The Suarez Myth: Chapter 7

The house was different. 

The hum of quiet had changed tone. She woke to the sound of laughter and soft footsteps that were not the usual maid or nurse. Voices drifted from downstairs. One was his. 

Roman was home. For a second, she thought she was dreaming because the sound was too easy, too human. Then Marta knocked softly and peeked in. “He’s downstairs, Señora.”

Saoirse sat up slowly, heart unsteady. The bed beside her was smooth, untouched, but through the half-open door she could hear him, Roman, speaking low, amused, the kind of voice he used in public when he wanted people to feel at ease.

By the time she came down, the dining room doors were open, and the morning light spilled in gold, turning the kitchen into glass. Roman stood at the long marble counter, sleeves rolled to his elbows, the twins’ bottles already warming in a bowl of water. He looked completely at home in the order he’d built, a God returned to his heaven.

“Good morning,” he said, smiling as if they’d seen each other just yesterday. His voice was light, even tender. “I couldn’t sleep in Milan, so I flew back early.”

Saoirse crossed to him, still barefoot, still half-dazed, too happy to see him to even speak.

“I wanted to surprise you,” he continued, leaned in, and kissed her cheek. His skin smelled faintly of cedar and the long night of airports, closed-door meetings, disinfected air.

The twins stirred in their bassinets on the floor nearby, cooing softly. Roman knelt beside them, adjusting one’s blanket with surprising tenderness. “They’re growing fast,” he said, as if noticing for the first time. “Mariana’s going to have my eyes, I think.”

Saoirse stood there, still not trusting herself to speak. He looked up at her once, the faintest question in his expression.

“Have you eaten?” he asked.

“Yes,” she lied. “You?”

“Not yet. Sit with me.”

Over breakfast, he asked gentle, ordinary things. Had she been resting? Did the staff make things easier? Did she go out much?

“Not really,” she said. “Only once or twice. I went into the city last week for a few hours.”

He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t even pause, just buttered his toast, poured more coffee. “I know. Emilio mentioned it.”

Saoirse froze. “Oh.”

Roman smiled, kind, patient, unreadable. “You don’t need to ask permission, you know that. I just like knowing where you are.” He’s said it so many times, the way someone might say ‘I love you’. Then he reached across the table and brushed a crumb from her wrist. The gesture was soft enough to feel like affection, deliberate enough to feel like ownership. 

As if like a flash, she remembered Nina’s questions, the thought of ‘someone else’. She opened her mouth and thought she’d ask him, but in the end, she couldn’t bring herself to. She couldn’t even imagine it.

They ate mostly in silence after that, the quiet clink of silverware, the twins’ gentle murmurs from the corner, the staff hovering. Roman spoke once more, halfway through his coffee. “I think we’ll move back to Madrid next month,” he said. “Darn all the nonsense about tradition. The security and order there will be better for the children.”

Saoirse nodded automatically. “Of course.”

He smiled again, like he was grateful for her agreement. “Good.”

When he left the table to speak with Javier and Marco, she stayed where she was, fingers resting lightly on the cup he’d used. It was still warm.

She got up and stood by the bassinets. David slept with his lips parted. Mariana’s fingers twitched. Saoirse brushed their hair back, light as air. The bracelet glinted on her wrist. The ring glinted on her finger. She turned toward the window.

From there, she could see the gardeners offloading another delivery, boxes of white, pink, and yellow roses stacked neatly on the terrace. The scent was already drifting in through the half-open door, faint and relentless. She didn’t move to close it.

Roman’s voice on a call echoed faintly from the next room, calmly and assuredly issuing instructions to someone miles away. Saoirse looked at the flowers again, their perfect heads nodding slightly in the breeze. Peace looked beautiful on her, and she was beginning, almost imperceptibly, to believe him.

That night, dinner was already half over when Saoirse realized she hadn’t said ten words.

Roman was talking, something about Zurich, about a fund he’d absorbed and the strange courtesy of men who smiled while surrendering. He spoke with that calm precision that made everything sound inevitable.

She nodded when he looked at her, smiled when he paused. The wine was white and cold, his glass always half-full, hers barely touched.

When he said, “I’ll probably need to leave again next week,” she almost spoke. Almost said, You just got back. Almost said, I miss you too much when you’re gone. Almost said, Don’t go.

She waited for a space, but his words moved seamlessly, like waves closing over themselves. When the silence finally came, it was a wall, and Saoirse’s throat ached with unsaid things, but she reached for her glass instead. 

