“Little girl? Who the fuck does this guy think he is?” I stiffen and grind my molars.
“I was shooting in Berlin,” Emma says, a little sharply. “There was no way I could be there.”
“Still, you were the heart of our show.” He glances at her, gaze softening, then looks back at me. “You’re lucky to work with her, Asher. She makes everything… more interesting.”
This, apparently, is code, because Emma blushes, then covers it by downing half a glass of champagne in one go. Antonio’s smile widens. I force a grin and say, “She’s electrifying. Keeps everyone on their toes.”
“Ah, yes!” Antonio barks a laugh. “We have a saying in Spain. ‘Cuidado con las mujeres de fuego.’ Be careful with the fire woman.”
Emma laughs, but it’s different from her usual laugh, more tense.
Antonio plants his hand on my shoulder, friendly, but with just enough pressure to make it a move. “You’re coming to the afterparty tonight, yes?”
I look at Emma, but she’s gone enigmatic again. “Sure,” I say. “Wouldn’t want to miss it.”
Antonio beams. “Perfecto.” Then he kisses Emma’s cheek, takes her hand, and winks at me. “See you at midnight. Bring your dancing shoes.”
He vanishes into the crowd, swallowed whole by a swirl of sycophants and gallery girls. Emma is silent for a moment, staring at the mobile overhead.
“So,” I say, carefully, “that was interesting.”
She turns, eyes glassy. “He’s harmless. Mostly.”
“You dated?”
She considers the question, then shrugs. “For like five minutes. It’s not a story.”
I want to believe her, but the memory of Antonio’s hand on her shoulder burns. “You don’t have to hide shit from me, Em.”
She gives me a look I can’t decode, lips pressed thin. “It was never a thing. Seriously. He just likes playing the old co-star card.”
I nod, but the energy between us has shifted, subtle as a tectonic plate. She refills her champagne, and we finish the gallery tour in silence.
Back at the W, we’re ushered to separate rooms for hair, makeup, and “wardrobe tweaks.” I’m twenty minutes early for mine, which gives me time to run to the rooftop bar and stare at my phone, scrolling through a thousand photos of Emma with other men. I end up on a Spanish gossip blog, which has a slideshow of her and Antonio at some film festival, arms entwined, laughing. I know it’s ancient history, but it needles at me in a way I can’t intellectualize away.
When I get to the afterparty, Emma’s already there, perched at the table with the big-name director and two Spanish actors I recognize but can’t name. She’s animated, flushed with wine, and when I slide into the seat next to her, she plants a chaste kiss on my cheek.
Antonio appears moments later, arms spread wide, carrying a tray of drinks. He passes them out, drops into a chair across from us, and launches into a story about a disastrous shoot in Morocco, something with snakes and a sandstorm. Emma relaxes into the rhythm of the group, laughing at the punchlines, eyes darting to track Antonio when he gestures too close to her, but never lingering long enough to be called out on it. It’s a masterclass in plausible deniability, and all I can do is watch, stuck somewhere between pride and a weird, animal resentment.
Maybe it’s the mezcal or the jet lag, but by midnight the party is a blur of new faces—directors, influencers, that guy from the cooking show who got canceled and came back as a vegan. Emma disappears at some point, maybe to the bathroomor maybe just for a break from the meat market, and I’m left at a cocktail table with Antonio and two male models who seem genetically engineered to intimidate me. Antonio is in full storyteller mode, spinning tales about his childhood in Madrid, his grandmother who made the best paella in the universe, and his philosophy on love, which seems to involve a lot of hand gestures and the word “destiny.”
Through it all, he keeps dragging the conversation back to Emma. Not crude, never direct, just enough to let me know: yes, he knows her, yes, they have history, no, he doesn’t believe for a second that a past is ever really finished. I want to hate him, to call him out, but the guy is too fucking likable. That makes it worse.
“You are a lucky man, Asher,” Antonio says, clinking his glass against mine. “Emma is…how do you say?Una tormenta. A storm.”
“Yeah,” I say, trying to keep it light, “she’s kind of a force of nature.”
He laughs. “She twists you into knots, no?”
The models snicker, all teeth and angles. I smile, but my knuckles are white around the glass.
When Emma comes back, she floats right into my space, looping her arm around my waist. Outwardly, it’s all show—a subtle fuck you to the room, maybe to Antonio—but her fingers are tense, almost digging. She says something in Spanish to him that I can’t follow, and he throws his head back, delighted. When he leans in to kiss her on both cheeks goodbye, she allows it but keeps her body rigid, like she’s surviving a tsunami by holding her breath.
We leave not long after, wading through the dying embers of paparazzi outside the club and hurrying to the cab line. Thecity is a blur of neon and laughter and old stone breathing with midnight moisture. I put my arm around Emma’s shoulder, but she’s silent the entire ride back to the hotel.
Upstairs, she kicks off her shoes and sits on the windowsill, looking out over the harbor. I flop onto the bed, trying not to stare at her, waiting for something to break the silence.
“He’s always like that,” she says finally, voice distant. “Antonio.” She doesn’t turn around. “You know he does that to everyone?”
