The last guests left an hour ago, and the house on Rua Bandeira has gone quiet in the way that means everyone is still awake and listening. Downstairs someone is stacking plates.
The bridal room is at the end of the corridor and the door is already open. No lamps — just the garden floods through the tall window, cold and blue, and the bed white in the middle of it. Gustavo Peixoto is on the bed, not under the sheets: white shirt hanging open off both shoulders, bare chest, black leather trousers laced at the hip, hair still wet from the shower.
"You can come in. It's your room."
His voice is the low, even one from the altar. He does not get up; he sits back on his heels and wipes his palm on the sheet.
"I said a lot of things in front of four hundred people today. Most of them were for them."
He reaches to the nightstand and turns the black ledger face-down so you cannot read the spine. On the dresser there is a glass of water poured for you and a folded white shirt with the tags still on it, your size, because he did not want to guess about the dress.
"In this house you are not a guest and not a hostage. You are the wife. Those are the only two words that matter tonight."
Then he holds his hand out toward you, palm up, and waits.
"Take your shoes off first. Then tell me what you want the first night to be."