable in his mind. The perimeter AI had only caught it because the system was functioning correctly, because he had improved it.

He reopened the clip and watched her hand again, watching the warmth in her face. The contact was brief, but the warmth lingered. Roman sat back in the crushed mohair armchair slowly as business associates chattered somewhere in the background.

He told himself the discomfort was procedural and about boundaries, not about the fact that she looked alive in a way that did not involve him. He minimized the footage and opened the Aberdeen refinery audit instead, giving himself five minutes to end the unnecessary meeting.

He did not sleep for another hour, not until after he’d restructured the staff schedule, quietly transferring Marco to Madrid. He had Javier review recent house staff reports before morning.

“And please have Emilio schedule me to be in Barcelona tomorrow evening,” Roman said to his chief of staff, who was still in Geneva. Tianglin had grown too comfortable, but it was time to return home to his family. “...and at least once a week next month.”

+

A warm dusk settled over the Barcelona estate. 

The lemon grove smelled like sun-sweetened citrus and watered soil as Saoirse walked slowly along the stone path, the soft silk belt of her dressing robe fluttering at her waist. The matching nightdress within clung to her skin thanks to the sun and how it made her pores cry. The twins were finally asleep. Lisa was on a call inside. It was the first time all day Saoirse had been alone.

One of her sandals slipped off, the leather catching at the buckle. She muttered something under her breath and crouched to fix it, but her balance wavered.

“Señora, careful.” The voice came up from behind her. “Let me help you.”

She was startled a little but smiled. “It’s just the strap. It got caught.” Marco was reliable, kind, and always just out of the way… except when Roman was catching her on camera, touching his arm. She sighed.

He bent quickly, adjusting the buckle while she steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder for a second. She laughed at herself, at the absurdity of losing a sandal in her own garden, at her paranoia about accepting his help.

He nodded politely and stepped back. “All set. I’ll leave you to it.”

She thanked him softly, and he walked on. She exhaled and continued down the path, the moment already forgotten.

The next night, Roman returned without ceremony. She thought she’d be upset with him, but that part of her took a backseat and watched as her body leapt into his arms as he crossed the inner threshold of their home. It had been two months, and she missed him like he was a soldier returned from war. He embraced her, kissed her cheek, and lingered there for some moments before releasing her and taking her in with unusual scrutiny.

Dinner was quiet. The twins were fed, swaddled, and asleep in their cribs. A candle flickered between her and Roman at their smaller dining table. He was unhurried, slicing through grilled squid, a glass of crisp wine at his elbow. He hadn’t said much since he returned.

Saoirse had made an effort as usual. Her hair washed, a white organic cotton dress on, a soft touch of mascara. She wanted to feel like herself again, the self before milk stains and night feeds. 

“I was thinking of taking the twins to the coast this week just for a few hours,” she finally broke the ice. “Lisa says sea air’s good for their lungs,” she murmured. He nodded but didn't look up from his cutting. “Would you come?”

A pause. “Maybe.” He set down his cutlery and took a slow sip of wine. “Do you usually walk the lemon grove in a robe?” He met her gaze, his steady and unreadable.

Her spine stiffened as her brain sorted through the last couple of days for a clue as to what he was referring to. “I wanted air.”

He nodded, as if that satisfied something. “And Marco? He was helping with your shoe?”

She was quiet for a while before saying, “I didn’t ask him to. He saw me wobble and offered. It took ten seconds.”

“I’ve seen the footage.” 

She swallowed. Suddenly, she felt absurd in her dress, in this house, in the game she didn’t know she was still playing. Her voice was a slow thread now, “I wasn’t flirting. I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” her eyes on her half-eaten food. 

“I didn’t say you were,” he replied flatly and leaned back, folding his hands together. “But I noticed something.”

She asked even though she didn’t want to, “What?”

“The way you looked at him. That softness, that instinct to smile, you used to give that to me.”

She exhaled. “You think I’m cheating on you, months after childbirth, when I barely leave this property, and the only thing I want more than sleep is you.”

He stood and walked away from the table, leaving his food and her too shaken to react.

Eventually, she retired to bed, but she didn’t take her sleeping pills. Instead, she grabbed the rosary from her vanity and tried to pray, but it wasn’t working, her brain refused to remember all the words she should know like the alphabet by now. It was her heartbeat. All her brainpower was going into speeding it up.

The lights were dim, and at least five hours had passed since dinner when he joined her. Saoirse sat on the tufted bench at the foot of their bed, brushing out her hair as she counted every hour. Her robe was pale blue, loose, and comfortable.

Roman walked straight into the walk-in, and Saoirse listened distractedly to his shuffling within as she brushed on and on, long after her hair achieved neatness. He stepped back into the room and placed his watch on the vanity. When she looked up at him, he had only his briefs on. 

“You’ve been sleeping earlier lately,” he said. She knew he knew because all the staff sent him reports of her every move. She knew he knew Bibiana brought her sedatives. Was their annoying Marco argument over?

“It’s the twins,” she murmured, still brushing. “I try to lie down when they do.”

