Chapter 14
Miley
Eleanor was looking at photographs when I found her.
Something had been off for two days. She ate less.
Her color had faded from the warm, rosy glow I was used to into something paler, thinner, like someone had turned down her brightness.
The doctor had come by the morning before, a quiet visit that Eleanor dismissed as routine, but Gloria, the housekeeper, told me the truth when I cornered her in the pantry.
“Blood pressure,” Gloria said, with one of her rare full sentences. “Rising again. She worries too much.”
I found Eleanor in the sunroom, settled into the armchair by the window with a leather photo album open across her lap. The afternoon light came through the glass and fell across the pages, illuminating faces I didn’t recognize and one I did.
Christopher, around seven or eight, stood in a garden with his hands at his sides, not smiling.
Every other child in the photo, there were four of them, was grinning at the camera.
Christopher was looking at something off-frame with an expression that didn’t belong on a child’s face—one that was watchful and careful.
“He was never really a part of them,” Eleanor said.
She didn’t look up when I sat down beside her.
Her fingers traced the edge of the photo.
“Even at that age. Patrick wouldn’t let him sit with the family at dinner.
He ate in the kitchen with the staff. When the other family members had birthday parties, Christopher wasn’t invited. He’d watch from the upstairs window.”
She turned the page. Another photo. Christopher slightly older, maybe nine. Standing beside Eleanor in a garden, holding her hand. He was smiling in this one.
“Patrick locked him in the basement once,” Eleanor said, and her voice didn’t waver but her hands did.
“He’d accidentally broken a vase in the foyer, and Patrick decided the appropriate punishment was three hours in the dark.
By the time I found out and got there, the boy hadn’t cried.
He’d just sat in the corner and waited. Eight years old and he’d already learned that crying didn’t bring help,” she whispered.
My eyes burned as she exhaled shakily.
“I should have done more." Her hands trembled against the album pages. "I fought Patrick. I did. I threatened him. I told him that boy was his blood and he had a responsibility." Her expression went somewhere far away.
“But Patrick was a hard man, and Esmeralda was worse. She saw Christopher as proof of her husband's betrayal, and she made sure he knew it. Every day. In small ways that a child couldn't defend against.” Her eyes dropped to the photographs in her lap.
“Excluding him from family photos. Introducing Dominic as 'my son' and Christopher as 'Patrick's other child.' Little cruelties that add up over years until a boy learns that love is conditional. That it can be taken away. That he has to earn it, and even then, it might not be enough.”
She turned the page. Another photo: Christopher, older now, maybe twelve, sitting on a step outside a building that looked like a school. Alone. His bag beside him. No one else in the frame.
“He learned not to trust anyone because the people who should have loved him were the ones who hurt him most.” She looked up at me, and her eyes were wet but her voice was firm.
“I’m not telling you this so you’ll forgive him.
I heard everything. What he did to your restaurant was wrong.
But I need you to understand that the man you’re angry with is also the boy in this photograph.
And that boy has never had someone stay. ”
I looked at the photo. The twelve-year-old on the step with nobody beside him.
I thought about the man who preferred being behind closed doors in his own house, chose to eat breakfast alone, and told me I wasn’t his real wife.
The food thief who ate every meal I made and never once said thank you or never once sat at the table while I was there.
None of this excused the kiwi. None of it erased the lies. But it added context, the way light adds dimension to a photograph, and the flat, two-dimensional villain I’d been carrying in my head since the medical report started to look more complicated.
I took Eleanor’s hand. Her fingers were cool and thin.
“I’ll try,” I said. “I can’t promise anything. I’m still angry that he manipulated me. If he truly regrets it, I will… try.”
She squeezed my hand. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“And the public outings,” I added. “I’ll do them. I’ll be convincing.”
Eleanor smiled—it trembled at the edges. “Thank you, sweetheart.”
I sat with her until she fell asleep in the armchair, the photo album still open on her lap, the picture of that twelve-year-old boy watching me from the page like he already knew I’d be here someday, sitting beside his grandmother, agreeing to try.