“The babies have started smiling,” she offered softly. “David laughed when Lisa tickled him yesterday.”

Roman looked up, smiling the way one does at a charming headline. “He’s strong. He’ll do well.” He didn’t ask for details. He never did.

The silence returned, this time shaped by the clink of his fork against porcelain. Saoirse felt the old reflex, the tightening behind her ribs, the instinct to fill the quiet, and fought it down. She had learned that his peace depended on her restraint.

When he finished, he dabbed his mouth, placed the napkin beside his plate, and said, “You’re quieter these days.”

The words startled her. She set the glass down carefully. “Am I?”

He nodded, smiling slightly. “I’m not complaining. It means you’re content.”

Content. She smiled back the way someone might at a doctor who’d just said the wound’s healing nicely.

He reached across the table, brushed a loose strand of hair from her temple, his fingertips cool. “You make the house feel calm,” he said. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

He smiled and stood and left after commending their chef. She stayed at the table again, staring at their plates, his half-empty, hers barely touched, and thought about how quiet love could become before it stopped sounding like love at all.

The air system sighed on, steady as breath.

That night in bed, he told her as if it were a trivial thing. “We’re going to the match tomorrow,” he said, glancing at his nightstand before placing his phone on it.

“The match?” she asked, confused.

“Against Girona,” he said. “It’s a home fixture, and it’s the last of the quarter. It’s the furthest they’ve gone in years. We should be there.”

We. She didn’t know what he was talking about, but she also hadn’t heard him say ‘we’ in weeks, maybe months.

He turned to her now. “You’ll come with me.”

She blinked, unsure if she’d misheard. “You mean… out?”

His smile was soft, indulgent. “Yes, out. You need air. And people should see you.”

The way he said it made her throat tighten. It sounded like a compliment, but also an order. He didn’t ask if she wanted to go. He never did. But she said, “Of course,” anyway, because it felt like sunlight cracking the shutters.

He leaned over to kiss her cheek and said, “Sleep,” as she inhaled his clean, lightly misted skin from his long evening shower.

In the morning, their bedroom smelled of pressed linen and perfumes Roman had commissioned for her over the course of their marriage, all soft mish-mashes of the rarest of floral scents. Marta and two stylists moved around her quietly, opening garment racks Javier had sent up before she woke to find Roman gone. Everything in neutral tones like camel, ivory, navy. He let her choose from an array, but he selected the array.

“Not too formal,” one stylist murmured as Saoirse touched one dress. “Señor prefers simple.”

Roman appeared briefly as they dressed her, gray t-shirt perfectly pressed, his voice low and unhurried. “Keep her hair down,” he said, touching a strand without looking at her. He was gone before she could answer.

When she saw herself in the mirror, she tried to embody the woman there, in cream cashmere, pearl studs, her face pale but composed. She looked perfectly fine, perfectly nothing.

They flew in one of the smaller jets, just the two of them and Javier. Roman sat with his laptop open, his screen split between a stock graph and encrypted messages from the club’s CEO.

He barely looked up. “You’ll like this one,” he said absently. “We own most of the stadium’s west complex. My father invested when they were broke. People forget we kept it alive.”

She nodded. “Which club is it again?”

He smiled faintly. “Deportivo Aragón. It’s not fashionable enough to be Barcelona FC, but also not local enough to be sentimental. That’s why I like it.”

She looked out the window, watching the coastline blur below. For the first time in months, she felt movement, actual, physical movement, something the walls in Barcelona never allowed.

When he reached across the aisle to adjust her blanket, his touch was brief, practiced. “Try not to look so nervous,” he said. “They’ll think I’ve been hiding you.”

She smiled. “Haven’t you?”

He looked at her then, properly, and said, almost tenderly, “Just preserving something precious.”

The car wound through the old streets of Zaragoza, police escorts keeping distance on either side. The stadium lights shimmered ahead like a crown. Saoirse could see the press barricades already waiting.

Inside the car, Roman’s phone buzzed. “Bibiana’s husband’s already there,” he murmured as he read the screen. “He wants to be seen shaking my hand.”

“Do you want to?”

He gave a small laugh. “Want has nothing to do with it.”

He took her hand loosely, as though guiding a child across a road. “They’ll ask for photos. Smile, but not too much. And if anyone asks how the twins are, say ‘perfect.’ Don’t elaborate.”

She nodded. “All right.”

He leaned back, studying her face. “You’ll do fine. You always do.”

The flashbulbs started the moment they stepped out of the car. Roman’s name surged through the crowd like a wave. “Suarez! Señor Suarez!”

He didn’t flinch, didn’t pause, but the cameras adored him, his measured stride, the clean angles of his face, that aura of impenetrable calm. He raised a hand briefly, smiled just enough, then placed a guiding hand on Saoirse’s back.

She moved beside him, quiet and composed, the embodiment of his myth, the elusive Mrs. Suarez. The photographers murmured her name uncertainly, trying to recall it. One whispered, “Irish, isn’t she?” Another, “You’d think she was porcelain.”

She heard none of it clearly. The noise was too big. The chanting, the stadium lights, the smell of grass and sweat and fireworks. It all felt like weather.

They entered through a private gate, up the marble stairs to the family box. Security closed the door behind them, and the noise dimmed. The game had just started. From up here, the pitch looked unreal, like a moving painting, the players running patterns in miniature. Roman stood at the glass, hands in his pockets, the owner watching his creation. His brother-in-law stood beside him, older yet somehow lesser.

People came in and out, executives, politicians, a few familiar faces. Roman spoke to them easily, his tone measured, charming even. Saoirse sat behind him, smiling when introduced, nodding when appropriate. Her gaze followed Roman’s reflection in the glass, the tilt of his head, the control in his stance.

She tried to still her hands as the crowd’s incessant roars vibrated through the glass, too big for her chest. For months, she’d lived inside the soft hush of the villa with nursery lullabies, monitors beeping, the small sighs of babies half-asleep. Out here, the noise felt alive, almost cruel.

She told herself to breathe normally, to smile when people entered the box, to look like she belonged in this light. But her throat tightened each time the crowd surged. She wondered if the twins were awake, if Mariana was crying the way she sometimes did at dusk, that cry that sounded like a song breaking.

Halfway through the first half, he turned to her. “You all right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re quiet.”

She smiled faintly. “You like me quiet.”

He leaned closer, his voice soft enough for only her to hear. “Don’t confuse liking with need.” He tilted his head, amused. “I like you composed.” His tone this time carried that familiar undertow of affection phrased as instruction.

She nodded, hands folding in her lap. She wanted to lean toward him, to whisper something ordinary, something human, but as if the moment hadn’t happened, he looked back toward the field and applauded a goal. She glanced flittingly at Esteban, Bibiana’s husband, before facing the pitch.

Javier informed him that the CEO was here just moments before the suited middle-aged man walked in, nervous and deferential. He murmured his greetings in Spanish, bowed slightly, and asked Roman something presumably about the club or the match.

Roman didn’t look at him as he responded, but the man nodded as though he were taking dictation from a deity. Roman’s phone buzzed. He answered it without stepping away, listened for a moment without saying a word, then ended the call. He turned to Esteban, telling him something (again, in Spanish) about financiers and the Easter mass, or something. Saoirse looked down at her hands in her lap. 

His voice stayed calm, even when the stadium erupted with another chant of ‘Suarez!’ He was half in this world, half elsewhere, always composed, always orbiting himself.

By the end of the match, Deportivo Aragón had won. The box erupted in polite applause. Flashbulbs went off outside the glass, Roman and Saoirse silhouetted in the strobe.

She turned slightly to him. “They’re happy.”

“They’ll forget by Monday,” he said. “It’s business.”

As Saoirse stared at both the players celebrating and those mourning their defeat, the coach appeared at the door, flushed from the pitch, all sweat and charm. Roman’s smile was surgical as they spoke, as the coach laughed a little too loudly, as his eyes flicked briefly toward Saoirse, just long enough to betray curiosity. 

“Señora Suarez, it’s a privilege,” he said, stretching his hand out to her.

Before Saoirse could reply, Roman’s hand rested on the back of her chair, his posture casual, but the coach shifted back and smiled at Roman again. Saoirse looked down, cheeks warm. The room went silent except for the hum of the crowd outside.

When they stepped outside, the cameras flared again. Someone shouted her name, “Señora Suarez! Look this way!”

Roman’s hand pressed lightly against her back. His smile was perfect.

In the jet, she watched him read through emails again, unbothered by the hour.

He closed the laptop only once and looked at her wrist. “You wore the bracelet,” he said, referring to the diamond and sapphire heirloom.

“You asked me to.”