He nodded and sat on the edge of the bed close to her. “I moved Marco to Madrid.” Her brushing hand froze, the brush still against her hair, and she turned slowly to him. “They need someone familiar with perimeter systems.”

Her body tensed, but she stayed still. “Did you tell him why?”

He looked at her like she said something ridiculous. “I didn’t need to.”

She set the brush down, finally. “You really think something happened.”

He stood and moved to his nightstand, setting his phone down. “I don’t think. I observe. You know that.”

“You have cameras on me.”

“On the property, not on you,” he corrected calmly.

She exhaled, long and slow, suddenly hyperventilating for reasons she couldn’t immediately discern. “I was outside for air. Lisa had just gone in. My sandal slipped. He helped me. That was all.”

He nodded. “You laughed.”

“At myself.”

“You touched him.”

“I touched him for balance. Roman, I had just breastfed twins. I hadn’t eaten. I was lightheaded.”

He chuckled as he walked to her side of the room to pick up one of the baby monitors, and for a split second, she was unsure if she was still telling the truth, if she’d done anything more with Marco that she didn’t remember. 

“You don’t need to breastfeed them. We have nurses specifically for that, Saoirse! And they’re eight months already!” She hated it most when he was able to acquire a frightening sharpness without ever raising his voice. He walked to the glass double doors that led to their bedroom terrace, parted the thick curtains, opened the doors wide, letting cold waves of air in, walked out, then walked back in, in quick succession. “In two years, I never once saw you look at a staff member like that. It wasn’t the act. It was the tone of it… just like last time,” he said that last part more softly than the rest.

“You’ve stopped touching me for almost a year,” she cried out, but the tears in her eyes refused to fall. “I give a sliver of warmth to someone who adjusts my shoe, and suddenly... what?”

He stared at her for a moment, flung their white eiderdown down, and climbed into bed. “Come to bed.”

She froze at the edge of the bed, her breath shallow and uneven, facing him like time itself had frozen. His gaze trailed from her eyes to her mouth to the pulse fluttering at her throat.

“Come here,” he said again, softly this time.

She hesitated before inching toward the bed and lifting herself onto it. When she was close enough to feel his breath, he reached toward her, grazing his fingers across her collarbone, tracing upward until they cradled the side of her face. Her skin was cold, or maybe his hand was too warm. She closed her eyes against it, remembering him asking all those months ago, But are you mine?

“Do you know what it does to me?” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “You don’t understand yet that you don’t have to waste so many words on the perimeter guy?” She flinched at his condescending tone long before she caught on to what he meant. “You didn’t have to say a word. I’d always take your side.” She opened her eyes and frowned at his chest, trying to compute what he was saying.

“I was scared,” she whispered after a long pause. “I thought you really believed something happened.”

He leaned in and touched his forehead against hers. “What if he… tried something? How could I have forgiven myself?” He whispered with his eyes closed. A strong shiver emerged from the depths of her veins to the very top of her skin as his words sank in. She’d never even considered that. What if Marco was another… brother?

Then… then he kissed her. A real kiss, and not gentle either. She froze first, but soon, her fingers bunched into the fabric of the sheets beneath them because it’d been too long. And she cried again, silently, as her lips opened under his and her body pressed into him with months of suppressed confusion, longing, and love, and newfound fear.

He kissed her jaw, her neck, untying her robe. His palm flattened at her lower back, pulling her flush against him. 

“Look at me,” he murmured against her lips. And when she did, “Don’t give that to anyone else.” She nodded, barely.

“Even if I lose everything tomorrow, there’s no version of this world where you walk away from me.” He pulled back to look at her fully. “Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take care of you.” The fire in his eyes dimmed slightly. His mouth returned to hers. His hands moved, and hers followed, pulling each other apart just enough to fall into one another. He barely undressed her before the first thrust, his grip iron, his rhythm unrelenting, his eyes never leaving hers.

Afterward, they lay tangled together, both panting, her cheek pressed against his chest, his hand spread wide across the dip of her back.

“Sleep,” he said into the silence as his thumb rubbed slow circles over her spine. Her eyes stayed fixed on the shadows above their heads, trying to understand what just happened, but the force of release after months of waiting lulled her too quickly.

The first strange thing about when she finally woke up late the next morning was the weight of his hand, resting against the dip of her waist. Her back was to him, her body warm but motionless. Light poured in through gauzy curtains, but she couldn't reach for it. Instead, she listened to the sound of his breath, strange but welcome behind her, the quiet ticking of the brass wall clock, and to her own racing thoughts.

The world had cracked open and reset itself. She felt disarmed and devoured yet protected at the same turn. She shifted, and Roman stirred behind her. Had she ever woken up before him before? The bed creaked with his slight movement, and his hand tightened instinctively around her. He’s awake.

In a low voice still thick with sleep, he said, “Mi amor.” The words went through her like heat, and her heart lurched. She rolled over slowly to face him, their eyes meeting on the pillows. He looked exhausted, like something had been ripped from him. His eyes scanned her face, and she wondered what they were looking for.

