A Marriage Without Us

The first thing I learned about being married to Julian was how to smile without looking at him. It was a useful skill. Especially when there were two dozen cameras pointed at my face, rain dripping from the edge of the venue's awning, and my husband had his hand resting on my bare back as though he had spent the entire evening wanting to touch me. "Vivian. This way, please!" "One more, Mrs. Sterling!" "Julian, look here!" The flashes came so quickly that the world seemed to break into little white pieces around us. I tilted my chin, turned my face towards the cameras, and gave them the smile they had paid good money to photograph. The emerald silk of my dress clung to my waist before falling in a long, fluid line to the floor. Its open back left most of my skin exposed to the cold evening air, though Julian's palm covered the small of it. His fingers rested just above the curve of my hip, warm against my skin. He had a very convincing touch. I wondered sometimes whether it came naturally to him or whether, like everything else, he had simply learned what was expected. "Smile, Vivian," he murmured. His mouth was close to my ear. From a distance, it probably looked intimate. The sort of thing a husband said when he wanted his wife to know she was beautiful. I turned my face towards him. "I am smiling." "No, like you mean it." I nearly laughed. That would have been a mistake. The photographers would have loved it, and tomorrow there would be photographs of us looking into each other's eyes, accompanied by some ridiculous caption about the Sterling marriage being the envy of society. Instead, I let my smile deepen by the smallest degree. "There. Better?" His eyes met mine. Julian had a habit of looking at people as though he could see the thought they were trying to hide. It was an unpleasant habit in a man who rarely offered up any of his own. His eyes were dark, his expression almost always composed, and his face possessed the sort of symmetry that made people forgive him for things they would have condemned in anyone less attractive. He looked at me for a moment. "Much." Then he turned back to the cameras. I wished I could say that I had grown accustomed to his face. I had, of course. Five years was a long time to live with someone without learning the shape of his features, the precise shade of his eyes, or the way a faint line appeared between his brows when he was irritated. I knew what he looked like when he was tired, although he would never admit to being tired. I knew he loosened his tie before removing his jacket. I knew he preferred the bedroom curtains drawn all the way closed and that he disliked having people speak to him before his first coffee. I knew the sound of his footsteps in the corridor outside my room. I knew how quietly he could open a door. What I didn't know was whether he had ever looked at me when I wasn't looking at him. "Julian, one last photograph!" His hand pressed a little more firmly against my back. I leaned into him. The cameras flashed. And just like that, we looked in love. _____________________________ The ballroom was warmer than the street, all golden chandeliers, polished marble, and flowers arranged so extravagantly that I suspected some of them had travelled farther than I had that year. A string quartet played near the staircase. Waiters moved through the crowd with silver trays balanced on their palms, and the room smelled faintly of expensive perfume, champagne, and the roses someone had scattered across the tables. It was the sort of place where everyone knew everyone else's business and pretended not to. I had been attending these events since I was old enough to stand beside my father without being mistaken for someone's daughter who had wandered away from her table. Five years as Julian Sterling's wife had only made it worse. People who had once barely remembered my existence now greeted me with bright smiles. Women who had ignored me at family functions suddenly wanted to know where I bought my dresses. Men who had never spoken to me before my marriage now remembered that my father and I shared an interest in commercial property. Marriage, I had discovered, was an extraordinarily effective way of making people interested in a woman they had previously found inconvenient. Julian removed his hand from my back the moment the ballroom doors closed behind us. I felt the absence before I looked at him. It was ridiculous, really. His hand had been there for no more than fifteen minutes. There was no reason for my skin to notice when it was gone. But it did. He adjusted his cuff, glanced across the room, and located three board members standing near the bar. "I need to speak with them." "Of course." "I'll find you later." I almost asked him when. The question reached the tip of my tongue and stopped there. It wasn't as though I would have believed him if he gave me a time. Julian was always occupied by something more important than the people waiting for him, and I had learned a long time ago that expecting him to return when he said he would was a particularly pointless way to spend an evening. "Don't worry about me," I said. He looked at me then, briefly. "I wasn't." There was no malice in it. That was the worst part. He hadn't said it to hurt me. He hadn't even considered that it might. Julian simply spoke the truth as he understood it, and the truth was that I had never given him much reason to think he needed to worry about me. I watched him walk away. He was tall enough to be noticed in any room, but he had something beyond height and a handsome face that made people turn towards him. Perhaps it was the confidence. Perhaps it was the cold, unhurried way he carried himself, as though time was a resource other people wasted and he had no intention of joining them. Men straightened when he approached. Executives who had spent decades building their own reputations became attentive when he spoke. Women smiled before