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“What are you talking about?” Duke asked into the phone clenched in his fist. He and Lola had cut off contact a long time ago. It was one of the conditions in the settlement. For a sum of money, she’d given up all rights to RD and agreed to disappear from his life. It had barely been six months, and she was blowing up his phone. At first, he was determined to ignore her, until her last text message: Rayne’s last name isn’t Kay, it’s Kent. There were millions of Kents in New York but the hair standing on the back of his neck told him his hunch was right. However, there was only one way to prove it.
“Are you okay?” Kit asked. He had calmed down and stayed calm for the past hour, at which time Duke decided to meet up with the girls at the hospital.
Duke wasn’t sure what was causing his agitation, but until Kit had his mind right, all weapons had been taken out of his house. Unbeknownst to Kit, Duke had set up a meeting with a PTSD specialist. It was a last-minute appointment but one thing that always rang true in New York was that with money anything was possible. In Kit’s mind, he was going to his wife’s appointment, but Duke hoped to get him into a treatment facility.
Duke’s wasn’t rushing Kit. His twin boys could be born in a month or two months’ time. He needed Kit to be somehow better before then. So with Kit’s issues, he wasn’t sure sharing his own drama with Lola was the best idea. But maybe it would help take Kit’s mind off his trauma.
“It’s Lola. I don’t know what she is up to.” Before he could say any more, their car pulled up to the entrance of the hospital. “That’s a problem for another day. Right now we have more important things to focus on.” Duke’s heart broke as he watched his little brother force a smile, while his eyes wore a haunted gaze. “You’re going to be fine. You may not be ten anymore, but you can still hold my hand when you need to. I’m still your big brother.”
“And I am someone’s husband and father,” Kit mumbled. “Do you think he’ll forgive me? Chris, I mean.”
“Don’t think about Chris. He sure as hell isn’t thinking about you, or anyone else.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means get out of the car and let’s go.” Duke slammed the door on Kit’s continuous questions. Duke hadn’t meant to sound so angry or malicious, but he was pissed. Kit was struggling with so many things and Chris shouldn’t be one of them.
Duke silently sighed at the welcome reception waiting for them, as Kit groaned behind him. It was that here-we-go-again, frustrated kind of groan. Duke was used to it: it was part of his everyday life. But to his younger brother, it must represent a life he had long escaped from. “Kit, keep up with me.”
Duke had done a quick read on PTSD, and crowds were known to set off some patients. He needed Kit as close to him as possible, just in case.
“Good Morning Mr. Henry, Captain Henry,” the hospital director mumbled.
“Don’t you have any work to do?” Duke responded. “I don’t need all of you following us around. In fact, I don’t need any one of you. I know where am going.” Duke was relieved when he saw Kit’s jaw immediately relax as they walked past the swarm of hospital staff into the air conditioned corridors on their own. “You need to tell me when it gets too much for you.”
“When what gets too much?” Kit tried to respond in a nonchalant way, but the tension was still very evident in his tone.
Silently, they rode the elevator up to the maternity floor, with Duke watching Kit from the reflective metal of the elevator doors. “I made an appointment for you.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No.”
When the elevator opened, Duke looked past the doors in recognition and utter disbelief. He was sure he was going to lose his shit. He stopped worrying about Kit and started to worry about himself.
“What are you doing here?” Kit took two large strides ahead of Duke—toward Jake.
Duke immediately grabbed Kit’s shoulder, holding him back. “Let it go.” He tried to walk Kit past Jake but Jake wasn’t cooperative.
Jake grabbed Duke by the elbow, making him stop and stare at the offensive hand on his person. Letting out a heavy sigh, he waved a nurse over and handed Kit over to him. “This is Daniella Kent Henry’s husband. Please show him to his wife’s room.”
“Dr. Henry-Ross is actually waiting for you,” the nurse responded with a smile.
“Duke,” Kit tried to protest before Duke cut him off.
“Daniella was scared when she left the house this morning. Go make her feel better.” With a tap on his back, Duke sent Kit on his way.
“I want to see Rayne,” Jake immediately said, once Duke turned his attention to him.
“No, was that all you came for today?” How had he known to come here? “Who told you she was here?”
“She called me, but once I got here they wouldn’t let me see her.”