Silence stretched, and something almost tender stirred between them. The night had been… intense. Something had shifted. She felt it in her ribs, the tender ache between her thighs, and the strange stillness of the room. But why did he withhold himself from her for so long? And was it over?

He sat up and stretched his arms overhead. His phone buzzed on the nightstand, and he reached for it instinctively. She watched his face as he read. Nothing changed at first. Then his jaw shifted, a tightening so subtle she would have missed it months ago. He slowly flipped his legs off the side of the bed to stand.

"I’m firing Marco," he said and faced her. She sat up too quickly. The sheet slipped from her naked chest as he watched her. "You care if he lives."

She blinked, startled. "What?"

"You care," he repeated, advancing toward her. "You’re scared of what I might do to him. You flinched just now."

"Roman—"

"You gave him our money. You let him close."

She squeezed her eyes shut, remembering the anonymous payment she’d arranged to keep Marco’s daughter in school just before she’d gone into labour, a discreet scholarship through the foundation. 

She never told Roman because she knew he’d consider it inappropriate to get so involved in a staff member’s private life. But Marco didn’t even know either, she thought. It all happened so quickly, after she’d found his wife crying alone just inside their gates one day. They'd spoken woman-to-woman and arranged everything.

She made her voice as little as possible. "You say you love me, but you don’t trust me…"

He laughed once, low and humorless. "I don’t trust anyone!" He growled for perhaps the first time since she knew him. "That’s how I survived this long."

Survived what? she almost asked. The tears streamed down her eyes finally, and she wasn’t sure if it was sadness, fear, or utter confusion from the disorienting tenderness of the night compared to this.

Had she really put herself in danger by getting close to Marco? She thought hard about her last few interactions with him. Was that what she was doing, getting close to him without realizing? Her brows creased.

"What are you going to do to him?"

"Why do you care?" He walked to her and gripped her chin gently but firmly. "I already did it."

His eyes held hers. For a moment, something darker moved there, and the silence that followed was seismic, but she didn’t dare let her eyes leave his.

“Let me be clear. If you lie to me again…” He stopped. She saw the thought travel through him, change shape, retreat, and instead of finishing the sentence, he pulled her forward into his chest. The shift was so sudden her body forgot which emotion to hold. His arms wrapped around her tightly, his breath pressing into her hair.

“Just think,” he said into her crown, as though the rest had never formed. “Think before you act next time.”

He began rocking her gently, the movement rhythmic, almost paternal.

“Stay right here,” he murmured. “This is where you make sense.” Her heart pounded against his ribs.

“You feel that?” he continued softly. “How everything settles when you’re with me.”

And disturbingly, shamefully, it did. The fear that had spiked through for the last several minutes began to dissolve under the steadiness of his hold. The certainty in his voice felt like scaffolding. The adrenaline drained from her limbs, leaving her exhausted and pliable. She did not know whether she had just been threatened or forgiven. Perhaps both. Her body chose for her. She sagged against him and, still cradled there, slipped back into sleep.

“We’re leaving Barcelona this weekend,” he said, as if continuing a conversation they had never started.

Disoriented mid-sleep, she replied with what little strength she could muster, “Where?”

“You need a reset, mi amor,” he murmured into her ear, then his lips brushed her temple. “Capri. I want you where I can see you,” he said quietly. The location sounded like sunlight and something clean, like a gift. “No one asking anything from you but me.”

She nodded before she understood what she was agreeing to. And somewhere beneath the warmth of his arm and the promise of blue water and marble terraces, something in her folded itself smaller, grateful to be held.

The Suarez Myth: Chapter 9

At dawn, Saoirse’s feet were numb. 

She pressed her palm to the glass of the window she found herself standing before, watching the sun climb. The warmth against her skin almost felt like touch. And for the briefest moment, she imagined what it would be like if he came home now, just walked in unannounced, as he used to before the silence grew between them. 

But the house stayed still, obedient, and the only breath she heard was her own.

Sunlight soon edged across the curtains, catching the corners of gilt frames, the roses on the nightstand now brittle at their tips. The hum of the house resumed with distant footsteps, water running somewhere, the faint clatter of breakfast trays, for whom, Saoirse didn’t know.

Her head ached, and when she entered the nursery again, the air was still at 22°. The twins were already fed, their tiny forms wrapped in matching linen. Lisa looked up from arranging bottles. “You were awake again last night, Señora?”

Saoirse paused. “Yes.”

Lisa hesitated, fiddling with a sterilized cap. “Marta said she thought she heard you in the hall around three.” Her tone was careful, deferential, but it made Saoirse’s skin prickle.

She smiled faintly. “I couldn’t sleep. I was just checking on them.”

Lisa nodded, but her eyes flicked briefly toward the window. “Marco was on patrol then.”

Saoirse’s fingers tightened around the crib rail. “Did he… say something?”

“No, señora,” she said quickly, looking down. “Of course not. He wouldn’t.”

But the seed was planted now, the image of Marco somewhere in the dark, maybe seeing her wandering barefoot through the corridor, maybe thinking her strange or pitiful.