He smiled, and she smiled. 

“It suits you,” he said.

“You said it would,” she replied, her voice quiet but warm, grateful to be spoken to at all.

Outside the window, the lights stretched like gold threads over black water. Spain glittered beneath them, a mosaic of cities and rivers glowing in the dark. She tried to memorize it, but could only imagine the twins asleep in their cribs. She thought of how Mariana had smiled that morning, of David’s hand clinging to her hair. 

When they landed back in Barcelona, she whispered, “Thank you for taking me.”

He kissed her forehead, the soft, controlled kind of kiss that never smudged anything. “Of course,” he said. “It was good for people to see you.”

She lingered, hoping he would turn his face toward hers, to close the distance. When he didn’t, she whispered, “I missed you.”

He smiled faintly, already stepping ahead of her toward the waiting car. “Then you enjoyed yourself.”

She followed, the night air cool against her skin, the noise of the match still faint in her ears. In the car window’s reflection, her face looked ghostly beside his.

As they drove through the gates, she glanced down at her wrist, the bracelet’s sapphires catching the passing lights like tiny eyes. It felt heavier now. She turned her hand over once, twice, testing whether it could just slip off. It didn’t.

By the time Saoirse woke up to yet another morning that made the previous night feel imagined, the bed beside her was empty. She could tell from the absence of scent that he’d left it hours ago. Roman never left traces. Outside the windows, the Barcelona light had shifted to that pale blue that made marble gleam and people disappear.

She rose, showered, and dressed slowly, the faint ache of travel exhaustion still clinging to her skin. The Suarez bracelet lay on the bedside table, still closed around the same idea of belonging. She fastened it again before she could talk herself out of it.

In the nursery, the twins were awake. The room smelled of milk and powder and soft, humming order. Lisa, Lucia, and the two nurses moved quietly between the cots, their efficiency almost reverent.

“Good morning, Señora,” Lisa murmured, stepping aside.

Saoirse knelt beside Mariana’s crib first. The little girl’s eyes followed the light, her mouth forming small, wet circles of sound. Saoirse smiled faintly, tracing the baby’s cheek with her finger. “You’re growing too fast,” she whispered.

David was fussier, his cries brief but sharp. She lifted him, feeling his warmth against her chest. His tiny hand caught the chain around her neck. She didn’t realize she was crying until one of the nurses offered a handkerchief.

“Just tired,” Saoirse said softly. She liked these moments, the milk-warm smell of their skin, the tiny fingers curling against her. But even this tenderness felt borrowed, as though she were tending something Roman had loaned her.

When the babies drifted back to sleep, she stood for a while, watching them, the way their chests rose and fell in sync. It always calmed her. It also reminded her of how easily she could disappear into this life, how the house could absorb her completely, like water poured into marble.

She wandered to the terrace. Barcelona spread below, glass roofs, distant bells, a wind carrying salt. It could have been any morning of any year.

She heard him before she saw him, Roman’s voice carrying down the corridor as afternoon came, calm, decisive, issuing quiet orders to Javier. “No, not this quarter. Tell Zurich to wait.” Then, softer, “And inform Bibiana I’ll see her later today. She wants to bring Esteban.”

He entered the terrace a moment later and told her, “I have calls. They’ll visit at four.”

“Bibiana?” Bibiana and Esteban de Rojas never came unless Roman was in town.

He nodded and pulled off his jumper. “Try not to overthink the match,” he said, almost kindly. “You were perfect. The press loved you.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“That’s what they liked.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the hallway. “Keep them near the terrace when they wake. Light’s good for them.”

She hesitated. “Would you like lunch first?”

“I’ve eaten.” He leaned in, brushed her cheek with his thumb, a gesture soft enough to disguise instruction. “You did well yesterday. Just stay like that.”

When he left, the room seemed to exhale. Saoirse stood there, half-smiling, half-frozen. Stay like that. It sounded like praise or a leash.

His presence snapped everyone into frozen alertness once more. The staff, Lisa, Marta, all unseen. But by late afternoon, the house had changed temperature again. Marta supervised the florists, the silver trays, the re-pressed napkins. Roman went up to change his shirt, then glanced at her when they met in the big drawing room, a small, assessing look that passed for affection. 

Bibiana arrived precisely at four, her husband in tow, tall, silver-haired, wearing that faint air of hereditary entitlement, easy confidence and faintly patronizing warmth. When the door opened, the air shifted. Roman greeted them first, effortlessly polite. “Sister.” He kissed both cheeks. Saoirse stood beside him, a porcelain accessory in pale silk.

