If you press that shutter again, Elena, I am going to take that camera and throw it into the Atlantic. Are you ever going to look at me without three pounds of glass between us?
Elena froze, her finger hovering over the shutter release. Through the sharp clarity of her 85mm lens, Marcus’s eyes were a stormy, jagged gray, mirrored by the churning horizon of the North Sea behind him. He stood on the edge of the ballroom’s terrace, the wind whipping his black tie against the crisp white of his shirt. He looked like a wrecking ball in a tuxedo.
I am working, Marcus, she said, her voice sounding thin even to her own ears. Her pulse hammered against the heavy leather strap of the Nikon draped around her neck. The camera was a shield, a barrier she had spent five years perfecting. Move back toward the wedding party. I need a shot of the best man with the groom’s family.
The groom can wait, he said, stepping forward.
The distance between them evaporated. Elena felt the sudden, terrifying heat of him, a sharp contrast to the biting salt spray drifting in from the cliffs. The ballroom behind them was a blur of gold light, clinking champagne flutes, and the low, sultry thrum of a cello, but out here, the air tasted of ozone and impending rain.
You’re shaking, Elena.
I’m cold, she lied.
Marcus reached out, his hand steady and tan against the black sleeve of his suit. He didn’t touch her skin—not yet—but his fingers brushed the side of her camera, his thumb grazing the cold metal of the body. The proximity was a physical weight. She could smell him now: sandalwood, rain, and the faint, bitter edge of expensive gin. It was the same scent that had lived in her bedsheets for three years, the scent she had tried to scrub out of her memory with every mile she put between them.
He didn’t move his hand. He just watched her, his gaze dropping to her mouth before snapping back to her eyes. The silence between them wasn’t empty; it was pressurized, a vacuum that sucked the oxygen right out of her lungs.
You haven’t looked at me once today, Marcus said, his voice dropping an octave. Not really. You’ve looked at my tie, my cufflinks, the way the light hits the floor around me. But you haven’t looked at me.
I’ve seen everything I need to see, she whispered.
Liar.