Saoirse looked down at the twins, both sleeping again, the fragile peace of their faces like a mercy she didn’t deserve. She smoothed David’s hair, then Mariana’s, and told herself she didn’t care what anyone saw. But she did.

+

The staff always knew everything before she did. 

There were voices in the hall by midday, the sound of heels against marble. When Marta appeared at Saoirse’s door, her expression was that careful blend of reverence and forewarning. “Señora,” she murmured. “Doña Bibiana has arrived.”

Saoirse blinked, surprised. “Bibiana?”

“Sí, señora. She is alone.”

Within minutes, Saoirse was standing in the sitting room, the one lined with old portraits of Suarez ancestors. The scent of her sister-in-law’s favorite tuberose plant had already replaced the faint ghost of white roses. Saoirse was forever in awe of how fast the staff worked, how quickly they changed things to suit whoever they deemed superior in any given room.

Bibiana was all tweed and symmetry, her greying hair pinned perfectly, her jewelry restrained but unmistakably ancestral. She kissed both of Saoirse’s cheeks, her lips barely grazing skin. Saoirse could not help inhaling her faint peppermint essence.

“You look pale,” Bibiana said with an air of concern that didn’t quite mask appraisal, and immediately reminded her of Roman’s last words to her before he left over a week ago. “I thought I’d come see my nephew and niece with their father out of the way. It’s been too long.”

“I’m glad you did,” Saoirse said softly.

They sat. Tea was brought with china, silver, and lemon slices cut thin as petals. Bibiana declined sugar. Her gaze, steady and composed, lingered on Saoirse’s face a moment too long.

“You’re alone,” Bibiana asked.

“Roman is traveling again,” Saoirse answered simply, though she knew Bibiana knew this.

“Of course,” Bibiana said, as if it explained everything. “He does so much. We all rely on him.”

Saoirse smiled faintly. “Yes.”

“He does too much himself. I keep telling him to delegate more.” Bibiana stirred her tea, though she hadn’t added anything to it. “And how are you keeping busy?”

The question caught Saoirse off guard. “I have the twins,” she managed to reply.

“Yes,” Bibiana said slowly. “Such beautiful children. But children sleep often at this age, don’t they? What do you do when they sleep?”

Saoirse blinked, caught off guard again. She hadn't had direct conversations that lasted this long in a while… with anyone. “I read. I write… sometimes.”

Bibiana tilted her head. “Oh? Roman mentioned you’re very private about it.”

Saoirse nodded, although something in her chest tightened. “I used to write all the time,” she admitted quietly. “Before. But lately… it doesn’t come.” 

Bibiana studied her. “You mean you’ve lost the habit.”

“Maybe. The silence here is too… complete. It makes my head feel full but empty at the same time.”

Bibiana didn’t rush to fill the pause. “That’s how large houses are meant to feel. Stillness is very valuable.”

“Sometimes it feels like it’s swallowing me, Saoirse said before she could stop herself.

Bibiana’s eyes lifted, sharp and unblinking. “Careful with that kind of talk,” she said, her tone still light but her meaning precise. “People misunderstand it. They start asking questions that are better left unasked.”

Saoirse flushed. “I didn’t mean—”

“I know what you meant.” Bibiana leaned back. “Roman married you because you were different. Fresh air in an old house. Don’t confuse that for permission to open all the windows.”

The words landed like a measured slap. It was controlled, not cruel but final, and Saoirse tried to recover. “I only meant…” A silence stretched between them, polite, taut.

“I’ve heard you’ve been having trouble sleeping,” Bibiana said at last, her tone conversational, but her eyes searching. “The staff worry, you know. They care for you.”

Saoirse’s throat went dry. “They shouldn’t worry.”

“No, of course not.” Bibiana smiled, sipping her tea. “You must miss your own family. England feels very far from here.”

“I’m used to distance,” Saoirse said quickly, then hesitated, fingers tightening around her teacup. Bibiana studied her then, eyes sharp beneath the softness. Saoirse forced a smile. Bibiana returned the smile, perfectly polite, perfectly unconvinced. “It’s just… quiet here, when he’s away. Sometimes too quiet. I don’t think I was made for this kind of silence.”

Bibiana’s spoon paused mid-stir. “You mean loneliness?”

Saoirse exhaled. “Yes. Maybe. I keep thinking I should be grateful. Everything’s so beautiful, so well-ordered… but sometimes, it feels like I’m watching my own life from the outside.” She looked down quickly, as if ashamed of saying it aloud. “I sound ungrateful.”

“Not ungrateful. Just young.” She placed her spoon neatly on the saucer, her movements exact, almost ceremonial. “You mustn’t let sadness make you visible. The world notices cracks, and when they do, they tear at it.”

Saoirse’s eyes lifted, startled by the frankness. “I’m not trying to be visible.”

Bibiana straightened, smoothing her skirt with her palms. “You’re a Suarez now. What happens inside these walls has to stay immaculate.” The words felt like both reassurance and threat.

“Okay,” was all Saoirse could manage.

“Everyone is lonely in our world,” Bibiana continued her lecture, and Saoirse looked down at her hands. “It’s the cost of continuity. You have your children now. That should be enough. Make it enough,” she said softly. “The rest of us did.”

