Chapter 2 #2
The officiant spoke of commitment. Of partnership.
Of trust. The words passed over them the way wind passes over water, and Noelle said the words she was meant to say when she was meant to say them.
She meant them as far as she was able, which wasn't as far as the words reached but was further than she'd expected to be able to mean anything today.
Then it was his turn.
"Do you take—"
"Yes."
It came a breath too early. A fraction of a second. A few raised eyebrows from the front rows, the officiant's face arranging itself gracefully around the interruption.
Noelle lifted her eyes to Elias's. What she found was the face he'd been wearing since she walked down the aisle. Composed. Attentive. The door still gently closed.
But his hand. His hand around hers had tightened. Just for a second. So briefly she couldn't have sworn to it if anyone had asked her. His thumb pressed once against the thin skin of her wrist and then released.”
Do you?" the officiant prompted gently.
Noelle drew a breath.
"Yes."
The word settled into place. Final and irreversible, the way her mother had said it would be.
The rest passed in a blur she couldn't later assemble back into order. Rings. Applause. The officiant pronouncing them. The polite kiss Elias gave her that wasn't a kiss at all, more the brush of a closed mouth against the corner of hers, and over before she'd decided what to do with it.
His hand settled at the small of her back as he turned her toward the aisle.
She walked where he walked. Her face did what it had been trained to do.
And somewhere underneath the trained face, somewhere underneath the dress her mother had chosen, Noelle was trying to account for the warmth of his hand, the tightening of his grip, the small pressure of his thumb against her wrist, against the closed-door face he'd been wearing.
She couldn't account for any of it.
The reception unfolded in a seamless progression of moments that someone, long before today, had decided would be beautiful.
Toasts were given. Glasses were raised. A cousin she hadn't seen since she was nineteen kissed her on both cheeks and told her she looked exactly like her grandmother. She smiled. She said thank you. She'd been saying thank you so long that the word had become something her mouth did without her.
Elias didn't leave her side.
He didn't take her hand again. That moment at the altar — the warmth, the small pressure at her wrist — had been folded away with everything else.
The man standing beside her at the reception was the man who'd walked across the penthouse from her.
Attentive when required. Courteous to a degree that felt, the longer it went on, like a distance she hadn't encountered before.
She'd been prepared for coldness. Coldness, at least, was legible.
What he was giving her instead was the exact performance of a new husband at a wedding reception, perfect in every detail, and Noelle could feel the perfection of it the way you could feel the edge of a knife through a silk handkerchief.
It was only when they found themselves briefly alone, near one of the tall windows overlooking the lake, that the performance thinned.
"You handled that well," he said, his gaze directed out at the water.
"Which part?"
"All of it."
She studied his profile. "You sound surprised."
"I'm not. I'm acknowledging the obvious."
"That's almost generous."
His attention shifted to her. "Don't mistake acknowledgment for approval."
"I wouldn't."
The silence that followed was brief. She let it be brief.
"We'll be leaving shortly," he said. "The car's arranged."
"Of course."
Another pause. She hadn't planned what she said next. It surprised her as much as it seemed to surprise him.
"If there are expectations you have of me, it'd be easier if you made them clear now."
He looked at her for a long moment. Long enough that she began to think he wouldn't answer.
"It'll function as intended," he said.
"And that is?"
"A mutually beneficial arrangement. You'll have everything that was agreed upon. There'll be no cause for complaint."
"And beyond that?"
"There's no beyond that."
The words settled between them with finality. She looked back at the lake. The surface was dark, broken in places by the reflected light of the reception windows, and somewhere out on the water a single boat was moving slowly north.
"Then we understand each other," she said.
"Yes."
But there was something in how he said the word that told her yes wasn't what he meant. She didn't ask him what he did mean.
Later, when the last of the guests had finally been sent home and the carefully constructed day was finished, they'd ridden together in the silence of the car back to the penthouse that was now, technically, hers. Noelle entered and stood at the wall of glass, again looking out at Chicago.
Behind her, she heard the soft sounds of a husband in his own home at the end of a long day.
Jacket removed. Cuffs unbuttoned. The muted scrape of a chair.
He moved through the space without any acknowledgment of her, and she thought …
this is the rest of it. This is what the rest of it will feel like.
She didn't turn. She pressed her palm against the glass. The cold of it steadied her.
Then she straightened.
Whatever this marriage was, whatever it became, she'd meet it with the same composure she'd always relied on. She'd been trained for this. She'd been trained, if nothing else, for this.
Behind her, Elias spoke.
"You should get some rest."
His voice was low, even, entirely courteous. The voice of a host.
He stood a few feet from her, jacket gone, tie loosened one notch at the throat. The light in the penthouse was low and amber, and in the amber light the severity of his face was not any less severe, only more shadowed. He had, she realized, been watching her for some time.
"Yes," she said.
She inclined her head. It was formal. It was almost absurd, the formality of it, in a room that was now their shared home on the night of their wedding. But she had nothing else to give him, and she wouldn't give him the ghost of anything larger.
"Good night."
"Good night, Noelle."