Bibiana’s voice was smooth but edged with curiosity. “We thought you'd linger in Milan through the utilities supply chain exchange.”

“Change of plans.”

Saoirse stepped forward finally. “It’s lovely to see you.”

Bibiana smiled thinly, almost kindly. “And you. You look... well. Motherhood suits you.”

Saoirse murmured a thank-you, unsure where to rest her eyes.

Esteban launched into conversation immediately, fund structures, club performance, some new tax revision in Madrid. Roman listened with that serene focus that made everyone else overcompensate. He didn’t sit until they did.

They talked for nearly an hour about La Fundación Suarez’s next gala, Easter mass (again) at Santa María la Real, the royals who might attend, the Goyas’ new art wing, the Duquesa de Alba’s grandchildren, someone’s renovation in Milan. The names blurred together for Saoirse, an endless litany of people she’d never met but was expected to understand.

Once or twice she opened her mouth to speak, but Roman’s thumb brushed lightly against her wrist, a quiet tethering, part reassurance, part warning. His hand stayed there, fingers slow, deliberate.

Bibiana turned to her once, eyes cool but not unkind. “You must be proud, Señora Suarez. Roman has transformed everything your father-in-law built.”

Saoirse answered softly, “He’s extraordinary.” Roman’s thumb moved once, tracing a small circle on her skin. 

When Bibiana mentioned Marcela’s children and asked after the twins, his tone softened. “They’re thriving,” he said, expression unreadable. “You may see them after tea.” He didn’t really like anyone touching them, not even family.

Bibiana raised a brow. “We wouldn’t dream of disturbing them if they’re resting.”

“They’re well-trained,” Roman said lightly. “They don’t disturb easily.”

The remark was half-joke, but something in Saoirse’s stomach twisted.

Bibiana turned to her and again said, “You must be proud. Two already.”

Saoirse smiled. Bibiana had said the exact words to her before. Two already. “They’re perfect,” she said, the phrase Roman had trained into her.

“And how do you find life here all the time? I imagine it’s... quieter than Madrid or London, but not quite as dull as Como.”

“It’s peaceful,” Saoirse replied. It was Bibiana who always reminded her the importance of raising Suarez heirs in Barcelona through their early years.

Roman’s fingers tightened around her wrist, barely, but enough for her to feel it. “She prefers it that way,” he said. “She’s not like us.”

The room laughed politely.

Bibiana studied her brother, then, something sharp in her gaze, “You’re protective as ever.”

He smiled back. “Family requires it.”

When tea was served, the conversation turned to donors, property acquisitions, Vatican circles, topics so far removed from Saoirse even after almost three years of marriage into this world that the words slid over her like static. She sat still, composed, her pulse steady beneath his touch.

Once, when Esteban addressed her directly, “You should go to Geneva in the spring, Señora, see Marcela’s new gardens,” Roman answered for her, “She’s not traveling much just yet.”

“I’d like to,” Saoirse said quietly.

Roman’s hand moved again, his thumb tracing the back of hers in that maddening, tender rhythm. “Perhaps when the children are older.”

She smiled for the room, but her voice caught on the edge of something unsaid. Bibiana noticed, though she said nothing. Her eyes lingered briefly on Saoirse’s face, then on Roman’s hand, still holding hers.

Soon, the visit ended and night-light painted everything in the same muted gold as the chandeliers downstairs, as if the house itself refused darkness. The silence stretched out again.

Her bracelet—his mother’s, his grandmother’s—caught the glow each time she shifted her hand. She traced the cool stones absently, thinking how they always looked alive under light but felt dead against skin. She rubbed the inside of her wrist where his fingers had been, that phantom pulse that felt almost like love echoing still.

She tried to remember what she’d said at dinner, what she hadn’t. You did well. Stay like that. The words replayed like a lullaby with teeth.

The window was half open. Outside, the gardens breathed with invisible life, the sound of waves below the cliff, a single night bird, the low hum of security lights sweeping the path. Somewhere in another wing, a clock chimed nine.

She thought of the match again, the crowd roaring, the lights, the press flashing like gunfire, and then of his hand on her chair, the way the coach had fallen quiet mid-greeting. Everyone had understood it immediately. Everyone except her. She looked down at her hands. They didn’t tremble. The control had already seeped back in, slow as morphine. This house, his world, had its own way of teaching stillness.