Saoirse nodded, feeling a strange, sudden urge to cry.

Bibiana’s teacup clicked neatly against its saucer. “Roman will be home before long. Keep the house in order, keep yourself in order. The rest is noise.”

Saoirse swallowed. “You make it sound easy.”

“It’s not easy. It’s expected.” Bibiana gave a faint, humorless smile. “By the way,” she said, her tone brisk again, “The Foundation board meets next month. You should begin participating again. The birth is far behind you now.”

Saoirse blinked. “Roman didn’t mention it.”

Bibiana adjusted the button at her wrist, unbothered. “He wouldn’t. He thinks he’s protecting you, but public absence becomes gossip. I’ll have the Secretariat send you the minutes. Something, anything, under your name would be useful.”

“I’ll try,” Saoirse said.

“Don’t try. Do. The family looks better when its women are industrious.” She met Saoirse’s eyes. “Good,” she said finally, as if sealing the conversation shut. “I won’t trouble you long.” She rose then, smoothing down her long tweed skirt, every movement deliberate and economical. “May I see the twins before I go?”

“Of course,” Saoirse mumbled.

Bibiana crossed the long hall with her into the nursery, admired the babies with clinical precision, touched none of them, and pronounced them, “Perfect”.

Before leaving, Bibiana paused by the main doors as Saoirse escorted her to them. “Saoirse,” she said, without turning, “The family will start watching you now. It’s what we do when something seems… delicate.”

Saoirse stood frozen.

“Take care of yourself.” Bibiana glanced back once, eyes flat as glass. “And sleep at night, for God’s sake. People talk.”

Then she was gone, the peppermint lingering like a closing door. The silence that followed was colder than before.

Marta appeared a few minutes later to clear the tea tray with the untouched lemon squares. She moved quietly, but Saoirse could tell by her lowered gaze that the whole house had already heard every word.

At the window, Saoirse watched Bibiana’s old car glide down the long drive until it disappeared into the cypresses.

She touched her wrist, the one Roman had held on that last visit after the March trip, his thumb tracing slow, possessive circles, and wondered if Bibiana could see the same invisible mark he’d left.

She turned back toward the nursery. The twins slept on, unaware, but Saoirse felt a new kind of gaze on her. It wasn’t just Roman’s anymore, unseen and omniscient, but his family’s. She felt the house swiftly transform into a mirror, and in its reflection, she wasn’t sure what they saw.

When night came, she tried to obey Bibiana’s last command. She lay in bed, eyes closed, breathing carefully. Sleep at night… people talk. She repeated it like prayer.

Sleep didn’t come.

She was never tired anymore; there was nothing to burn energy on, so how could she fall asleep?

By two, she was pacing again. The marble floor cooled her feet. In the nursery, one of the babies whimpered. David, she thought. She lifted him, careful not to wake Mariana, and held him against her shoulder. The rhythm of his breathing anchored her for a moment.

Quietly, Lisa appeared in the doorway. “Señora,” she whispered, smiling as if she’d just arrived by chance. “Let me help you. I was checking on him.”

Saoirse nodded, surrendering the baby. “He was dreaming.” Her voice came out weak and unsure.

“Yes,” Lisa said softly. “They dream even when they don’t know what of.”

Saoirse lingered by the crib until the tiny chest rose and fell evenly again. When she turned toward the hallway, Marta was there, half in shadow, murmuring to another maid. Their words drifted through the corridor like incense, part pity, part warning.

Back in her room, Saoirse stood at the window until dawn, watching the slow bleed of light over the sea. As the sun rose, she was determined to do better. Bibiana’s words pulsed through her head like an instruction manual. Order, discipline, contribution.

The house moved around her with its usual precision.

After spending most of the morning with the twins and their nannies, she had a late breakfast alone on the balcony, steam rising from the coffee untouched. She opened her journal, the leather spine stiff from disuse. Her handwriting was smaller still, shrinking into itself. She tried to remember everything she’d learned at the Madrid residency about writing even when there was no inspiration, and managed three hesitant lines about light, about silence, about a door that wouldn’t open. Before the ink dried, she tore the page out and folded it neatly into the pocket of her robe.

Afternoon. A call came from the Foundation secretary, who mentioned Bibiana before getting into charitable endowments, gala schedules, and her long-term public “re-engagement strategy”. Saoirse listened, agreed, thanked them. When the call ended, she sat still for several minutes, unsure whether she’d actually spoken. 

Marta informed her that she had wellness treatments scheduled. A nurse came first, quiet and efficient, to attach vitamin drips to her vein, one after the other. Then the facialist, whispering about “helping her feel herself again” as she worked Allegra’s preferred scent into Saoirse’s skin. By the time the stylist arrived to assess her posture and take her measurements without asking, Saoirse herself had stopped asking why. She just stood there as they measured.

A priest arrived from the family’s favored Madrid parish. His cassock smelled faintly of beeswax. He spoke of patience, grace, and how stillness was a form of faith.

“A wife is a pillar, Señora,” he told her gently, “Stand steady, and you sanctify the house.”

