We sat with a careful distance between us. Sofia folded the paper bag until its corners softened. I recognized her perfume, the same bright floral scent that had lingered around Julian's jacket after late office dinners. The recognition made me furious, not because perfume proved anything, but because I had learned to doubt my own perceptions until even a familiar smell felt like something I needed permission to interpret.
"Julian says you think we're having an affair," she began.
"I think my husband brought his secretary on our honeymoon without asking me. That's already enough to discuss."
Sofia looked down at her hands. "I didn't realize you would actually leave."
"I didn't leave the trip. I changed how I was taking it."
"He said you understood how much the project mattered. He said you were comfortable with how close we worked together."
I waited. She seemed to expect me to ask another question, to fill the silence the way I always had around Julian. When I didn't, she twisted the paper bag once more and exhaled sharply. "There's something you should know," she said, barely above a whisper.
"Then say it."
Sofia turned her face toward the ocean. "Julian and I were involved before the wedding."
The world did not become dramatically silent. Guests continued walking past, an attendant pushed a cart of towels along the path, and somewhere nearby a child laughed loudly at a game with his father. I had imagined hearing the truth a hundred times and pictured myself either falling apart or becoming instantly cold. Instead, I felt the ordinary ache of a fact landing exactly where an old suspicion had already made room for it.
"How long?" I asked.
"Since December. It started after a conference in Charleston. He told me you were having problems. He said the wedding was already complicated and he wasn't sure it would happen."
"And when it happened?"
Sofia pressed her lips together. "He said going ahead with it didn't change how he felt."
I looked at her white dress, or rather remembered it, because today she wore a blue blouse and plain trousers. "You came to our wedding," I said. "You stood in the room while I made vows to him."
"I know."
"You came to the airport wearing white."
She shut her eyes. "I know how that looked. I wanted him to notice me. I wanted him to choose me. He kept saying the trip was really for the deal, that you'd want time at the resort and he and I would work. I thought if I went along with it, something would finally become clear."
I felt an unexpected moment of pity, quickly followed by anger at myself for offering it. She was a woman who had made bad choices, and I could understand why without agreeing to carry their cost. She had spent months hearing Julian's explanations, just as I had. But unlike me, she knew there was another relationship at the center of his promises and had helped him keep it hidden.