For a moment, she imagined Roman watching from the doorway, approving quietly of this serenity, this composure. Peace looks beautiful on you.

Roman wouldn’t come to bed until well after midnight, so she sat in the rocking chair they kept in the drawing room and let the motion lull her. The bracelet glinted, the roses from yesterday stood in a vase by the window, already beginning to droop. Outside, the sea kept moving. Inside, the house slept for her.

The chair’s rhythm steadied her until the edges of the room began to soften. The hum of the monitor, the whisper of the sea, all of it folded into something almost tender. She leaned her head back, the bracelet cold against her wrist, the babies’ breathing syncing with her own.

Her eyelids slipped closed for once.

At first, it was only colour, green after rain, grey stone, the pale wash of northern light. Then, she was there again, in her grandmother’s small garden behind the Newcastle house, the narrow plot that always smelled of earth and rusted metal. She was crouched in the dirt, brushing soil from her palms. The roses were scraggly, stubborn, their petals bitten by frost. She could hear the sound of the old woman’s breathing from the kitchen window, rough and shallow.

Saoirse turned toward her, but she wasn’t there anymore, only the sound of waves against rock, the scent of lilies choking the air.

The garden tilted. The roses bent toward her like witnesses. One of them whispered, Stay like that.

She woke up with a start. The house was utterly still, lit by the low blue of dawn filtering through the terrace doors. Her neck ached from the chair, and for a second, she forgot where she was.

Then the sound of the automated shutters began to rise, their mechanical hum swallowing the quiet. The villa was waking itself, calibrating its light and temperature for the day, indifferent to the woman sitting alone in the drawing room.

She rose, and when she turned toward the door, the mirror beside it caught her reflection, barefoot, silk creased, hair loose. For a fleeting moment, she saw her grandmother’s face over her own, thin and pale and patient.

She blinked, and it was gone.

The house was awake now, and so was she. But something about her sleep lingered, the way the roses had leaned toward her, the way their thorns had glinted in the dreamlight. She touched her wrist where the bracelet rested and whispered, almost to herself, “Still thriving.”

Then she opened the double doors to the hum of footsteps, the scent of coffee, and the quiet precision of another perfect morning.

The day unfolded like a performance of calm, soft and mercilessly blue. Breakfast was served out on the terrace. It was the odd pastry, fruit, coffee, sunlight precisely balanced across the tablecloth. The light filled every corner of the terrace, gentle and absolute, the kind that revealed more than it forgave.

The twins had been wheeled out in their prams, both asleep, both perfect. Saoirse sat in her robe with a book open but unread, its spine balanced between her fingers. 

Roman came down later than usual, hair still slightly damp from the shower. It was one of those rare mornings when he lingered. He smelled faintly of cologne and saltwater. He must’ve gone for an early swim again, alone. His jumper sleeves were rolled up, wristwatch gleaming, skin touched by sun. It shouldn’t have made her heart flutter the way it did, not after all these months of distance, but it did.

“You’re up early.” He poured her coffee himself. “And you’re reading again,” he said, glancing at the page without really looking.

“I’m trying to,” she answered, smiling softly. “It feels like I’ve forgotten how.”

“You just need discipline,” he said, tearing a croissant neatly in half. “You always were too gentle with yourself.”

She tilted her head, amused despite herself. “You make it sound like I’m a project.”

His mouth curved faintly. “You are. A successful one.”

She laughed, a small, genuine sound. “Is that what you tell all your mergers?”

“I don’t usually marry them.”

It wasn’t a joke, but she laughed anyway. It felt almost easy, this back-and-forth, the first sliver of warmth in weeks. She looked at him and thought maybe this was the beginning of something soft returning, the smallest pulse of the life they used to have.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, smiling.

“I noticed last night.”

She lowered her eyes. “I’ve gotten used to the sound of the babies breathing. When I don’t hear them, I wake.”

He hummed. “That’s maternal instinct. You’ll grow out of it.” She tried to laugh. “It’s meant to fade.” He smiled faintly and reached for her own croissant, slicing it open with the same neatness he brought to everything. “You’ll start to feel more like yourself soon.”

He offered it to her. She took it but didn’t answer. Myself, she thought, but couldn’t remember who that was anymore.

He glanced at her book again. “What are you reading?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Then choose something else that’s actually worth reading.” He smirked.

“I was thinking of poetry.”