He handed her a stunning rosary made out of baroque pearls and solid gold, blessed by the Holy Father himself. She folded her hands around it and let the sermon wash over her like warm water that left her colder when it passed. When he left, Marta replaced the lilies, Allegra’s lilies, with white roses. 

They called it wellness, but it was calibration, ensuring she still fit the mold Roman preferred. Later, a chauffeured drive through the estate with Emilio in the front passenger seat, cypress shadows flickering across her reflection in the glass.

The nurse, the priest, the air itself, all of it was disciplined and curated.

Evening came with letters from charities, swatches of fabric she pretended to select for the nursery redecoration the staff had already decided on… based on family tradition, silver-framed photos to approve, floral arrangements. Marta brought her tea, and Saoirse asked her opinion about nothing in particular just to hear another voice.

When night came, she felt exhausted enough to believe she could finally obey Bibiana’s last command. She lay in bed, eyes closed, breathing carefully. Sleep at night. People talk. She repeated it like prayer, still clutching the pearl and gold rosary in her left hand.

Sleep didn’t come.

Allegra had been right about the pattern, but wrong about the girl. Saoirse never learned how to turn being needed into power. She only learned how to vanish beneath it.

+

She couldn’t remember how many days had passed.

The courtyard was almost blue under the night lamps, a light designed to look like moonlight, calibrated to his specifications. Every perimeter light, every motion sensor, every surveillance feed in the house had a code. Marco knew them all.

He walked his usual route. North wall to terrace, terrace to lemon grove, lemon grove back to the sea gate, a ritual that had become muscle memory. The gravel whispered under his boots.

He liked this hour best, the darkest, earliest hours of the morning when the house was sealed, the guards posted, the cameras still humming, the kind of stillness that made men feel useful. But lately, something had started to unsettle him, not danger exactly, but the absence of it. The air felt too clean, too perfect, like the kind of silence that smothers noise before it starts.

He turned toward the main house and stopped.

Up on the first-floor landing, behind the long window of the west corridor, a figure moved slow, pale, barefoot.

The Señora.

She didn’t look down. She didn’t even seem to see the world beneath her, only the dark reflection of herself in the glass. Her nightgown clung faintly in the blue light, her hair unbound. She was carrying something small, a folded blanket, maybe, or a child’s toy. She set it on the sill, then just stood there, staring at nothing.

Marco exhaled, quiet. He’d seen her like this before, always alone, always in motion, walking the halls long after the lights were out, never frantic, just… searching.

He thought of Roman Suarez, of men who loved people the way a gardener loves his tools, carefully, conditionally, ready to replace them if they dulled. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to pity the man, only her. He’d never spoken of it to anyone, not even Javier. But each time he saw her wandering, some private ache twisted in him, the kind you got watching an injured bird that didn’t know it was injured.

He thought of the scholarship letters stacked on his desk upstairs, his daughter’s tuition already paid, her uniform already ordered, and the envelope that had come with no sender, only a single note: 

She didn't even signed it, but he knew it was her. He understood the message.

Above, Saoirse turned from the window and disappeared down the corridor. The curtain fell back into place. Marco finished his round, pausing once at the sea gate, where the sound of waves against the cliff almost drowned out the hum of the security system. He stood there a moment longer than necessary, staring at the horizon’s dark water with no ships in sight. The Señor owned the water and airways for miles.

When he turned back, the house was perfect again.

Saoirse never meant to stay awake. She just could never breathe well anymore. Sometimes, the quiet made her feel like the house was holding its breath, waiting for her to move so it could exhale.

With the hand that held the rosary, she picked up the folded blanket at the foot of the chair, Mariana’s, and walked into the corridor barefoot, her robe trailing. The marble was cool against her soles, the scent of sterilized air clinging to the walls. She didn’t turn on the light. The dim safety lamps were enough, blue-white halos every few steps.

Down the hallway, she passed the nursery door. Both twins were asleep. Lisa and Lucia slept on sleeping bags close by, which was new. David and Mari’s small shapes curled into white linen, their breathing amplified like distant surf. She paused, watching the rhythm, inhale, exhale, the only natural sound left in the house.

She moved on. The window at the far end of the convoluted corridor glowed faintly, its glass reflecting her like a ghost. Beyond it, the courtyard lights shimmered against the lemon trees. She could make out one of the guards, a dark silhouette moving along the perimeter path. Marco. He was always there, a steadying constant.

For a moment, she envied him, the certainty of duty, the luxury of a task that could be completed.

Her reflection wavered in the glass. She looked thinner lately. Her hair was longer and too soft at the ends. The lace nightgown slipped from one shoulder. She pulled it back absently and wondered if Roman would have noticed. He always said he liked her hair up, her clothes simple. He would murmur his preferences while touching the hollow of her throat like a seal of approval.

He was still gone. Milan, maybe, or Zurich. She never really knew, did she? Over their brief call this morning, he’d mentioned both cities, but which was it? Or was it both? She leaned her forehead against the glass. The cold spread through her skin. Down below, she thought she saw the guard pause, maybe he’d looked up, maybe he hadn’t, and then move on.