he had even looked in their direction. Julian was thirty-one and already sat at the head of a corporate empire his older siblings had spent their lives believing would one day belong to them. His father had chosen him as successor over both Marcus and Beatrice, a decision that had turned an ordinary family rivalry into something much uglier. Julian, naturally, had done nothing to make himself more likeable. He was very good at his job. He knew it. Everyone knew it. And he was beautiful in a way that made his arrogance considerably easier for other people to tolerate. I collected a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and moved towards the windows. My reflection followed me across the dark glass: dark hair falling over one shoulder, emerald silk, diamonds at my ears, and a face that people occasionally told me belonged on a cinema screen. I had never known what to do with that particular compliment. I looked like a woman who had everything. Perhaps I did. I had money of my own. Shares in Sterling Holdings, courtesy of my father's generosity-or guilt, depending on which member of the family you asked. Six commercial properties scattered across the city. A beautiful home. A wardrobe I barely used and a husband whose face appeared in financial magazines often enough that I no longer bothered reading the articles. I also had an excellent memory, a fairly high tolerance for nonsense, and the ability to spend an entire evening in a crowded room without needing anyone to speak to me. People mistook that for contentment. I usually let them. It was easier than explaining that there was a difference between being alone and being lonely, and that marriage, rather inconveniently, could make room for both. "You're looking as though you'd rather be anywhere else." I turned. Marcus Sterling stood beside me, a glass of scotch in his hand. He wore his displeasure as comfortably as his tailored suit, and his smile had the particular unpleasantness of a man who considered every conversation an opportunity to discover where someone was vulnerable. Beatrice stood just behind him, studying the room over the rim of her glass. "Good evening, Marcus." "Vivian." "Beatrice." She gave me a thin smile. "That dress is lovely." "Thank you." "I don't think I've seen you wear that colour before." "Perhaps you haven't been paying attention." For a moment, neither of them spoke. I took a sip of champagne. I wasn't particularly fond of Julian's siblings. That wasn't entirely their fault. I suspected I would have found them difficult even if I'd met them under different circumstances. Marcus was ambitious in a way that made every room feel like a negotiation, while Beatrice had mastered the art of delivering an insult with the expression of someone offering a compliment. Their father had passed over both of them to make Julian CEO. Five years later, neither had forgiven him. And because they couldn't do much about the man himself, they occasionally entertained themselves by attempting to get a reaction from his wife. I was an easy target in theory. The illegitimate daughter. The convenient bride. The woman with the expensive surname and no apparent marriage to speak of. In practice, I was disappointingly difficult to provoke. "Where's your husband?" Marcus asked. I glanced across the ballroom. "Somewhere important, I imagine." His mouth twitched. "Always somewhere important." "He's the CEO. I assume being important is part of the job description." Beatrice let out a small laugh that wasn't quite amusement. "You're remarkably relaxed about him." I turned back to her. "Should I be worried?" "Oh, I don't know. Should you?" There it was. The small, deliberate pause. The invitation to ask what they had come to tell me. I could have made them work harder for it. In fact, I probably should have. Instead, I placed my champagne on the windowsill. "What has he done now?" Marcus exchanged a look with his sister. It was brief, but I caught it. "Nothing, as far as I know," he said. "Though I suppose that depends on how much you know about your own husband." I smiled. "Less than you might think. More than you'd like." His expression hardened. Beatrice leaned closer. "Diana is back." For a moment, I heard nothing but the music. Not because the name meant anything to me that I hadn't already known. I had known about Diana long before I became Julian's wife. Everyone who moved in our circles knew something about her, even if most preferred to pretend otherwise. She had been his girlfriend before our marriage. The woman he had chosen for himself. The woman his father had apparently considered unsuitable for the future of the Sterling empire. And the woman who had disappeared to Paris shortly before Julian and I were introduced to one another in a room full of people who spoke about our future as though we weren't sitting right there. I had never asked Julian what happened between them. He had never volunteered the information. Our wedding had taken place four months after our first meeting. There had been flowers, an orchestra, hundreds of guests, and a diamond necklace my mother had cried over because it was the first time in her life that she had been given something so expensive without having to ask for it. Julian had looked devastating in his black suit. I had looked beautiful in white. We had exchanged vows before a priest, signed the necessary documents, and left the reception in a car that smelled of leather and roses. That night, he had helped me remove the clasp of my necklace because my fingers were trembling and I couldn't quite manage it myself. His fingertips had brushed the back of my neck. "Careful," he had said when I winced at the tangled chain. "I am being careful." "Clearly." I had laughed. He had looked at me in the mirror, almost surprised, as though the sound hadn't been what he expected from his new wife. It was one of the few things I remembered about our wedding night that had nothing to do with