He looked up briefly. “You’re still on that?” His tone was neither unkind nor sensitive. “You used to have a sharp instinct for structure. Don’t lose it to sentiment.” And just like that, he dismissed something that had once been the most important thing to her, that could’ve been her entire career.

Saoirse smiled, quiet, accepting. “I’ll try not to.”

They sat in silence for a while. The twins remained asleep in their prams, one small hand twitching, one pacifier rolling to the floor. She bent to pick it up before Lucia could. The motion drew the robe tighter across her chest, and when she straightened, she felt his eyes flicker toward her then away again, immediately, cleanly.

Her face warmed. She took a sip of coffee, though she could barely swallow it.

“I was thinking,” she said softly, “We could take the babies down to the beach later. Just for air.”

He smiled, indulgent. “There are too many cameras there. Later, maybe.”

She hesitated, then tried again, “Or we could go somewhere else, just us—”

The phone on the table began to vibrate. He didn’t hesitate. “Marcela,” he said, already answering. The shift was instant. His voice was cooler, fluent Spanish filling the air like music she couldn’t translate. It was efficient but touched with fraternal courtesy.

Saoirse’s smile faded as his voice took on that rhythm she knew too well, the one that turned every conversation into a negotiation. She turned her gaze back to her book, though she still didn’t read.

“Of course, I saw the numbers,” Roman was saying in Spanish. “No, no, that’s the old projection… Geneva’s board will follow once Zurich confirms.”

He paused, listening before a quiet laugh, the kind reserved for family. “I’m aware. Bibiana mentioned it. We’ll make the adjustments before Easter.”

Saoirse sipped her coffee slowly, her reflection wavering in the cup. The words blurred together into royal patrons, foundation funding, dinner invitations, but his tone carried that familiar certainty that closed every door she didn’t have the key to.

After a few minutes, he said lightly, “No, I’m not alone. She’s here.” A pause. “She’s well. The babies are well. She’s reading.” Another pause, then softer, “Yes, I’ll tell her you asked.” He hung up, slid the phone aside, and looked at her as if nothing had happened. “Marcela sends her love.”

Saoirse smiled faintly. “That’s kind.”

He nodded once and reached for his coffee again, the conversation already gone from his mind. For a long moment, she just watched him, the sharp planes of his face, the faint shadow at his jaw, the stillness that seemed to exist around him like air pressure. There were times she still wanted to reach out, just touch his hand, pull him back into some kind of warmth. But every time she almost did, she felt the invisible wall between them, that composed, polite, unbreakable wall.

A knock came at the terrace door. Javier entered, unobtrusive as ever, tall, greying, an envelope in his hand. “Forgive me, sir. Geneva confirmed the board dinner for Tuesday. Your flight’s been shifted forward.”

Roman didn’t even look surprised. “Tomorrow, then.”

“Yes, sir.” Javier’s eyes flicked briefly to Saoirse, then back to Roman. “I’ll have Marco coordinate the security detail.”

“Fine.”

Saoirse stared at the table. “Tomorrow?” she asked quietly.

He glanced at her, as if surprised by her surprise. “Just a few days.”

“How many?”

He smiled. “You’ll hardly notice. I’ll have the pilot on standby.”

Her throat tightened. “The twins…”

“They’ll be fine.” His voice softened. “You’ve been doing wonderfully with them.”

She wanted to say we’ve been doing nothing together, but the words felt childish. Instead, she swallowed. “You’ve only just come back.”

He reached over and held her wrist. “And I always come back.” His thumb brushed once, slowly, over her pulse. “You know that.” The gesture made her dizzy, the gentleness of it, the false warmth it carried.

When Javier left, she said quietly, “I thought maybe… we’d have more time this week. I thought you’d stay longer this time.”

“I can’t. Not now.” He looked at her then, something unreadable flickering behind his calm. “You shouldn’t count time by my travel schedule,” he said softly. “You’ll drive yourself mad.” The words were tender, but they landed like a door closing.

He rose, brushed a crumb from his sleeve, and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Read something good,” he murmured. “Keep your mind occupied.” The warmth of his breath lingered as he left.

Saoirse sat there long after he was gone, the page in front of her still untouched. The sound of the sea returned, soft but endless, and when the wind lifted, a few yellow petals drifted from the vase on the table onto her lap. She looked down at them and smiled faintly.

The twins stirred. She rose and went to them, still smiling through the ache that could never quite leave.