False Holiday: Damon and Sierra Get PR Honeymoon
711 Words
Sunlight cascaded upon the agate waters, the breeze grazed me with hypnotic lapping of waves, and the iced coffee was just again. Seraphina Monroe, bride to Damon Cross, at least in the world that mattered-inhale-Tastes salty, tastes of freedom-even if it was staged.
We were in Santorini not for love nor honeymoon but for optics. The media would follow, and social media would erupt. That is to say it was a PR honeymoon stretching over two weeks to provide us some stability, calm down the media frenzy, and hopefully give credence to us beyond rumors, contracts, and lawsuits. We were the perfect power couple reborn.
I stared down at the table: French press, mango juice, a tiny vase with a single calla lily. I stared at Damon, silhouetted in a white linen shirt-kept crisp by all the sea breeze-gazing at the horizon.
He turned and caught my gaze. I raised my mug in a half-mock salute, half toast. He smirked and raised a glass of orange juice.
"To us."
"Fake honeymoon," I said.
He chuckled, his rich bass vibrating through the planks underfoot. "Fake, temporary. Us, real."
I closed my eyes. Could I believe it?
With nowhere to go, we spent the morning acting out scenes. Then a photographer followed us to a cliffside chapel for some staged vows with white dress and crisply tailored suit along with some genuinely emotional reading of the wedding-day scripts. I recited things I did not feel, but his eyes did. Fierce. Warm.
Once the cameras were gone, the two of us walked along volcanic rock to seek out some tranquility. I took off my sandals, letting my feet sink into warm sand.
Damon sat beside me. "How are you?" he asked, turning from the stony cliffs to me.
I traced a pattern in the sand with my fingers. "Unsure."
"Of the act?"
"No. Of us." I dared to glance at him. "Sometimes I... it feels... real."
His smile was gentle. "That's fine. That's what's supposed to happen."
By afternoon, we wandered through markets, laughing like real honeymooners trying olive oils, racing through windy alleys, hand in hand. I would catch myself thinking that I loved him; I needed him; I trusted him: Then I would see the camera's lens peering from behind a pillar, reminding me this was all a reinvention.
But sometimes, I just didn't care.
At sundown, we got back to our suite, eyes fixed on the Aegean horizon. I sang softly clinking my champagne glass on his: "To survival."
He looked at me, hard and steadfast: "To us."
Before going to bed, we walked along the terrace in our bathrobes, the air biting cold. The waves far below whispered in Greek syllables.
He pulled me close and held me. We were not boss and assistant, nor contract spouses; we were two souls sheltering one another.
He cupped my cheek. Gentle. No announcements. No cameras.
“I mean this, Seraphina. I will protect you. Always.”
I closed my eyes. It somewhat alleviated the ache in my heart.
As we wrapped our arms around each other, my phone slipped out of my pocket and chimed.
The message stated:
A message from an unknown number:
“Beautiful couple but not everything is what it seems. Be careful.”
I disentangled myself, my heart pounding.
He followed the gaze. Passing him the phone, the two of us read the words.
He snapped it shut. “Whoever you are, you just made this vacation very real.”
Side-by-side with our backs to the water, the sun sank away in a fiery red.
“It’s time to stop pretending,” he muttered.
As darkness fell and the cameras stirred, a fancy car drove to our gate.
Damon moved like lightning; instinct at its finest. He grabbed my hand and guided me inside. The cameras were gone. Night was here. The terrace lights flashed off.
We saw him through the glass: the man at our gate, one hand resting on something shining underneath his jacket.
We thought we had controlled the narrative.
But control is a flimsy illusion.
And danger has its own agenda.
A man stepped out and I recognized him, in sunglasses and a fancy suit.
He wasn't with Damon.
And he had a gun.
- Writer