the photographer, the guests, or the terrible shoes I had worn beneath my dress. The necklace had been placed in its box. He had changed into a fresh shirt. I had stood in the bedroom doorway, uncertain whether I was supposed to say something. He had solved the problem for both of us. "You can take whichever side of the bed you prefer." And that was how our marriage began. Not with a kiss. Not with a promise. With a practical arrangement concerning pillows. "Vivian?" Marcus's voice pulled me back to the ballroom. I blinked. "Sorry. What were you saying?" His smile returned, satisfied now that he had managed to interrupt whatever had been going on in my head. "I said, perhaps you should keep an eye on your husband." I picked up my champagne again. "Is there a reason I should?" "Because Diana is back in the country." "You've mentioned that." "And because a man like Julian doesn't forget a woman like her." I considered this. "How fortunate for her." Beatrice stared at me. "You're not even curious?" I thought about the question. Curiosity was an interesting thing. People tended to confuse it with jealousy, particularly when a woman asked about another woman in relation to her husband. I wasn't jealous. At least, I didn't think I was. Julian had never promised me love. He had never asked me to trust him with anything more delicate than the practical details of our shared life. Whatever feelings he had once possessed for Diana belonged to a time before I had entered the picture, and I had never been foolish enough to imagine that a marriage certificate could erase someone's past. But I was curious. I was curious about why she had returned. Whether she had come back for him. Whether he knew she was here. I was curious about what might happen to the life I had spent five years arranging around the assumption that nothing would ever change. Most of all, I was curious about why Julian hadn't told me. Not because he owed me an explanation for his former relationship. Because I had begun to suspect that there were parts of his life I had never even thought to look for. "Of course I'm curious," I said. Marcus looked delighted. I smiled at him. "I'm simply not curious enough to discuss it with you." Beatrice's expression sharpened. I retrieved my clutch from the windowsill. "Enjoy the evening." I left them before either could answer. The corridor outside the ballroom was quiet. The music softened behind the heavy doors, and the temperature dropped enough that I could feel the cool air against my bare shoulders. I stopped beside a large arrangement of white orchids and took out my phone. I had no intention of asking Julian about Diana. There was no point. If I wanted an answer, I would have to ask the right question. And Julian, for all his many faults, was very good at recognising questions that had been designed to extract information from him. I had been married to him for five years. I had learned a few things. For instance, he never lied when silence would serve him better. He never explained himself unless he considered the explanation necessary. And he had a particularly irritating habit of answering the precise question he had been asked while leaving the actual question untouched. I opened my browser. Diana's name wasn't difficult to find. She had always been photographed at the right events, standing beside the right people, wearing the right things. Even her disappearance had acquired a kind of glamour. I found her social media account in less than a minute. Her photographs were beautiful in the effortless way that made effort itself seem vulgar. Parisian cafés, museum interiors, a table set for two, a view of the Seine at sunset. Then, yesterday's post. A photograph of a modern classroom with floor-to-ceiling windows and rows of minimalist desks. New beginnings. Back in the city and finally making time for myself. Japanese lessons start Tuesday. I stared at the photograph. Then I opened the profile of the institute tagged beneath it. Linguistica Institute. Japanese language courses. Small classes. Private tuition. A branch less than twenty minutes from my home. I read through the course descriptions. Beginner. Intermediate. Advanced conversation. Diana's post hadn't specified her level. I sat on the narrow upholstered bench beneath the corridor window and considered my options. I could ask Julian about her. He would ask why I wanted to know. I could tell him Marcus had mentioned her. He would wonder why I had been speaking to Marcus in the first place. I could hire someone to find out whether they were seeing each other. It would be efficient, certainly. But I didn't want a report filled with photographs and dates. I wanted to understand the situation myself. I wanted to see her. To hear her speak. To discover whether she was the sort of woman who still looked at Julian as though the world had been kind enough to give her something extraordinary, or whether five years had changed that, too. It wasn't jealousy. I repeated that to myself as I opened the enrolment page. I was simply gathering information. That was what I told myself when I selected the Tuesday morning class. It was what I told myself when I entered my details, paid the fee, and received an automated confirmation email. And it was what I told myself when I finally locked my phone and slipped it back into my clutch. The decision had taken eleven minutes. I considered that reasonable. A little while later, I returned to the ballroom. Julian was standing near the centre of the room, speaking to a man I recognised from the board. He held a glass of water in one hand, his other resting loosely at his side. The wedding band on his right index finger caught the light. I watched him for a moment. He smiled at something the man said. It was a small, brief expression, barely there, but it changed his face enough to remind me why people found him so difficult to resist. Then he turned his head. His eyes found mine across the room.