7. Alexander
— ? —
Alexander
I had been planning this for two weeks.
The vineyard outside Beaune, the same one where we’d spent our honeymoon, had a private dining room overlooking the eastern slopes.
I’d called ahead to request the corner table by the stone fireplace, the one where Sophia had laughed so hard at my terrible French that she’d snorted wine through her nose and then pretended to be mortified while I fell in love with her all over again.
The candles were the same brand she’d discovered at that tiny shop in the village, the ones that smelled like fig and cedar and whatever alchemy she called “the way autumn should feel.” I’d tracked down the supplier through three different distributors.
The wine was the 2012 Romanée-Conti we’d shared on our wedding night, a bottle I’d been saving in the cellar for exactly this kind of occasion.
The dessert was the tarte Tatin they’d made for us that first evening, caramelized apples and buttery pastry and a scoop of crème fra?che that Sophia had insisted on feeding me because she said I looked too serious for a man on his honeymoon.
I remembered everything. I needed her to know that.
The drive took just over an hour, and Sophia spent most of it with her head turned toward the window, watching the countryside blur past. She hadn’t said much since I’d told her to dress for dinner and refused to explain where we were going.
I couldn’t read her silence. It might have been anticipation or exhaustion or the careful neutrality she’d been wearing like armor since our fight in my office.
“You’re being very mysterious,” she said finally, as we turned onto the gravel road that wound through the vineyard’s lower fields.
“I’m being romantic. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” But her voice had softened, and when I glanced over, I caught the edge of a smile she was trying to hide. “Alexander Whitmore, attempting romance. I should document this for posterity.”
“I’ve been romantic before.”
“You’ve been thoughtful. Considerate. Occasionally sweet when you forget to be intimidating.” She turned to look at me properly, and her expression was guarded but curious. “Romance requires a certain amount of reckless optimism. You’re usually too busy calculating outcomes.”
“Maybe I’m learning.”
“Maybe.” She looked back toward the window as the main house came into view, and I heard her breath catch. “Oh. You brought me back here.”
“I thought it was time.”
The vineyard looked almost exactly as I remembered it: stone walls covered in climbing roses, the main building warm with lamplight, the distant rows of vines stretching toward the horizon in neat, patient lines.
We’d been young here. Hopeful. Certain that the future would be kind because we were in it together.
I wanted to find that certainty again, to prove that I could still be the man she’d married, the one who noticed things, who paid attention, who chose her first.
Sophia didn’t speak as I parked the car and came around to open her door. She took my hand when I offered it, and her fingers were cold against my palm.
“You planned this,” she said quietly.
“Yes.”
“For our anniversary.”
“Yes.”
She looked up at me, and I saw a flicker of the old excitement in her eyes that I hadn’t seen in months. Hope. Fragile and tentative, like a flame cupped against the wind.
“Thank you,” she said.
I kissed her forehead, the way I used to before everything got complicated. “Don’t thank me yet. I may have oversold my ability to recreate the past.”
“The past wasn’t that hard to recreate.” She squeezed my hand. “We were just two people who liked each other. That’s not complicated.”
“We were two people who loved each other.”
“That too.” She smiled, and this time it reached her eyes. “Show me what you’ve done.”
The dining room was perfect. I’d sent detailed instructions, and the staff had followed them precisely: candles flickering on the table, the fire crackling in the hearth, two place settings arranged with the same care as a state dinner.
The sommelier had the wine breathing, and the first course was already waiting under silver cloches.
Sophia stopped in the doorway, her hand still in mine.
“Alexander.”
“Too much?”
“No.” Her voice was thick. “No, it’s exactly right. I just wasn’t expecting… I didn’t think you remembered all of this.”
“I remember everything about that trip.” I pulled out her chair, waited for her to sit, then took my place across from her.
“The way you looked in that white dress on our wedding day. The sound of your laugh when the waiter spilled champagne on my shoes. The way you cried during our vows and then pretended it was allergies for the rest of the reception.”
“It was allergies.”
“Sophia. You sobbed through your own ‘I do.’”
“It was a very emotional allergic reaction.” But she was laughing now, really laughing, and the sound of it loosened a stitch in my chest that had been pulled tight for weeks. “I can’t believe you remembered the candles. I’d forgotten about the candles.”
