Tarian.
Wednesday, 5th November.
Next day…
Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Late afternoon.
“We’re descending now, Sir.” Captain Fjor’s voice crackles through the surround speaker of the jet.
Mild static disturbs the otherwise meticulous delivery.
I drag my eyes up from the novel I’d been reading on my phone as he continues, “Beautiful Nantucket is just below us now.
We will be arriving at the airstrip in seconds.”
The transmission ends, leaving only the hum of the engines and the slowly descending horizon.
Clouds part beneath us.
Nantucket unfurls in blues and greens.
Calm and deceptively serene.
The coastline glitters, rising to meet us, already entrancing like the woman who invited me to this island days ago.
I exhale heavily.
My mind betrays me, returning to last night’s argument with Viola.
The way our raised voices shredded whatever thin peace remained between us.
“You will not be leaving this house tomorrow, Tarian.
Not if I can stop it.” She snapped, violently.
My eyes were fixed on the pile of car keys she’d already dumped into a plastic bag.
“Viola, set those keys down.
You’re going to get them missing…”
“And so fucking what?” she fired back.
“Let them go missing.
You can always buy another one.
But I cannot have another you.
Never.”
Her voice cracked on those last words.
And for a moment, just a fleeting goddamn moment, my heart softened.
Viola’s eyes were red rimmed, pained, broken.
She looked devastated.
She had fallen under the illusion that with our marriage, I had become her comfort.
Her forever.
Not because we had love.
Not because we had connection.
But because her humanity settled for me the moment we first got intimate.
She was ready to go through with it, ready to try, ready to maybe fall in love with me, If I had given her any reason to.
But I hadn’t.
I withheld.
I never compromised.
I never gave her the dignity of a delusion.
I kept reminding us both that ours wasn’t a marriage chosen.
It was imposed.
A contract born of status and expectation, not desire.
“Viola… you know you never had me.
Stop doing this to yourself.” I muttered, quietly.
“Why?” She choked.
“Why didn’t you ever let me have you?
I could have had you.
Why didn’t you just let me?
Why did you always hold back?”
She sobbed harshly, sinking to the ground, swallowed whole by a spiral she didn’t know how to escape.
I closed the space between us, reaching for her.
“Don’t.” She snapped, recoiling.
“Don’t.
I don’t need your pity hold.”
So I stayed there, crouched in front of her, watching her cry.
Her shoulders shuddered as her breath broke in fragments.
I turned my head when I sensed movement and caught sight of one of the staff peeking through a doorway.
Fear and concern etched on her face.
I signaled her over.
When she approached, I pressed the bag of keys into her hands.
“See that they’re kept in their rightful place,” I instructed.
She nodded and retreated.
When she was gone, I slid down and sat with my back against the wall, across from Viola.
Silence settled between us, thick, strained.
Fractured only by her muffled cries.
“We can’t keep doing this to ourselves,” I finally said, my voice small, tired.
“Living this trap our parents set for us.
We’re both intelligent and we both know when a ship has run its course.”
She lifted her gaze to mine then and I saw it.
Fear.
Viola was not a woman afraid of life itself, but of the what ifs.
What if I was wrong and she was right?
What if I was just afraid to commit?
What if our parents weren’t wrong?
What if she ended us and regret followed, brutal and late?
What if we were meant for each other and she had let go?
But the truth was mercilessly simple: I never loved Viola.
Not even a spark.
To me, she had always been a means to an end.
When we discovered we couldn’t have children, not due to poor results, but due to something unseeable, untouchable, I lost even the practical interest in binding us.
I wasn’t going to shackle her youth, her shine, her beauty, her vibrancy to a sentence of slow rot just because society deemed marriage respectable.
Letting her go was the only unselfish thing I had ever done for her.
“I wouldn’t file for divorce, Tarian,” Viola finally said.
Her voice was tight.
“If you so will it, then file for divorce.”
She rose to her feet.
Her gaze held mine, stern and brittle.
I frowned, unconvinced by her sudden resolve.
The words didn’t match the tremor in her tone.
“What do you mean?” I asked, skeptical.
“You can ask for a divorce, but I will never give you the satisfaction of getting one.”
With those words, she turned and walked out.
Leaving me on the floor of the living room, alone with her ultimatum echoing against the walls.
“Sir, we’ve arrived.”
The pilot’s voice on the speakers, drags me back to the present.
I blink, realizing the window in front of me is fogged with my breath.
The hostess stands nearby, watching me with careful concern.
I nod once and begin the process of disembarking the jet as it taxis.
Minutes later, I’m down the stairs of the jet.
The sky is bright above us.
Cold coastal air brushing across my face.
Ahead sits a sleek black sedan.
“Is that the car that was arranged for me?” I ask the head hostess.
He looks toward the vehicle, puzzled.
“Your secretary informed us to expect a white SUV,” he replies.
The car in front of us is certainly not an SUV.
I descend fully and head toward it.
Before I reach the vehicle, the rear door opens.
I slow instinctively and then Murieann Amran steps out.
Of course she does.
Chic, composed, and far too pleased with herself.
She wears a two toned ensemble.
A white cape draped over a fitted black dress.
Her hair pulled into a low, sleek bun.
Pearls at her wrist.
Black boots that look both expensive and intentional.
Her hips sway as she comes into full view.
I stop in front of her.
Our gazes lock.
Mine holding mild amusement and surprise, hers sparkling with flirtation and something dangerously close to delight.
“I thought we said I would find my way to you,” I say quietly.
The words should feel wrong, but I don’t correct them.
I let them land.
They land exactly where she wants them.
She raises a brow and smiles, luring instead of easing.
“You said it.” She counters.
“I didn’t.”
She closes the gap between us.
Her perfume hits me.
Heady, dark, expensive and I feel the ground tilt.
Or maybe it’s just me.
“You never take ‘no thank you’ for an answer, do you?” I whisper.
Our breaths mingle.
Her gaze holds mine for a slow, decadent beat.
Then she bites her rose red lower lip.
“No, Tarian.” She murmurs.
“I never do.”