1ST GEN: ROMAN & SAOIRSE

The white marble glows. Everything smells like eucalyptus and old money. 

A digital lifestyle magazine lies open on the waiting lounge table of the luxury spa in Madrid. The headline? "Power & Grace: Inside the Private World of Roman Suarez and His Beloved Irish Muse, Saoirse." The photo shows them on a yacht. Roman in white linen, sunglasses, arms around Saoirse’s waist. She’s laughing, sun-kissed, bump just showing beneath a Dior kaftan. A golden couple.

Two spa receptionists in all-white uniforms glance at the page.

“She always looks like that,” one whispers to the other. “She looks unreal, like she’s porcelain.”

“Well, she barely speaks. The last time she came in, she just smiled and pointed at the lavender oil like it actually cost her something.” They giggle quietly.

“I don’t know how she lives with him. He’s so intimidating. Even with all those cameras, she looks like someone trying to disappear politely.”

+

A dozen suited executives sit around the glass conference table at the flagship Suarez Group office, a few miles from the spa. The once scion, now man at the helm of the Suarez family, is at the head of the table. The room waits for his direction.

One younger executive leans toward the Head of Comms during a break. “Is it true his wife used to be some kind of artist?”

“A writer, sort of. Poetry, I think, before she married into the firmament.” He chuckles.

“She’s beautiful. But did you notice she never says anything at events?”

The comms head smirks, absentmindedly sifting through hard white folders. “That’s the point. She doesn’t have to. She’s the accessory you don’t need to explain. Makes him look... soft, human, even a little romantic.”

“Isn’t she like a decade younger?”

“Yep. He met her when she was barely legal and swept her off her barstool. The press lapped it up. The Tycoon and the Muse. Still sells.” He pauses to chuckle again. “Now, get to work before he gets back in here.”

+

A ring light glows as a Spanish lifestyle influencer with tight mahogany curls and glossy lips smiles into her Instagram Live.

“Okay, unpopular opinion… but does anyone else think Saoirse Suarez is too perfect? Like, what’s her thing? She’s always dressed like a silent film star. She never interviews, never posts, never speaks Spanish in public…” She laughs as the comments and thumbs-up start to pop up on her screen. “All everyone talks about is how she never talks. But really, what billionaire wife have we seen speaking in public? Also, if my husband were Roman Suarez, I’d probably keep my mouth shut too. She’s won. Game over.”

Live comment section:

“She’s an aesthetic, not a person lol”

“Rich girl sadness is still sadness, babes.”

“She’s smart. Quiet girls survive men like that.”

+

Lisa Aguirre is at the cheese counter of the large grocery store, holding Mariana's hand while carrying David, who’s munching on a breadstick, up in her other arm. The cashier watches them and says in a low voice to his colleague: “Those are the Suarez twins.”

“That’s the nanny?”

“Yeah. The wife never comes in here. I heard she’s not allowed,” he says, smiling like he’s privy to some inner gossip. 

“Or maybe she just doesn’t want to be seen.”

They both glance out the window at the black car idling by the curb.

+

Private online forum [translated thread]: “WIVES of the powerful in Spain”

“Does anyone know if Saoirse Suarez actually works?”

“No, but she had a miscarriage two years ago. I read it in ¡Hola! They say Roman never left her side.”

“I heard she’s emotionally fragile. A friend of mine who worked their foundation’s gala said she looked like she was drugged.”

“Maybe she’s just very, very calm.”

“Or trapped.”

+

Saoirse stands at the base of the stairs in the foyer of their Barcelona home, removing her earrings in silence. She’s just returned from a charity dinner. The driver closed the car door behind her with too much care, reminding her just how everything in her world had to be soft, including her.

She picks up the magazine from the console. It’s the yacht photo again. She simply can’t escape it. She looks at her own face, her own hand wrapped in his, and whispers aloud, as if surprised to hear herself, “I don't remember laughing that day.”

Muted sunlight seeps through the tall windows of her private sitting room the next morning, a tray of untouched breakfast pastries on a side table. She sits in a low velvet chair, ankles tucked beneath her, a silk robe draped like armor. Her phone buzzes once, then again.

It’s not her usual line. It’s the one only a handful of people know. The one Roman calls her little poetry phone. She looks down at an unknown number. +44… UK. Her breath catches.

She answers slowly, quietly. “Hello?”

A woman’s calm, professional, warm voice, “Saoirse Suarez?”

A long pause. “Speaking,” Saoirse responds finally, her voice cracking.

“My name is Lila Kavanagh. I’m a senior editor at The Fable. We’re putting together a series on women who’ve stepped out of their husband’s shadows or burned the whole palace down through quiet revolutions, private reclaimings, that kind of thing.”

“Me?” Saoirse says.

“I think so.” A pause. “I studied your early writing. Your chapbook, Blue Milk. I’ve kept it in my drawer for years. It felt like it came from someone who’d already learned to disappear and was trying to find her way back.”

Saoirse goes completely still.

“We’d like to speak with you. Not as Mrs. Roman Suarez. As yourself.” Another pause. “Even if it’s just a quote or a ghost of a poem.”

“How did you get this number?” Saoirse whispers.

“An old mutual acquaintance. Someone who said you might not answer.”

Clair… probably. Or more likely, Nina. A longer silence. Saoirse rises from the chair and walks to the window. Her hand rests instinctively on her growing belly. Her reflection stares back at her, hollowed and soft in equal measure.

“You don’t have to say yes. You don’t even have to reply. But the door’s there, so just walk through when you’re ready.”

Click. The call ends. Saoirse stares at the phone screen, the number already removed from view. 

Later that night, she opens the desk drawer in her private study and takes out a pen. She writes a single line across the top of an old notebook page:

Back in her bedroom, soft jazz hums from the speakers. Saoirse lies on the bed in a pale slip dress, the book open on her chest, but she hasn’t turned a page in 20 minutes. She’s still thinking about the call, about Lila’s voice, about Blue Milk. The twins’ giggling rings across the hallway.

It’s not loud or dramatic, but it strikes a nerve. No one has reached out to her so directly in years. A voice not filtered through Roman. A chance to speak… for herself. Whether she takes it or not is another matter entirely.

Later that night, after Roman falls asleep beside her, she walks quietly back to her study. She takes the page where she’d written earlier and rips it into four careful pieces. A large heirloom clock ticks nearby as she tucks the pieces into the spine of the old notebook and adds a new line beneath the tear: