Chapter Nine The Honeymoon Schedule from Hell #2
I do not know what triggered it. I have never known.
Somewhere in the villa’s architecture there is a sensor that interprets moisture and pink as romance, and it fired, and a string arrangement swelled through the corridor while a billionaire stood soaked and floral in front of me with one petal attached precisely to the center of his forehead.
That was when I lost it.
I laughed until I had to put a hand on the wall, and the wall was wet, and my palm came away pink, and that made it worse.
I laughed the way I had not laughed since before the terminal, before the twelve million viewers, before a man in a cream travel suit decided my life was a content strategy.
It came up from somewhere I had stopped visiting.
Beckett did not move.
He stood in the ruin of his own resort, dripping, decorated, and watched me laugh with an expression I could not read and did not, at that moment, have the composure to investigate.
“Are you finished?” he asked.
“No.”
“Take your time.”
“I intend to.”
He reached up and removed the petal from his forehead. He examined it. Then he leaned in and pressed it, wet, to my cheek.
“Ninety seconds,” he said.
The music kept playing.
Behind us, Nico spoke into his earpiece with the hush of a man narrating a natural disaster.
“Facilities. The Cascade has escaped.”
It took four housekeepers ninety minutes to clear a room that had entertained us for ninety seconds. Beckett paid all four of them a full shift and sent the invoice to the sponsor with a note I was not permitted to read.
The clip went out anyway.
Somebody’s arrival footage had still been rolling, and by evening the internet had watched a man walk into a pink hurricane to save nobody in particular eleven million times, and the comments had stopped being about Trent.
THE PETAL. ON HIS FOREHEAD. I AM UNWELL. SHE HAS NOT LAUGHED LIKE THAT ONCE SINCE THE TERMINAL. WHOEVER APPROVED THAT AMENITY, WE FORGIVE YOU. Nico framed that last one.
I put the petal in my pocket. I declined to examine why. The picnic was moved back ninety minutes. Nobody complained.
The canyon picnic waited on a terrace beneath the dome, where a curved window made the red cliffs look close enough to touch.
Jun had packed citrus chicken, sesame noodles, chilled melon, warm bread, and a dark chocolate cake that contained no visible emotion.
The campaign team had added a heart-shaped basket, two champagne flutes tied together with ribbon, and a pink card instructing Nico to ask which flavor represented our love.
I reached for the card. Beckett reached first. He folded it once and placed it under the basket.
“Jun,” he said, “tell the camera why you chose the menu.”
Jun looked at the producer. “Because people need lunch.”
“Excellent,” I said.
The interview lasted nine minutes.
Jun described the food. I described the difference between crisp noodles and romantic coercion. Beckett ate half the bread while claiming he was evaluating consistency.
When Nico approached with the tied champagne flutes, Beckett untied them before he reached the blanket.
“Independent glassware,” Beckett said.
“A blow to the institution,” I said.
Jun took the ribbon.
“I can use this to mark the staff refrigerator that freezes everything.”
Beckett made a note.
“That wasn’t a maintenance request,” Jun said.
“It is now.”
The dance lesson took place beneath the Rose Dome in a circular room surrounded by palms.
Sofia waited in a silver dress and dance shoes. She was small, elegant, and visibly prepared to throw one of us through glass.
Two housekeepers stood behind her wearing matching pink sashes.
I stopped at the edge of the floor.
“Why are Marisol and Elena here?”
Sofia’s smile did not reach her eyes. “The campaign requested demonstration partners.”
Elena lifted one end of her sash.
It read LOVE SUPPORT.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“Agreed,” Beckett said.
He crossed the floor and untied both sashes.
“Your participation is optional,” he told them. “Leaving does not affect paid time.”
Marisol was gone before he finished.
Elena handed her sash to Nico.
“I have laundry with more dignity.”
She followed.
Sofia watched them leave, then looked at Beckett.
“The producer wants a four-minute routine with a lift.”
“Can we complete a four-minute routine?” he asked.
