The Second Honeymoon – Part 2: The Sunset Terrace

They walked the caldera path after dinner, the way they had on their first night, with the lights of the village glowing behind them and the sea turning from blue to silver to black.

Clara held his hand. Neither of them mentioned it.

"We should make a list," Hugo said. "Of what we actually want, not what we think we should want."

"You hate lists."

"I hate lists about the house. This one is different." He stopped at a low wall and leaned against it, facing the water. "I want Saturdays back. Not the ones we spend fixing things. The ones where we do nothing and call it a plan."

"I want to stop pretending I'm fine with the travel schedule," Clara said. "I'm not. I hate being the one who stays behind."

He nodded slowly, as if he had known it for years.

"Then we change it," he said. "Ask for the regional role, or I do. Or we say no to one client a year. Something real."

"Is that you, or the wine talking?"

"It's me. The wine is just honest about it."

She laughed and moved closer, until her shoulder rested against his arm. The wind came up off the water, cool and salty, and she felt goosebumps rise along her skin.

"Hugo," she said quietly. "Do you still want me? Not the wife who is good at logistics. Me."

He turned, and for a moment the moonlight caught his face, and she saw the same look he had worn at twenty-six, when he had first asked her to dance at a friend's wedding and had been too nervous to hold her properly.

"Every day," he said. "Especially when you're rude to the coffee machine."

She kissed him then. Not carefully, not politely, but the way she had wanted to kiss him for months. He made a low sound against her mouth and pulled her in, one hand at her back, the other in her hair, as if he were making up for every evening they had spent apart at opposite ends of the sofa.

They walked back to the hotel slowly, stopping every few steps to kiss again. Clara felt light, almost dizzy, as if the last twelve years had folded up and put themselves away somewhere.

In the room, the shutters were open to the sea. The bed was the same. The sheets smelled of salt and sunshine.

Hugo closed the door behind them and stood for a moment looking at her, the way he had the first time.

"Same room," he said softly.

"Same room," Clara agreed, and reached for his hand.

Later, when the sky outside had turned from indigo to black and the lights of the fishing boats were scattered on the water like coins, she lay with her head on his chest and listened to his heartbeat slow.

"Clara," he murmured, half asleep.

"Mm."

"We're going to do better."

"We already are," she said, and meant it.

She fell asleep with the sound of the sea below them and his fingers drawing slow circles on her back, the way they had twelve years ago, on the first night, in this room, when everything still felt new.

---

Next: Midnight in Marrakech, a riad, a lost key and a rooftop at midnight.