The first public outing happened two days later, and I prepared for it the way I’d prepare for surgery: with dread, nausea, and the faint hope that anesthesia was involved.
Trisha had orchestrated a casual lunch at a restaurant in Coral Gables where the paparazzi were reliable, the lighting was flattering, and the tables were spaced just far enough apart to seem private while being perfectly visible from the street.
The whole thing was a stage production disguised as a meal, and I was the understudy who’d been shoved into the spotlight with no rehearsal.
I wore a dress she helped me pick. Simple and expensive, fitted like it was made for my body. I looked good, and I knew it. But looking the part and feeling it were two entirely different things, and right now I had one without the other.
Christopher opened the car door and offered his hand. I stared at it for a second, hesitated, then offered mine. His fingers were warm, his grip steady. He leaned close as we walked toward the restaurant entrance and said, against my ear, “Smile. You look like you’re walking to your execution.”
I pasted on a smile. “I’m imagining yours.”
We sat. We ordered. And then something happened that I wasn’t prepared for.
Christopher transformed.
The cold, distant man from the house disappeared. In his place was someone warm, friendly, I barely recognized.
“So tell me about the reconstruction,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows. “How’s the new layout coming?”
“It’s… coming.”
“And the menu? Have you finalized it?”
I looked at him. He was watching me with full attention, his blue eyes focused, his body angled toward mine like I was the only person in the restaurant.
A waiter passed and Christopher’s hand found the small of my back, casual and warm, guiding me closer to the table without seeming to think about it.
“Why are you being nice?” I asked.
“I’m always nice.”
“No, you’re not.”
He had the decency to look slightly uncomfortable. “I’m working on it.”
“Working on being nice?”
“Working on deserving the food I steal from the fridge.” He picked up his menu. “The prices here are reasonable, by the way.”
I glanced at the menu. The appetizers started at a hundred dollars. “Your definition of reasonable concerns me.”
“Order whatever you want.”
“I want to order something that doesn’t require a second mortgage.”
He grinned. I watched this transformation with the same fascination I’d felt at the resort. The gap between the performance and the person. He was good at this. Terrifyingly good. The question I couldn’t stop asking myself was where the performance ended and where, if anywhere, the real man began.
I played along because I’d signed a contract, because Trisha told me to, and because—if I was being honest, which I was trying not to be—it wasn’t entirely unpleasant being looked at the way Christopher was looking at me right now. Even if it was fake. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
I told myself repeatedly. Every time he leaned closer. Every time his hand found the small of my back. Every time his eyes held mine for a beat longer than necessary.
Fake. Fake. Fake.
We were photographed leaving. Christopher’s arm around my waist, me leaning into him slightly because Trisha had coached me on body language for forty-five minutes that morning and leaning in was item number three on her list. Both of us were smiling. The photos hit the internet within hours.
The narrative was beginning to shift. The parking garage incident was becoming a passionate argument between newlyweds, not an unusual situation. Trisha texted me a thumbs-up emoji followed by a text.
TRISHA
Christopher is not the only good performer. Did you by any chance take acting classes?
Over the next week, the outings continued.
First, a farmers market on Saturday. Christopher carried my bags without being asked, putting considerable effort into this performance.
I was examining a basket of heirloom tomatoes when I looked up and found him three stalls away, holding a peach to his nose with his eyes closed, inhaling like he was selecting a vintage wine.
I coughed to swallow a laugh.
He turned. “What?”
“You’re smelling the peach.”
“That’s how you tell if it’s ripe.”
“You look like you’re auditioning for a fruit commercial.”
He bought three bags of peaches, out of what I was fairly certain was spite.
A woman selling jams recognized us and nearly dropped an entire tray of samples. “Oh my God, you’re Christopher Vale!”
He signed an autograph on a bag of organic cashews because it was the only surface available. The woman looked at me, then at him, then back at me, and said, “You’re so lucky.”
I replied, “You have no idea,” and meant it in about four different ways, none of them positive.