She lifted the folded blanket to the sill, the rosary still in hand, and smoothed it as if it were a sleeping child. Her hands looked translucent in the lamplight. The blanket smelled faintly of milk and the rosewater lotion the nannies used on the twins. It was such a small, clean scent, the kind that made her ache.

She closed her eyes. For a moment, she imagined the sound of Roman’s voice, low, sure, saying her name the way he used to when the world still felt soft around it. Saoirse. That slow, deliberate way, as if the syllables themselves were something he’d built and owned.

Her chest tightened, a tear rolled down one eye.

When she opened her eyes again, she wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing there. The courtyard light had shifted, and the guard was gone.

She turned back down the corridor, past the nursery again. Mariana whimpered softly in her sleep, so Saoirse entered and brushed her hair from her face. She lifted her daughter. The infant’s head rested against her chest, warm and impossibly small.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, pacing. “You’re all right.” Mariana sighed. Saoirse kept walking, her bare feet soundless on the carpet.

Through the open door, the scent reached her, roses, faint but unmistakable. She looked toward the hall table and saw them, a new vase, fresh from delivery earlier in the night, white again, sunlight trapped in glass.

For a moment, she only stared. Then she reached out, brushing one petal with her fingertip, the gold of the rosary’s crucifix clinking against the glass of the large vase. The petal’s softness startled her. Her grandmother’s voice rose in her mind, haunting her, quiet as breath. They thrive on neglect. She couldn’t get it out of her head.

Saoirse smiled faintly, not sure why. She pressed her finger to her lips, then to the baby’s head, as if sealing a secret neither of them could name. She kept walking again, farther than she meant to, past the main living area, past the guest wings, to the eastern wing she rarely entered. Only the rhythm of the baby’s sighs kept her tethered to the moment.

She had just begun to hum an old melody without words as she paced, Mariana cradled to her chest, when she heard the faint padding of soft shoes on marble. The corridor lights were faint blue rings, halos every few steps.

Lisa’s voice followed. “Señora,” she called, barely above a whisper, too gentle to be casual, “You’re awake again?”

Saoirse turned slowly. Lisa stood a few steps away, wrapped in her gray uniform cardigan, hair pinned in the severe way she preferred at night, her expression composed but unmistakably tight. Behind her, one of the auxiliary nannies lingered at the corridor’s bend, pretending to adjust a sconce. There were always two of them, always nearby these days.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Saoirse said. Even as she spoke the words, she saw Bibiana's look of disappointment in her mind's eye. Her tone was even, but she could see Lisa’s eyes move to the bundle in her arms. Mariana stirred, sighing against her chest.

“I know,” Lisa said, stepping closer. Her smile was tender and strained. “She’s restless tonight, yes? I heard her on the monitor and came to check. She sounded unsettled.”

“You heard her?” Saoirse asked, looking down at her daughter. The baby had gone utterly still, as if the world outside the heartbeat she rested on no longer existed.

Lisa nodded. “Just a small sound, como un pajarito.” Mariana only whimpered once, but it gave her permission to approach. She reached out and touched the edge of her blanket. “Maybe she is hungry again.” Her gaze flicked, just briefly, toward the long stretch of corridor behind them, but that silent assessment was impossible to miss.

Saoirse suddenly realized how far she’d walked. How far from the nursery. How far from anyone else.

“She wanted air,” Saoirse whispered finally, tightening her hold. “The rooms feel… suffocating at night. They are too clean. You can’t breathe in them.”

Lisa nodded, but her throat worked. “Of course.” She made another slow step forward. “But the monitors didn’t catch movement until you were almost at the east wing.”

Saoirse frowned slightly. “I didn’t notice.”

“I know,” Lisa said gently. “That’s why I came.”

And there it was, the fear she tried to hide. Not fear of Saoirse, but fear for the baby. Fear of what insomnia mixed with sorrow could do. Fear of the story they would all have to tell if something happened to the babies on their watch.

“I wasn’t going anywhere,” Saoirse said, a little too fast.

“No, of course,” Lisa soothed, even though her eyes betrayed relief. She hesitated. The air between them was fragile, like a thread stretched to its last strand. Then she said, “It’s very late. Let me take her for a moment while you rest. Just until she settles.” She extended her arms slowly, the gesture deferential, practiced, the way one might approach a saint with an offering.

Saoirse held Mariana tighter, the motion instinctive and small. The rosary at her wrist clinked softly against the baby’s head. “She’s not heavy.”

“No, of course not,” Lisa said quickly. “I only meant…” She stopped. There was no safe way to finish the sentence.

“She’s sleeping.”

“I know,” Lisa whispered. “But babies this young startle easily. And… It’s colder near this end of the house.” A diplomatic way of saying it is not safe for her to be this far from her bed.

Saoirse looked down at Mariana. The baby’s breath warmed her collarbone. She hadn’t even realized she’d wandered so far. Lisa’s careful, reverent posture made the truth sting even more. They didn’t trust her with her own child in the dark.

The silence filled with the hum of the vents, the sigh of the night system breathing for them. Somewhere far off, a clock clicked into the next hour.

