Chapter 3 #3
He smiled, but it was more a tightening of the eyes than the mouth.
“I'm still working on it. What's yours?”
I thought of my father, the room at the top of the building, the signature on the term sheet that would be delivered by hand tomorrow. I thought of the years of being told not to embarrass the family, and the fact that tonight, for the first time, I didn't care if I did.
“My story?” I said. “I'm the person who gets the story first.”
He nodded, as if this was exactly the answer he'd expected, then looked out at the harbor again. For a second, I wanted to say something that would take the conversation off script, undo the last seven minutes of strategic exchange. But I couldn't find the sentence.
And I knew, without knowing how, that neither could he.
Behind us, the upper deck doors slid open. A woman's voice, sharp and efficient. “Andre. They're ready for the handshake photos.”
Sofia Alvarez. I recognized her by the precision of the consonants, the weight of the accent that only came out when she was annoyed.
Andre straightened, then turned, acknowledging Sofia with a minimal nod. He looked at me, and for a split second, there was a question in the look. Something he would have asked if there were time.
I held the look. “Break a leg.”
He smiled, real this time, then walked toward the waiting camera flash.
Sofia lingered, just long enough to give me the up-and-down. There was respect in it, and something more clinical: the way a doctor sizes up a rival before a surgery.
When they were gone, I walked to the end of the deck, the heels in my hand again, and watched the photo op from above.
Andre posed with Beatriz, then with the CEO, then with the footballer, each shot as controlled as the last. The only time he smiled with his teeth was for the art-fair girl, who'd sidled back into the frame without invitation.
I stayed in the shadow of the wheelhouse, out of sight.
Better, I thought. From here you can see the whole show.
Below, the water licked at the hull, relentless. I watched Andre shake hands, watched him return to the script, and wondered how many layers down the real story was hiding.
By one a.m., Port Hercule was unrecognizable. The last of the tenders had ferried their guests to the city's casino suites. The water mirrored the lights of emptying superyachts. The cold was sharp enough to cut through silk and bone.
The deckhand from earlier was nowhere in sight. I navigated the gangway alone, heels in hand, each footstep an education in surface tension and self-reproach.
The dock was deserted except for a man at the far end, turned away from the city. He wore a suit jacket over a dark crewneck, hands in pockets, head bent as if listening to the water rather than the world behind him. I recognized the posture before the profile.
Andre.
Walk past him.
Don't.
I walked the length of the dock, intending to pass without slowing, but as I drew close I saw the white of a cigarette between his fingers, unlit.
He thumbed it once, spun it, and returned it to the pack without lifting his gaze from the water.
Something in the precision of the movement, a discipline born of repetition, made the gesture look like a habit, not a comfort.
He heard me before I meant him to.
“You're leaving early.” Low and unslurred. Not the voice of a man who'd been drinking.
I stopped a meter from him, the heels swinging gently at my side. “There's nothing left to stay for.”
He looked at me then. The eyes were different in this light: no longer black, but a dark, unfamiliar brown that caught the dock's sodium lamps and made them animal.
“Not a fan of the afterparty?”
“Not a fan of parties, period.”
He nodded. “You're not what I expected.”
I smiled, small. “Nobody ever is.”
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The silence was less awkward than inevitable. Andre turned the cigarette in his fingers without lighting it.
“You want to walk?”
I considered it. The possibility hung between us, fragile, an unspent gesture.
Say yes.
“I have an early morning.”
He nodded. “So do I.”
We stood there, facing the water, the city at our backs, both unwilling to move first.
“Goodnight, Andre.”
He watched me, not blinking, then said, “Goodnight, Celeste.”
The use of my name was a small violence.
I walked away, my bare feet cold on the dock, and didn't look back until I reached the waiting car.
Through the rear window I saw him still there, hands in pockets, eyes on the harbor, and I thought of the men my father's generation had called born to it.
Men who could be left alone for hours, in a storm or a silence, and never once thought to complain.
The car started. The city unfolded ahead of me, empty and gold-lit, the route to the penthouse a private corridor through a world built for other people's stories.
As we pulled from the harbor, I let myself look once more at the man on the dock.
Still alone. Still refusing to light the cigarette.
Idiot, I told myself. You should have stayed.
I thought, for the first time in months, that I wished I hadn't left.