The coffee kept happening.
I always made extra in the morning when I was the first to wake up and he drank it.
Then he made extra on some mornings.
Before I came down, and I drank that.
Neither of us really mentioned it or actively talked about it.
It was just a quiet moment we decided to share without labeling it or acting like it was there.
It occurred frequently now.
It was as normal as the way the sun came up or the housekeeper restocked the fridgem.
It was an established fact of the house nobody needed to discuss.
That was all I thought it was.
Except it wasn’t.
Not quite, because somewhere in the second week he started asking how or if I’d slept at all.
He started asking not because he just wanted to make small talk and fill the silence but because he was actually concerned and in those moments his eyes inquired more than what a basic “fine” and moving on could answer.
He actually wanted the answer, and the first time it happened I was so surprised by his next statement.
“You were still up at one.
I heard you on a call.” I was so stunned, I forgot to give him the deflection I’d had ready for two years.
“Not really,” I admitted, and the honesty of it surprised me more than the question had.
“Whitmore again?” “Whitmore again.” I sighed, letting my exhaustion show for a moment.
He didn’t say anything else.
Just nodded, like that confirmed something he’d already suspected, and went back to his coffee.
But being seen that clearly, someone noticing my exhaustion and knowing its cause without me having to explain it, made me feel seen and remained strangely in my chest for the rest of the day.
The days had a rhythm now, we left separately and worked separately.
I was at Reed Industries managing the slow grind of the Whitmore situation, the committee’s continued probation and Veronica’s relentless campaign, which had quieted in volume but not in persistence as she was a woman who understood that some fires burned better low and steady.
Zane was at the Della-Ross offices managing whatever Della-Ross required, which from what little he said involved Asher and Uncle Roman and a will that had more layers than anyone had initially understood.
We didn’t talk about any of that in detail as we had an unspoken agreement that the house was where the noise stopped.
This Tuesday, the noise didn’t stop.
I had a meeting that morning with the full committee, including two new members Veronica had clearly lobbied hard for, and by the time I left I understood the probation period wasn’t going to end quietly.
Someone had raised the idea of an independent audit of the marriage, not even legality, which was unassailable, but the conduct of it.
And I was stuck there thinking; Did these people think my marriage was just another Reed Industry mega project?
How do you even audit a marriage?!
Of course, he had answers.
It was going to check whether we lived as a married couple and if the arrangement met some undefined standard of legitimacy that nobody could articulate but everyone seemed entitled to judge.
It was infuriating having to sit through hours of people who had never been married and those who weren’t in my marriage questioning whether it counted.
By the time I got home, I walked into the living room without thinking about where I was going, just needing somewhere to sit before I went upstairs.
Zane was already there.
He looked up from whatever he was reading and I must have looked exactly the way I felt, because he set the file down and stood.
“Bad?” he asked.
“They want an audit.” “Of what?” “Us.
Whatever that even means!” I sat down heavily on the opposite end of the sofa.
“Whether we’re,” I gestured vaguely.
“Married enough.
I guess?” He didn’t say anything.
Instead, he went to the kitchen and came back with a mug of tea I didn’t particularly want until it was in my hands.
He sat back down but closer this time.
“Turn,” he said.
“What?” “Turn around.
Your shoulders are almost up next to your steaming cartoon ears.” I turned, mostly out of confusion, and then “Oh Gosh!
That feels heavenly…” I let out a soft moan as his hands landed on my shoulders, working something into the back of my neck that pulled a sound out of me I had not authorized.
“Oh my god,” I said again.
“That bad?” “That’s not, Oh Fu…no, that’s,” I bit my lips and gave up on the sentence, letting my head drop forward.
He worked in silence for a while and slowly the tension that had been sitting in my neck since seven that morning began to leave.
“Do you know what Whitmore said in his last email?” I asked eventually, mostly to fill the silence, because complaining was easier than feeling whatever I was currently feeling.
“What?” “He said and I’m quoting, ‘I trust that the personal arrangement will not distract from operational priorities.'” I felt Zane’s hands pause briefly.
“Personal arrangement.
Like we’re in a scheduling conflict.” I continued.
“You should tell him the personal arrangement includes someone who can dismantle his entire portfolio before lunch if he keeps emailing things like that.” I laughed.
It came out before I could stop it, sharp and surprised, and he must have felt it because his hands stilled yet again and I could feel him smiling behind me even though I couldn’t see it.
“You should put that in the email,” I said.
“I’ll have Henry draft something diplomatic that says the same thing.” “That’s a skill.” I chuckled.
“It’s the only skill that matters in this family.” I laughed again, smaller this time, and sat there with his hands on my shoulders, the tea cooling slightly and the day receding into something that felt, for the first time since the meeting ended, manageable.
I didn’t realize how badly I’d needed that until it had already happened.
I went to my room an hour later, smiling.
I didn’t notice until I was halfway to my bedroom when I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror and saw my own face doing something I hadn’t told it to do.
I stopped.
Why was I smiling?
I stood there for a long moment, the question sitting in my chest with an uncomfortable weight, because the answer was obvious and I didn’t want it to be.
Why did I feel comfortable here?
This house wasn’t mine and the marriage wasn’t real in the way that mattered for the committee’s audit or how I spent my whole life imagining marriage would be.
The question followed me up the rest of the stairs and into my room.
I sat on the edge of my bed for a long time without turning on the light, turning it over without finding an answer I liked.
I was still sitting there, in the dark, when I heard the music.
Faint, coming from somewhere below.
A slow, melancholy melody piano I didn’t recognize.
I got up and slightly opened my door which increased the sound to a bothersome volume and made me ascertain exactly where it was coming from.
Zane’s office.
I stood very still and listened, and underneath the question I’d been asking myself in the hallway, a new one formed.
What was he doing down there alone and in the dark with music like that?