I could never have thought the mighty Sloane was sacred of a little darkness.
She was still holding on to me like her life depended on me.
The lightning had gone, the thunder moved east and the rain had softened from light ropes to a steady grey curtain.
The ark interior had settled into the dimness of a clouded afternoon rather than the absolute black of that first second after the bulb went off.
And Sloane was buried in my chest with her hands fisted in my jacket and her eyes closed.
I didn’t move, shift or speak.
I didn’t do anything that might have reminded her where she was, because she clearly hadn’t noticed yet.
I stood with my back against the stone wall and one hand at her back and felt her breathing slowly return to something that wasn’t panic.
Then she breathed in and then sharply exhaled.
And, because Sloane’s brain never actually stopped running, I felt the precise moment she came back to herself.
The awareness moved through her body from her hands to her shoulders before her head came up.
I stared back at her, taking in the beauty of her almond shaped eyes.
“You’re scared of the dark,” I pointed out softly.
“I’m not.” Her tone was clipped.
“You screamed and jumped into my arms.” “I was startled.” That was a weak defense and even she knew it.
“Into my arms.” I smirked.
She tried to step back.
I kept one hand at her waist, not gripping, just present, and she stopped trying because the stone wall was directly behind me and stepping back wasn’t an option.
“Let go.” She ordered a little sternly.
“In a minute.” I was enjoying this a little too much.
“Zane.” Her glare was fiercer.
“You’re still shaking.” Her jaw tightened.
She was, I could feel it, there was a faint tremor in her hands where they were still holding my jacket, which she hadn’t released, which I was not going to point out.
“I’m fine,” She insisted.
“I know.” I eventually let her go.
Sloane stepped back, reassembling every layer at once.
Her shoulders, expression and of course her invisible armour.
By the time she’d finished, the vulnerable and soft woman from seconds ago was gone and the one I recognized from Seattle was back – composed, cold and untouchable, looking at me like I was a meeting she needed to get through.
“This is a contract,” She stated out of nowhere.
Her voice was flat and final.
Making sure there was no room to fight back.
“We are not supposed to get close when it’s not necessary.
We’re not supposed to,” She stopped and started again.
“What just happened was a reaction to darkness and not to you.” “I know,” I said again even when a part of me wanted to disagree.
“Then we understand each other.” “We do.” She held my gaze for a moment longer, turned toward the entrance of the building and watched the rain.
The instant it was over, she was out of the building before I’d reached the door.
The next morning arrived and we were back to our status quo or maybe even worse.
The villa’s silence told me everything I needed to know.
Unlike the last misunderstanding, she did not sleep in, or avoid me by pretending to be on a call.
She was present and talked to me like normal.
“Zane.
Morning.” She said.
“Morning?” I asked, confused.
She sat at the table with her coffee and her laptop, but her posture spoke volumes.
The way she looked up when I walked in contained no residue of what happened at the ruins.
Just those cold eyes, steady and professionally neutral, giving me the same look she probably gave board members she needed to keep at arm’s length.
“Did you sleep well?” I asked after getting past the initial shock.
“I did, thank you.” She responded monotonously.
I poured my coffee and sat at the other end of the table while she went back to her screen.
This was worse than the Mara silence which had been a reaction to hurt feelings running through familiar channels.
But, this was something else.
Such thick indifference that I could feel the effort of it from across a table.
She wasn’t just ignoring me, she was actively erasing me.
I stayed at the table for twenty minutes.
She answered three emails, made two calls, and didn’t look at me once.
Fine.
I took my coffee and decided to go back to my room.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the valley through the window.
I am not bothered.
I consoled myself.
“This is a beautiful valley.
Old, green and entirely uninteresting.
What am I even doing?” I sighed Then I picked up my phone.
My Instagram wasn’t something I used personally as Henry managed the public posts, brand presence and the content our PR team requested.
But I had the app and occasionally, when the alternative was sitting with my own thoughts in an empty room, I scrolled.
The honeymoon content had been performing.
I knew this without needing to check.
But I opened it anyway and moved through the posts our team had uploaded.
I saw the beach photographs, the dinner, the dance and…
I stopped as my eyes caught something interesting.
It wasn’t one of the staged shots.
The photographer had been moving through the beach event when someone, a guest, a resort photographer, or someone random with a camera who hadn’t been hired had caught us at the water’s edge earlier in the trip.
The photo was just the two of us walking, me slightly ahead, her head turned partially toward me, watching me.
I looked at it for a long time.
The way she was watching me was not something we had staged.
It was the look of a woman who had clearly been staring a lot for a very long time whenever I wasn’t looking back and couldn’t help herself even when no one was supposed to be watching her do it.
Fourteen thousand people had liked it.
The top comment read: She looks at him like she doesn’t know she’s in love with him.
I put my phone face down on the bed.
Could she be in love with me truly?
I sat there for a moment with my feelings having just seen something they weren’t prepared for.
Then the banging started.
My door.
Four hard knocks,before I’d reached it her voice came through the wood, sharp and unmistakable.
“Open the door.” “Open the damn door!” she called angrily as she knocked.
Oh boy, here we go again.