Was his heart beating that hard for me?
That was what my mind kept coming back to.
I was in the shower the next morning and his heartbeat was there, the thought in my mind.
The way his chest had felt under my palm, warm and solid, beating with urgency that told me everything I suspected but was not ready to know.
I had done that to him and made his heart race for me.
I smiled at the thought and caught myself.
Sloane, do not catch feelings.
This isn’t real.
He is just really good at playing groom and husband at the end of the day.
My train of thought was dangerous enough that I spent the next moments standing by the window trying to remember what it felt like to want nothing from anyone.
I had managed it for years and this certainly wasn’t’ the time I would start depending on people, especially men.
The new resort was in Portugal.
Sintra, where the country turned green, dramatic and every building was made of stone and old garden walls with lights than shined so beautifully, it was like I had never seen lights anywhere else I’d been.
Our villa was carved into the hillside, looking down over a valley that hadn’t changed in five hundred years.
The villa was canvased with fig trees, terracotta vases and the sound of distant bells.
I knew I was not going to enjoy this, I felt so far out of my comfort zone.
Except on the second morning I noticed I’d already taken four photographs that had nothing to do with the PR strategy we were supposed to be working with.
One of the valley from our terrace, the breakfast tray, a wall with climbing flowers that I had stopped in front of without meaning to and one of a cat sleeping on a stone step.
And I noticed the way Zane watched me take the photograph of the cat.
And when I turned to look back, he looked away and acted like he had been doing something else.
He later just stood a few feet behind me as we walked, with his hands in his jacket pockets, and when I turned around, his expression was warm, a version he had when he was relaxed and in the hours when there were no cameras and contracts and just the two of us in a five-hundred-year-old landscape enjoying the view like it was our everyday life which in fact was far from it.
I looked at him a little longer than I should have, wondering if this was how it was going to feel having something real.
“What?” he asked smiling “There’s a bug on your shirt.” I said plainly.
“Oh , shit!
Where??” he panicked.
“I’m just messing with you.” I said with a chuckle before I discarded my initial thoughts.
“Ha, ha very funny.” He rolled his eyes but smiled regardless.
Then I pocketed my phone, still smiling at the thought of the warm moment we had before I walked ahead.
Maya called at two while I was on the terrace with an almost finished cup of coffee just staring at the valley, which was new for me.
When her face appeared on screen I greeted her.
“Hey Maya.” I greeted her with a smile..
She looked at me for a couple of seconds before saying anything.
“You look different.” My brows rose.
“I look the same.” “You don’t.” She tilted her head and stared at me even more intently.”Are you relaxed?” I laughed.
“I’m on a honeymoon.
I’m supposed to look relaxed.” “You’ve never looked relaxed in your life.
In fact you even looked stressed in the last vacation I made you go for.” She leaned forward.
“Is Zane-” I knew where this was going so I immediately cut her off.
“Send me the updated board response when it’s ready.” I picked up my cold coffee just to have something to do with my hands.
“Yes, Miss Sloane.” She tried not to smile, which made me bite back mine.
“I have to go.” I said and ended the call before she could look at me any longer.
She was wrong.
I was not relaxed.
What I was, was if I was being honest…
Giddy Which was new to me.
Something that had started around the second day in Portugal when Zane had pushed a glass of local wine across the table without asking and told me to taste.
And I had.
It was exceptional, and then I looked at him in the evening light and thought…
what if?
I shut the thought down as soon as it came.
The excursion had been his idea.
One of the hilltop ruins, twenty minutes by car, scenic enough for the PR team and interesting enough that even I had agreed without the usual negotiation.
We had started in clear weather but soon enough the clouds came rolling in fast, building from nothing to everything in the time it took to walk from the east wall to the western overlook.
The rain started when we were inside the main ruin.
Inside being a word used loosely to mean four stone walls and a partial ceiling that covered approximately thirty percent of the floor space.
We pressed ourselves against the dry wall and watched the rain come down in ropes outside.
“We can’t stay out here, let’s go across the moat to the building with lights on.” Zane suggested.
“I can’t get wet!” I screamed over the rain.
“I am sure you can.” He winked.
“Ew!” I screamed as I laughed and hit him slightly on the arm.
“Okay, let’s go.
One, two, three!” I counted down and ran with him screaming through the rain like teenagers.
We made it across to the building and found it empty.
The clouds had darkened so bad, it looked like night and the only light we could see was the singular bulb in the building.
“We made it, now all we have to do is wait.” Zane said “Now the question is what do we do while we wait.” I sighed, trying to shake off the wetness in my hair.
Zane and I talked about things that only came out when there was nowhere to go, everything and anything.
He told me about his mother, who had taught herself three languages after his father died because she said she refused to let grief make her smaller.
I told him about my father’s secret record collection that nobody knew about, three hundred vinyls in a cupboard in his study that I’d found after his funeral and hadn’t told anyone about because I couldn’t explain why I wanted to keep it just for myself.
He told me that he’d almost not taken over the Della-Ross empire.
That there had been a year at age twenty-one when he had seriously considered walking away.
“What stopped you?” I asked.
“Responsibility.” He paused.
We looked at each other for a moment, feeling silence descend on us.
The rain was still coming down outside and the stone wall was cold at my back and his shoulder was against mine and I didn’t move away from it.
“Why did you really do it?” I asked.
“Marry me.” He turned his head toward me, I could see him contemplating what answer to give me.
I glared at him.
“Don’t give me the PR answer.
Why did you?” There was terrible lightning followed by the loudest thunder and then the power went out.
The singular bulb that illuminated our faces went out and we were plunged into complete darkness in a way I had not prepared for.
I screamed and I moved without thinking, reaching for the only solid thing that existed, grabbing it with both hands.
Zane caught me before I fully registered I was moving.
His arms came around me, my face was against his chest and my hands were gripping his jacket, both of us were completely still.
My heart was hammering and my hands were shaking.
“I got you,” he said quietly, into the top of my head.
And the part of me that had spent a decade keeping distance from everyone collapsed very quietly against his chest.
Because I believed him.