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.