She was looking at me differently now and it wasn’t the cold look from the morning after the ruin or professionally neutral look she’d worn for the last three days.
This was weighted, suspicious and in the mix it was almost as if I could sense disdain.
She looked like she was missing a piece of information and was trying to find the details at all cost.
She suspected something.
I noticed it at breakfast when she looked up from her phone and held my gaze for half a second longer than neutrality required and then asked me a very interesting question.
“Is there anything I should know?” She was calm, her face devoid of emotions.
“Not that I know of, or is there anything you think I should be telling you?” I asked back.
“Not that I know of, either.
I,’m asking, just in case.” She said and simply went back to her food.
I noticed it again at lunch, when I mentioned the final event and she responded too normally, like she wasn’t too certain of my words or what I was saying.
I sat across from her and tried to identify when something shifted but couldn’t pinpoint it.
The thing about the last days of is that you feel the ending before the end.
Like in the way the previous night feels different from the coming morning, or like how you notice the last breath of a dying animal but can’t do anything about it.
I ate breakfast at the same table I’d been eating at with the same fig trees outside the window, the same bells in the distance and still, this particular morning felt extra different.
I sat with my coffee and felt strongly that everything was finally winding down.
This was the end of an era.
I had not expected the honeymoon to be useful or that I’d be this attached to it.
It was supposed to be just a necessary proximity that produced content and established the daily familiarity that would make the marriage feel real to anyone watching.
I had planned for it the way I planned for everything – with clarity and perfection.
I anticipated everything in advance, with possible defined outcomes.
But life was what it was.
It had its way of twisting things.
For one, I had not planned for Portugal.
I had no plans for the ruin, the empty building or the storm.
I also didn’t plan for the way she’d felt against my chest in the dark or the laugh she’d given me over my father’s uncomfortable chair.
All of these things had made the last ten days feel less like strategy and more like something real.
I thought about this, as Sloane sat opposite me realizing that the last day of our honeymoon was filled with a myriad of unspoken feelings.
She was avoiding me today like she did when she was processing something unresolved and It bothered me more than it should have.
“The final event is at seven.” I said to her.
Not that she didn’t know.
I was sure Maya already reminded her.
But I just wanted to talk to her.
To lift this weight of awkwardness that had settled between us.
“Oh.” she said silently.
“I’ll be ready.” She added.
Then after a few minutes, she got on her feet and silently left the table.
The final event was a publicity dinner arranged by our PR teams in collaboration with the resort.
It was at a rooftop venue with a fancy table covered in white tablecloths, the valley spread out below in the last of the evening light.
It was the kind of setting that was curated specifically to be photographed so everything was perfect.
She came downstairs in something emerald, and I watched her cross the lobby and thought about the red dress from the first dinner.
Sloane was a stunning woman no doubt, but every time she dressed like this, she tugged at my heartstrings a little harder.
Both times she had dressed like a woman who understood the assignment.
We moved through the event well.
We were getting very good at this game of pretense.
Those were my thoughts as we moved through the crowd like two people who had stopped performing and simply were.
She laughed at something a guest said and touched my arm twice during conversation, once to make a point and once without reason, and I wondered if she noticed she’d done it.
When the photographer came, she moved toward me without waiting for directions.
The pictures were going to be extraordinary.
I could see it in real time, the way people’s faces changed when they watched us and the way other couples at the event were focused on us slightly more than anything else and how strangers smiled when we weren’t looking.
There was something between us that other people could see that we were only beginning to admit.
It was visible – palpable to touch even.
I knew Sloane would never accept it though.
At dinner, she sat close enough that our elbows touched, and neither of us moved.
I watched her through the speeches.
She listened carefully, and when she agreed with something she didn’t nod, she just went very still.
I knew that now.
I also knew the difference between her thinking face and her listening face.
I had spent fourteen days learning the grammar of a woman I had watched from a distance for years.
And in three hours we were getting on a plane back to Seattle to live separate lives, with separate offices, in a house with separate rooms and a contract with an expiry date hovering over our heads.
The event ended at ten and the guests filtered out in the slow way that good evenings ended.
It was a gradual process with small groups that lingered at the exit.
Sloane had been speaking to a couple from a neighboring resort and when they finally left she turned and found herself standing close to me.
It was just us at the rooftop watching the valley below.
“The photos will be good,” She said, staring ahead.
“They will.” I concurred.
“The team will be pleased.” I nodded, “Yes.” She looked out at the valley while I looked at her.
“Sloane.” I kept my voice even.
“I want to talk to you about something.” She turned toward me and I watched her face change from neutral to disdain as if she just remembered something that pissed her off and ruined her mood.
“Tomorrow, ” I started off.
“I’m tired.” She said and picked up her bag.
“We have an early flight.
We should get some rest.” “It’ll take five minutes.” “Tomorrow, Zane.” She said with an air of finality.
She had decided it was the end of the conversation and I didn’t want to argue with her after what was seemingly a successful night.
She walked to the exit and I watched her go.
The rooftop was empty now, just me standing alone with my thoughts when my phone rang.
It was Henry.
If he is calling me by Ten-thirty PM, it had to be something that couldn’t wait.
“Sir.” His voice was careful, already sounding like bad news.
“Someone has been talking.
It’s reached sources we weren’t expecting.” I went still.
I needed to be back in Seattle as soon as possible.