She looked at me.
Then at him.
“No.”
“Good. Teach us something we can learn.”
The producer objected from behind the camera.
Beckett turned.
“Sofia is evaluated on instruction, not whether two untrained people resemble an advertisement.”
“The lift is the visual peak.”
“The emergency clinic is not.”
Sofia taught us a basic turn.
Beckett counted every step under his breath.
“One, two, three.”
“You’re leading like an accountant,” I said.
“You are stepping early.”
“I’m escaping.”
His hand rested at my waist. The contact was required. My awareness of it was not.
“Again,” Sofia said.
Beckett guided me back.
I turned beneath his arm. The lighter pull of Mars made the movement last a fraction too long, my skirt floating around my knees as I came back toward him.
His hand tightened at my waist. My palm landed against his chest. We stopped.
“That,” Nico whispered, “was visual romance.”
“That was gravity,” I said.
Beckett looked down at me.
“You stepped late.”
“I was making an editorial choice.”
Sofia moved between us.
“Again,” she said. “This time, both of you stop talking.”
We completed the turn on the next attempt. Sofia received full campaign credit. Beckett received a small bruise where I stepped on his foot. I considered the day balanced.
At four thirty, Priya waited in the Earth Room with no vow cards, no candles, and a legal pad.
The walls showed live views of oceans, cities, and summer rain on Earth. A storm moved over Bellwether’s office windows thousands of miles away.
Nico looked around.
“Where is the vow arch?”
“Recycled,” Priya said.
“The floral letters?”
“Composted.”
“The ceremonial pen?”
“Stolen.”
She pointed to the two chairs opposite her.
“Sit.”
We sat.
Priya wrote our names at the top of the legal pad.
“The original workshop asks you to identify what you will love about each other forever,” she said. “That is an irresponsible question after two days.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I replaced it. You will each make one promise you can keep until tomorrow.”
Beckett considered.
“I promise not to schedule additional activities without Sadie’s approval.”
“The schedule was not mine.”
“I approved the campaign structure.”
Priya wrote it down. My turn. I looked at Beckett.
His hair had recovered from the massage. His control had survived the picnic. His foot had survived my dancing.
All day, he had revised systems so the least powerful person in each room did not absorb the embarrassment.
He had never announced that was what he was doing.
He had simply noticed.
“I promise,” I said, “that if an activity is awful tomorrow, I will blame the person with authority.”
Priya looked up. “That sounds like your existing policy.”
“Then I know I can keep it.”
Beckett’s eyes stayed on mine.
“Fair,” he said.
Nico sighed. “These are the least romantic vows ever spoken beneath a view of Earth.”
“They are honest,” Priya said.
The storm moved across the wall behind her. Rain softened the Bellwether windows until the office became a blur of warm light.
For one second, homesickness pressed beneath my ribs. Beckett noticed. He did not ask me to explain. He moved the tissue box within my reach and looked toward another wall.
It was such a small act that no camera would have known where to point.
That was the problem with Beckett.
The more closely I watched him, the less his control looked like control for its own sake.
Sometimes it was a hand placed between someone else and the consequences. Sometimes it was a revised schedule. Sometimes it was pretending not to see that I needed a tissue. Back at the villa, Nico delivered the next day’s itinerary.
It was printed on white paper.
“I negotiated the color,” Beckett said.
“With whom?”
“Everyone.”
I examined the page. Only one activity was listed. CANYON DOCUMENTARY SHOOT No hearts. No lifetimes. No synchronized anything.
“How many stars?” Beckett asked.
“For the schedule?”
“For the adjustments.”
I folded the page.
“I am not reviewing the activities.”
His gaze held mine.
“What are you reviewing?”
“The temporary husband.”
Nico became completely still.
Beckett’s expression remained controlled, but the tips of his ears changed color.
“And the current rating?”
I walked past him toward the bedroom.
“Under review.”
Behind me, Nico whispered, “That’s better than zero.”
Beckett answered quietly.
“I know.”