Who am I when I am not wearing my mask?
Nobody had ever asked me that.
In my twenty-five years of existence, the question had never come up and no one had cared enough to know who I was beyond the surface.
This man wanted to know me?
He wanted to see I was when I wasn’t being Sloane Reed?
I rummaged through the question in my head.
People rarely asked me personal questions.
It was always about Reed Industries, the board, my five-year projections and succession plans and opinion on quarterly earnings.
If they wanted to go deeper, then they asked about Cole, and now, about Zane and my marriage.
Nobody had ever looked at me and wondered what was underneath the version of me that did all of that.
Zane was looking at me like he actually wanted to know.
“Do you really want to know?” I asked incredulously.
“Yes.
Why is that surprising?
We’re supposed to be married, aren’t we?” he questioned back.
It shouldn’t be weird that someone wanted to get to know me for who i was truly and not what I was, had or the position I held but it was because I was so used to people coming around with ulterior motives.
It was another day in his home office.
The speakers were still playing something with a softer beat than before in the background, and the office felt smaller than it had ten minutes ago.
I had a real, physical urge to just answer him and say: I like reality television, the trashy kind, where people get married after two weeks on an island and everyone pretends to be shocked when it falls apart.
I like snacking at midnight even though I tell my nutritionist I don’t.
I sleep in until ten on weekends when nobody’s watching and I hate exercise with a passion three separate personal trainers have failed to fix.
I wanted to say all of it but from experience, I still had this crippling feeling it could be used against me and a strong urge to still protect myself, even though he didn’t give me any reason to act like this.
So, I didn’t.
The last person who’d known something true about me had been cheating and getting fucked in the ass by someone else three weeks before our wedding.
Who could blame me?
“That’s a strange question,” I said instead.
“Is it?” “It’s midnight.
You’re asking me an existential question because you’re bored.” I told him.
“I asked because I’m curious.” “About what?” “About you.” He said it simply.
He was just stating a fact.
I crossed my arms as the hoodie suddenly felt too thin.
It’s not like I knew much about him too.
“Fine,” I said.
“Then let’s make it fair.
Who are you, Zane?
When you’re not being the Chairman.
When nobody’s watching.
What do you actually like?” A brief emotion moved across his face that looked like contemplation.
It was barely a flicker,but I caught it.
It was like a door, opening slightly, then closing again before I could see what was behind it.
“I like quiet,” he said.
I shook my head.
“That’s not an answer.
That’s a description of right now.” “It’s true, though.” “What else?” He was quiet for a moment.
The music had moved to something instrumental, strings, and the silence between songs stretched a beat too long before the next one started.
“I used to play piano,” he said.
“Before my father died.
He thought it was a waste of time and said the Della-Ross sons needed an education that produced results, not hobbies.” He paused.
“So, I stopped.
I still had a piano in this house until six months after he died, reminding me of the parts of me I sacrificed to be the perfect heir.” The office was very quiet.
“Do you regret it?” I asked.
“Every day.” He said nonchalantly “I have a piano in my office downtown.
Nobody knows.
I play it sometimes, late, when I think no one’s around.” I looked at him.
This was the most he had ever told me about himself, voluntarily, without it being extracted by a crisis, a contract clause or a question I’d overheard through a wall.
And the strange thing was, I understood completely, the wanting to prove something to someone who couldn’t see it, the hiding of the thing that mattered most where nobody would find it.
I have a piano too.
I thought and almost said.
One that belonged to my father and remained untouched in the music room of the Reed estate since he died, because nobody played.
I could have sold it, but selling it felt like erasing him.
I didn’t say it.
Instead, I looked at the time and let the moment close to avoid talking about myself.
“It’s late,” Zane said, standing abruptly.
“I have an early call.
Della-Ross board.” “Yes, It’s past midnight.” I replied.
“International.
Different time zones.
You know how it is.” He said, already moving towards the door, picking his jacket on the back of the chair and morphing back to the version of himself that handled things like a CEO instead of feeling them.
“I should sleep.” “Right.” I muttered.
“Good night, Sloane.” He left.
Not rudely as the perfect gentleman he was groomed to be.
He was perfectly civil but abrupt in a way nothing else that evening had been, and I stood there in his office with the music still playing low, feeling like I’d been left holding something he hadn’t wanted to carry.
He was avoiding the moment.
I recognized it because I did the exact same thing.
I am glad.
I was glad he’d ended it before a piano confession and a borrowed hoodie became something else that could compromise the careful structure of our arrangement.
I told myself this on the walk back to my room but in my bed lying and staring at the ceiling, his words sat in my chest at how honest he was this evening and some part of me wished things were different.
“I have a piano in my office downtown.
Nobody knows.” The words replayed in my mind.
He’d told me something nobody knew.
And I hadn’t told him the same thing back.
Somewhere underneath the relief I kept insisting I felt, there was something that wished I had.
The heart to be vulnerable.
The next day, at work, my phone buzzed at nine-forty.
Dinner tonight.
The Marchetti place on Fifth.
7pm.
Don’t argue, you’ve already agreed to this in your head.
I read it twice.
Then I noticed that I was smiling involuntarily.
It was the sheepish grin you get when your favourite person sends you a random goofy text in the middle of your day.
I caught myself doing it and tried to stop and couldn’t entirely manage it.
Fine.
I typed back.
But I’m choosing what we talk about.
Deal.
That was his response.
I put the phone down and looked at it for a moment longer than necessary, still smiling.
That was when Maya walked in with the morning briefing and stopped a few steps in.
She looked at my face then at my phone, paused and smiled.
“I noticed something interesting.” she started “Pray tell, what is that?” I asked, puzzled.
“You smile every time your husband texts you.” She remarked, continuing with an obnoxiously wide grin.
“I have never seen you like this.
It’s the cutest thing!” Oh dear God.