Chapter 18 Vasso
VASSO
Between slides and sea bream I let my mind slip backward to an island.
The way my mother kissed Naomi’s cheeks with polite steel and then handed her a knife. The way Naomi salted the tomatoes at the end like she’d been born with that knowledge, stood her ground without theatrics, and told the truth without begging for absolution.
The roof, the stars, the story about my olive-crate raft; the way Ma’s mouth betrayed a smile she thought better of halfway through and let it stay anyway.
It went better than I expected.
In time—Christ, listen to me—in time, the two most important women in my life could find the rope between them and start pulling the same direction again.
The thought lands and shudders through me because it isn’t a one-year thought; it’s the kind of thought that takes root and sends messages down the bones.
I’m halfway through outlining the preservation trust’s timeline when Mara Kincaid slides into the chair at my right with a plate she has no intention of eating. My COO has a talent for arriving at the moment leverage needs backup.
“Vecchio’s warmed,” I say under the room’s hum. “We’ll have the cask ceremony on the island, lighthouse vow program soft-launch by autumn. And the role we discussed—greenlight it.”
Mara’s brows make an interested shape. “Title unchanged?”
“Yes. Chief Experience Architect. Cross-team role, paid from hospitality or partnerships. I’ll send the brief tonight.”
“And the candidate?” She glances, almost idly, toward Naomi at the far end of the table. She’s animated, bright, the camera anchoring to her the way light does to things worth seeing.
“Already in the room,” I say. “As you know.”
Mara’s mouth goes wry. “I’ll start the org chart. Tell her I’m looking forward to toasting her new roles?”
“Sure thing. We’ll have lunch as soon as we—” I break off because Naomi is rising. She touches a board member’s shoulder, excuses herself with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, and slips out.
Mara follows the line of my attention, hums. “Go. I’ll charm the pension fund.”
Look at me, eager for every moment alone with my wife.
My skin jumps with boyish thrill as I head for the elevator, hoping for a few minutes alone with her before we have to go corporate again.
The lobby is a cool and elaborate artwork of stone, steel, a vase of lilies making a valiant attempt to smell like innocence.
Naomi stands near the windows, thumbs working her phone with a speed that reads less like texting and more like triage.
She’s pale under the makeup. Determined around the mouth. A soldier packing a wound.
Thrill recedes as worry takes it place. “Everything alright?” I ask, easy, the kind of easy that lets people keep dignity if they need to lie.
Her head snaps up and she pastes on composure fast enough to make something inside me twist and ache. “Yes. Fine.”
We both hear the wrong note.
She knows I hear it; I know she knows.
For a moment the city and the lilies and the elevator’s distant bell fall away and it’s ten summers ago and I’m standing in a driveway swallowing pride like stones while she is carried past in a car that smells like new leather and other men’s money.
“The investors are impressed by you,” I say mildly, giving her a bridge back. “And Mara likes the way you made them like you.”
My wife exhales, a small, careful release and clearly distracted. “Good. That’s… good.”
Her phone buzzes a new message.
She hurriedly locks the screen without looking and slides the device into her clutch like it’s a hot blade she means to keep barehanded. When I step closer she doesn’t step back, which is its own mercy and its own alarm.
“History isn’t repeating itself,” I say softly. “It can’t.”
She blinks. “No,” she says, and there’s steel in it I want to believe is for both of us. She touches the edge of my lapel, a small straightening that shouldn’t hit like a vow. “It can’t.”
She’s wearing my ring.
The press would call it optics; my mother would call it evidence; I call it what it is: a circle I put there and mean to keep.
“Come back in when you can,” I tell her, thumb brushing her knuckles once. “The pension fund likes to see us together when I say the word forever.”
A muscle flickers in her jaw. “Forever is a big word to be throwing around so frivolously.”
“There’s nothing frivolous about the things I mean to make happen, baby. Trust me on that.”
Her mouth quivers; the ghost of a smile, or a flinch. She nods. “Two minutes.”
I leave her in the lilies and glass because dragging secrets into the light requires timing as much as finesse.
Back at the table, I answer a question about environmental benchmarks on the island and accept a compliment I barely hear. From the corner of my eye I catch her return, composed, luminous, dangerous in the way that makes cameras reconsider their angles.
I tell myself I’ll ask tonight.
I tell myself trust is not a trophy, it’s a muscle.
I tell myself all the reasonable things men who have been hurt teach themselves to sound less like boys.
What I don’t tell myself is the line that writes itself across the inside of my skull as I watch her laugh at something Mara says and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear with fingers that shook five minutes ago.
There are many soft places to thrust a sword.
And while I have spent a lifetime learning where to strike, I should have taken time to protect my own flanks.