“Fig and cedar.”
“Fig and cedar,” she repeated softly. “I used to light them every night in our first apartment. Before we could afford anything nicer.”
“Before we could afford anything at all.” I poured the wine, watching the deep red catch the candlelight. “Do you remember what you said when I asked you to marry me?”
“I said yes.”
“Before that. When I was fumbling through the speech I’d prepared and you were looking at me like I’d lost my mind.”
Sophia took a sip of wine, her eyes never leaving mine. “I said, ‘Alexander, if you’re about to ask me to help you hide a body, I need you to know I have conditions.’”
“You thought I was going to ask you to help me hide a body.”
“You were being very serious and mysterious. I panicked.”
“I was trying to be romantic.”
“You were sweating through your shirt and speaking in sentence fragments. It was terrifying.” She grinned at me over the rim of her glass. “But then you got to the actual question, and I forgot how to breathe for a full minute.”
“You said yes before I finished asking.”
“I’d already decided.” She set down her glass, and her expression softened, tender and sad at once. “I knew the moment you started talking that I was going to spend the rest of my life with you. I just didn’t know what that would actually look like.”
“Are you disappointed?”
It slipped out before I could think better of it, raw and honest in a way I rarely allowed myself to be. Sophia held my gaze for a long moment, and I watched her weigh the answer.
“Sometimes,” she said finally. “Not in you, exactly. In the way things turned out. The life I imagined versus the life we ended up building.” She reached across the table and touched my hand.
“But I’ve never regretted saying yes. Even on the hard days.
Even when I want to throw your phone into the Seine and watch it sink. ”
“That’s very specific.”
“I’ve thought about it a lot.”
I turned my hand over, lacing my fingers through hers. “I heard you, Sophia. That night in the kitchen. When you told me you were lonely.”
“I know you heard me.”
“I want to do better. I want to be the husband you deserve instead of the one who keeps making promises he can’t keep.”
“Alexander…”
“Let me finish.” I squeezed her hand. “I know I’ve said this before.
I know you have every reason not to believe me.
But I’m here, tonight, because I need you to know that I’m trying.
That you matter more to me than late nights and endless obligations and every crisis the Maison throws at us.
I chose you eight years ago, and I’m still choosing you.
I just need to get better at showing it. ”
Sophia’s eyes were bright with unshed tears. She didn’t speak for a moment, just held my hand and looked at me like she was trying to memorize my face.
“That’s all I’ve ever wanted,” she said quietly. “Just to feel chosen.”
The first course arrived, and we ate slowly, talking about small things: memories from our honeymoon, plans for the holidays, the kintsugi line she’d been developing in secret.
For the first time in months, the conversation flowed without landmines.
We weren’t circling around the things we couldn’t say or bracing for the next argument. We were just us. The way we used to be.
I’d almost forgotten what that felt like.
The main course came and went. Sophia had relaxed into her chair, her cheeks flushed from the wine, her laugh coming easier with each passing hour.
When she looked at me across the candlelit table, I saw the woman I’d first fallen for.
The one who challenged me, surprised me, made me want to be better than I was.
“I’m glad you brought me here,” she said, as the waiter cleared our plates. “I needed this. We needed this.”
“The night’s not over yet.” I signaled the sommelier. “There’s still dessert.”
“The tarte Tatin?”
“With crème fra?che. And you’re going to feed it to me again, because apparently I still look too serious.”
Sophia laughed. “You do look too serious. You always look too serious. It’s like you’re perpetually solving a complex equation in your head.”
“I’m usually calculating how long until I can kiss you without it being inappropriate.”
“Alexander Whitmore. That was almost smooth.”
“I have my moments.”
The dessert arrived, golden and glistening, and Sophia was reaching for her fork when my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket. I ignored it. Tonight was about us, and whatever crisis the Maison was manufacturing could wait until morning.
It buzzed again. Then again.
“You should check that,” Sophia said, her voice carefully neutral.
“It can wait.”
“It’s buzzing like it’s about to explode.” She nodded toward my pocket. “Check it. I’m not going anywhere.”
I pulled out the phone, already rehearsing the dismissive response I’d send to whoever was interrupting. Then I saw the message thread from Camille, and my stomach dropped.