5. Adrian
Adrian
The lamp in the library remains on for thirty minutes.
I know because I watch its narrow stripe of amber beneath the door while I sit at the bottom of the stairs with a glass of bourbon I do not want. The house has gone silent around us. Staff have cleared the terrace, locked the gates, and extinguished the candles floating in the pool.
Elena does not come out.
Twice, I stand with the intention of going to her. Twice, I hear my own voice saying that our marriage might be a performance, and I sit down again.
An apology would require me to admit I did not mean it.
The more frightening truth is that some part of me did.
I do not want our marriage to be over. I want it to be different, though I cannot seem to explain how without making the difference Elena’s responsibility.
I want her to need me loudly again. I want her angry enough to fight, reckless enough to drag me upstairs, selfish enough to let someone else keep the world turning while she tears mine apart.
Instead, she is behind a closed door, crying so quietly I cannot hear her.
I finish the bourbon.
By the time I return to our suite, I have poured another two fingers and switched off every light except the one beside the bed. My reflection in the dark window looks like my father after a board dinner, expensive and empty.
I remove the watch.
Still choosing you.
I set it facedown.
The bedroom door opens behind me.
Silver silk catches the low light.
Elena stands in the doorway wearing the dress from our ninth anniversary, the one she wore with the diamond necklace I bought twice. Her hair is gathered at the nape of her neck. My wife’s perfume reaches me before she does.
For one stunned second, I believe she has staged this memory for me.
An apology in the language we used to speak best.
“Elena.”
She closes the door without answering.
Relief hits me so hard I mistake it for hunger.
She crosses the room slowly. The dress has a narrow slit along one thigh. Diamonds flash at her ears, the teardrop pair I gave Elena when we closed the Lark acquisition. Everything about her is familiar enough that I stop looking for what is wrong.
I reach for her.
She avoids my hand, grips my shirt instead, and kisses me.
The first contact is too hard.
Elena kisses like she is keeping a secret until the instant she decides to tell me. She begins softly, almost cautiously, then gives me everything. This woman takes my mouth as though she has been waiting to win it.
But my wife is angry.
I tell myself that explains the difference.
I take control of the kiss, backing her into the closed door. Her fingers work at my buttons. One snaps free and strikes the floor.
“That shirt was custom,” I murmur.
She smiles against my mouth.
Elena would say so is what is underneath it.
This woman says nothing.
I slide my hand into her hair and find pins arranged differently from the way Elena wears them. Her mouth moves to my throat. I close my eyes, and the perfume gives me my wife. Orange blossom. Vanilla. Home.
My body accepts the lie before my mind can examine it.
I lift the silk at her thigh. She arches into me, impatient and bold. Elena has touched me with that same impatience a hundred times, but there is usually tenderness beneath it, even when she is furious.
There is no tenderness here.
Only triumph.
My pulse begins to climb.
She reaches for my belt.
I catch her wrist.
For years, when Elena feels that unsteady beat beneath my skin, she presses two fingers to the vein and waits for it to slow.
The woman against me tries to pull free.
I tighten my grip.
Her eyes open.
They are Elena’s eyes. Same green. Same gold starburst around the pupil. Yet Elena looks at me as though she can see the boy, the husband, and the worst thing I might become all at once.
These eyes see only a prize.
“Say my name,” I tell her.
Her lips curve. “Adrian.”
My stomach turns.
Elena calls me that across crowded rooms and dinner tables. In bed, with my hand beneath her dress and her breath against my mouth, I am Ian.
Always Ian.
I step back.
The room rearranges itself around the truth.
The ninth-anniversary dress Elena left at the back of her closet. The earrings her sister could have taken from the open jewellery case. The perfume bottle warm in Elena’s hand. The silence, because a voice is harder to imitate than a face.
“Elena?” I ask anyway.
For a moment, neither of us moves.
Then Seraphina laughs softly.
“Does it matter?”
I release her wrist as though her skin has burned me.
“Get out.”
The words sound correct. I wait for the rest of me to obey them.
Seraphina does not move toward the door. “You knew before you asked.”
“I said get out.”
“And I heard you tell her the marriage doesn’t work.”
“That has nothing to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me if I can make you feel wanted.”
I should open the door. I should call security. I should go to the library, kneel in front of my wife, and tell her that her sister walked into our bedroom wearing her face.
Instead, I look at Seraphina.
Elena’s face without Elena’s disappointment.
Elena’s body without ten years of arguments, expectations, and proof that I have failed to deserve it.
The resemblance is no longer convincing. That should make the wanting disappear.
It does not.
Seraphina reaches behind her and turns the lock.
The small metallic click moves through the room.
“Tell me again,” she says, “that you want me to leave.”
My wedding ring presses against my palm as I close my hand.
Tomorrow is my anniversary.
My wife is downstairs beneath the lamp she always leaves burning for me.
I know exactly who stands in front of me.
I cross the space between us and kiss my wife’s sister.