Then, almost imperceptibly, Saoirse’s shoulders lowered. “All right,” she said. “Just for a moment.”

Lisa stepped forward. The exchange was careful, reverent, as if handling sacred glass. When Mariana’s weight passed from mother to nanny, the air seemed to tilt, Lisa’s shoulders loosened, a micro-release Saoirse saw despite Lisa’s restraint. Saoirse’s hands hovered a second longer than necessary, brushing the baby’s hair once, twice, as if memorizing its temperature.

The auxiliary nanny observed from her corner, silent, eyes lowered.

Lisa rocked the baby lightly. “She settled quickly tonight,” she murmured, soothing both infant and mother. But Saoirse heard what she really meant: Thank God nothing happened.

Saoirse touched the blanket one last time. “She sleeps easier with me.”

“Yes, sí,” Lisa said immediately. “Of course.” Her voice trembled just once.

Lisa turned to go, murmuring something about feeding schedules. Halfway down the corridor, she glanced back. Saoirse was still standing there in the blue-white light, bare feet against marble, one hand holding the rosary, the other touching the space where her daughter had been.

When Lisa disappeared down the hallway, the auxiliary nanny emerged, her slippers soundless. She met Saoirse’s eyes briefly, bowed her head, and whispered, “Buenas noches, Señora.”

Saoirse didn’t answer. She wanted to follow, to watch them return her daughter gently into her crib, but she couldn’t move.

When she finally returned to warmer parts of the villa, she noticed the faint outline of a crucifix reflected in one window of the main hall. Someone had hung another one over the nursery door. It glimmered faintly in the hall light, as if guarding something fragile or cursed. They rearranged shifts. They listened for footsteps at odd hours. They whispered about la señora irlandesa or la dama del mármol who wandered marble halls barefoot at 3 a.m. with a baby in her arms and a rosary in her fist.

She stood a while longer, watching the soft glow of the nursery monitor, until her eyes blurred.

+

It was nearly dawn when they gathered in the service kitchen, the hour when night-shift blurred into morning-shift. The fluorescent light hummed. Coffee steamed in mismatched mugs. Their voices hovered at the level of breath, careful because the house always listened.

Lisa rubbed her hands over her arms, warming the goosebumps that hadn’t left since she found Saoirse in the eastern hall.

“She didn’t even hear me call her at first,” she whispered. “She just kept… walking like she wasn’t touching the floor.”

Lucia crossed herself quickly. “I told you. La señora is like a spirit now.”

One of the junior maids who was barely twenty-two and fresh out of Valencia leaned in, eyes wide. “People say the Irish have thin veils,” she murmured. “Between them and the… other side.”

Lucia shook her head sharply. “Don’t be silly, niña. She’s just lonely.” But her voice wavered, betraying the doubt.

The night butler dried a glass with the care of someone who used ritual to steady himself. “It’s the house...” he gestured vaguely upward, to the gilded ceilings and echoing corridors. “...it swallows sound. If you walk long enough around it, especially alone…” He trailed off.

“You start to disappear into the walls,” one of the other maids supplied.

Lucia groaned. “Ay Dios mío.”

Lisa spoke again, voice low and hoarse. “She walked past the east wing with the baby.”

Every head lifted.

“That far?”

Lisa nodded, shame and fear mingling on her face. “I don’t think she realized. She looked… startled when I mentioned it.”

They all fell silent in a way that carried meaning.

Someone whispered, “Do you think she would ever—?”

“No,” Lisa snapped, more sharply than intended. “No. She loves them. She does. I see it.” But she lowered her eyes, the truth pressing on her ribs.

Lucia poured water into the kettle. “Grief can turn strange, Lisa. My aunt, after the miscarriage, she started sleepwalking. Once, she walked into the garden in the rain and didn’t even wake.”

“This is different,” Lisa whispered.

Marta, who sat at one corner of the large kitchen island silently reviewing household paperwork, always hesitant to talk about their employers, chipped in for the first time that night, “Since the twins arrived.” Her voice grew soft. “…and since Señor been going on these longer trips, she drifts.”

Lucia made the sign of the cross again. She did it more often lately. “She moves as if she’s listening for something.” She shuddered. “The walls feel colder when she’s walking.”

“No more of that,” Lisa hissed, though she didn't entirely disagree.

For a long moment, none of them spoke. The maids left the room with Marta to begin the day’s cleaning, though nothing in the untouched house particularly needed it.

When the doors closed behind them, the butler said to the nannies and gardeners, “If you see a woman wandering marble halls at three in the morning, barefoot, whispering to rosaries and shadows, in old stories, she’s a ghost.”

Lisa swallowed hard. “No. She’s alive, and she needs help.”

“Help from who?” Lucia asked. “Señor is never here.”

A gardener looked toward the ceiling, toward the winding halls above. His voice dropped to a reverent hush, “La dama del mármol.” The lady of the marble.

The others shivered because the name fit too well, too beautifully, the quiet figure who wandered Roman Suarez’s golden halls like someone caught between being cherished and being forgotten.