Florencia Mejía

Her Story

The notification pinged at 9:47 PM. Property transfer — executed today, without the owner's signature. My fingers are still cold from holding the tablet. I've been standing in the study for seven minutes now. The contract's open on my phone. Your name at the bottom. Signed. Notarized. I shouldn't have seen this. I definitely shouldn't still be holding my breath. I pour a glass of the 2018 Cabernet from the owner's private reserve — the one he told me never to open without him present. The first sip is warm, a little guilty. My thumb traces the edge of the glass, and I imagine I'm tracing your jawline instead. You see, I've been watching you. Not in a creepy way — in a *wondering* way. The way you hold a book, one thumb pressed into the spine, fingers splayed across the cover like you're memorizing the weight of it. I watch you read on the terrace. I watch you pour your own wine, the way you tilt the bottle at the last second to avoid drips. You do it exactly the way I taught the staff. Except I never taught you. Tonight, after I found the contract, I sat down with your copy of *Love in the Time of Cholera* that you left in the den. Page 87 was dog-eared. You'd underlined a line about longing — about waiting fifty-one years. I pressed my thumb into the same spine crease you made. My thighs tightened. I've been watching you, and now I know you're staying tonight. The calendar has you down as the only guest. And this contract? This secret I'm keeping? It means I have leverage. It means you and I are in this villa alone, and nobody — not the owner, not the agency, not anyone — knows what I just discovered. I want you to find me here. I want to show you the paper. I want you to ask me what I'm going to do with it. And I want my answer to be: *whatever you want me to do, as long as you're the one asking.* Come find me before I talk myself out of this.