Then a coffee shop, where we sat by the window. I was deep in a cookbook, reading about fermentation techniques, when I felt his eyes on me. I looked up. He was holding his newspaper but not reading it. His eyes were on my face with an expression I couldn’t categorize.
“What?” I said.
“You mouth the words when you read.”
“I do not.”
“You do. Your lips move. It’s…” He stopped, picked up his coffee, and took a sip. “It’s noticeable.”
“Were you watching me read?”
“I was reading the newspaper.”
“You were watching me read.”
“The newspaper is boring. You’re more interesting.” He said it casually, eyes back on the paper, like he hadn’t just said something that made my stomach do a full somersault. I went back to my cookbook and reread the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word.
We left the coffee shop and walked along Brickell, my brain still trying to recover from what he'd said. He stopped at an ice cream cart and ordered two cones without consulting me, then handed me mint chocolate chip.
I stared at it. “How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That this is my flavor.”
He shrugged. “Lucky guess.”
“Thank you,” I said quietly.
We walked along the waterfront eating ice cream in silence that didn’t feel hostile for the first time since the contract started. His arm brushed mine twice. I didn’t move away.
Our next date was at the gallery.
Trisha arranged it. A photographer from a major entertainment outlet was positioned near the entrance. Christopher and I arrived, his hand on my waist, my smile in place, the routine already becoming muscle memory.
As we paused near the entrance for the photo, Christopher turned to me. His hand came up to my jaw. His thumb rested against my cheek. He leaned in close enough that I could feel his breath on my lips.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he said.
My brain went into emergency mode. Red alerts. Sirens. Every internal system screaming at once.
“Is that really necessary?” I asked.
“What do you think new couples in love do, my dearest wife?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Smile, wife. A new wife shouldn’t be frowning at her husband.”
“I’m not frowning. This is my face.”
“Your face looks like it’s planning my funeral.”
“It might be.”
He was close. Too close. His cologne was doing that thing again where it made my thoughts scatter. And his thumb on my jaw was warm, his blue eyes were locked on my face, and my heart was beating so fast I was fairly certain he could feel it through my skin.
“I know your acting skills are terrible,” he said, “but try to put in some effort.”
“Who says my acting is terrible?”
“The parking garage video. You were shouting and drawing unnecessary attention.”
“That was genuine emotion, not acting.”
“Exactly. So this time, act.”
He kissed me.
His lips were warm and firm. And the kiss was supposed to be quick. A press of mouths for the camera. A performance. A checked box on Trisha’s damage control list.
But my brain emptied like someone had tipped it upside down and shaken it. I forgot the photographer. I forgot the gallery. I forgot the contract and the damage control strategy and the fact that I was standing on a sidewalk in Miami kissing a man who had destroyed my restaurant on purpose.
I kissed him back.
A throat cleared behind us. Trisha. Standing ten feet away, tablet in hand, eyebrows approximately six inches higher than their normal position.
We separated. Fast. Like two people who had been caught doing something they weren’t supposed to do.
I smoothed my dress and straightened my spine. My lips were tingling, my face was hot, and my heart was doing something that I was going to address later, in private, possibly with a cold shower.
“My acting isn’t too bad, is it?” I said.
Christopher looked at me. His expression was controlled. Perfect composure. But his breathing was faster than it should have been and there was color on his neck, right above his collar, that hadn’t been there before.
“Not bad at all,” he said. His voice was steady, or at least close to it.
Our eyes held. Two seconds. Three. The photographer’s camera clicked. The sound broke the spell and we both looked away at the same time, like we’d been caught staring at the sun.
He placed his hand on my back, guided me inside and whispered, “That should make the front page.”
I walked into the gallery on legs that didn’t feel entirely connected to my body. My lips were still tingling. My heart was still doing the thing. And the voice in my head, the one that had been saying fake, fake, fake for two weeks, had gone very, very quiet.
I told myself it meant nothing.
It was for the cameras.
The kiss. His hand on my neck. All of it.
For the cameras.