Duke laughed. There was nothing he could do but laugh. It was ridiculous how his bodyguard had gone from keeping an eye on Rayne, to standing in the middle of a hospital demanding to see Rayne, as if they had some intimate relationship. Duke wasn’t too sure the two hadn’t crossed the line already. But all that would have to wait until his daughter was born. Duke had decided to wait until then to make any decisions about his relationship with Rayne. Until then, what the heck...let the man see his girl.
“Follow me.” Duke signaled to Jake over his shoulder.
They were all there waiting in the VIP room, his sister Kat and her husband AJ included. There was some weird tension in the room and Duke was sure Kit had set it off. It was Rayne’s expression that rubbed him the wrong way. When Duke walked in she had a calm expression on her face, but when Jake walked in right behind him, the silly girl didn’t hide her excited expression. He wasn’t sure how much of the ridiculous act he could take. They looked like long-lost lovers separated from each other. He did his best to ignore the two and walked up to where Daniella was sitting.
“Can we talk?” Duke sought to disarm her defensive position with a smile.
“Don’t do that. It’s more terrifying than what I saw this morning,” Danny responded with a grating tone.
“Your friend over there seemed to like it, once upon a time,” Duke teased back. He wasn’t used to making fun and jokes with anyone but his siblings. Daniella was technically his sibling, and he wanted to do his best to make her comfortable. “As his wife, there are some forms I need you to sign for his treatment.”
“What treatment?” AJ, Kat, and Kit all asked at the same time. Duke ignored them and focused on Daniella. She was seven months pregnant with twins, with a husband who went from Jekyll to Hyde in a second.
“He is getting treatment.” It was then the vice-grip tension had on her body released and she eased back into the chair. “What do I need to sign?” Danny’s eyes shimmered with tears as her gaze shifted from Duke to Kit.
Duke turned back to look at his brother. He had given up his position at the window and was now sitting with his face in his palms. “We’ll speak to the doctor later on. Until then, do you want to stay with your family, or with me, or maybe stay at the apartment?”
“I’ll stay at the apartment. I can start decorating for the babies,” she said with a smile.
Duke was in awe of her.
“Kat, can I speak to you outside?” Duke dragged her out by the lab coat, trying to stop her from asking Kit what was wrong with him.
“What’s wrong with Kit? Why would you ask Danny to help you when you have power of attorney for all our medical decisions? What’s going on?”
Duke took the pen hanging off his sister’s lab coat and made her bite down on it. It was something he had done ever since they were kids. Sometimes the only way to stop Chatty Kathy was making sure her mouth was occupied with something else. “Kit is going to be fine. Danny is his wife. If anything happened to you I would obviously include AJ in the decisions. He’ll be fine. He has us,” he reassured her. But Duke hadn’t pulled her aside to talk about Kit, he wanted to talk about a different set of siblings. “I need you to do something for me, but you can’t tell your husband.”
Immediately, Kat’s hands covered her ears. “Old Mc Donald had a farm. I don’t keep secrets from my husband.”
Duke pulled her hands down. “It’s not your secret to tell. I am approaching you as my doctor. You made an oath, so deal with it. I need a DNA test.”
Kat’s brow arched in suspicion. She looked toward the VIP room. After a few seconds her mouth made an “O” shape and Sherlock obviously thought she had cracked the case. “You think that Jake and Kay—”
“No!” Duke cut her off immediately. Even the thought of the two of them together enraged him. “No, Lola sent me a message. I don’t want to make a big deal about it until I confirm it. I need a DNA test between Danny and Rayne. Can you do that for me?”
Kat shook her head and took a step back. She immediately darted off toward the VIP room. Duke barely grabbed the back of her lab coat, dragging her back.
“What are you doing?”
“You don’t understand. We’ve been looking for her for so long. If it’s her... If your Rayne is Reno’s Rayne... You don’t understand.”
“I may not understand that. But what I know is that they will be devastated if you went in there and announced it before confirming it.” It took a minute but his reasoning finally sank in to Kat’s overstimulated brain.
“Okay,” she said.
***
Rayne watched Duke through the crack of the waiting room door. She couldn’t stop watching him when he was around. He just looked strong, formidable; even the slightest movement of his fingers seemed to command something. It was like she noticed each and every movement: the pulling of his crow’s feet when he snickered, the slight clench in his jaw when he was annoyed but didn’t want to show it, and how he bit the inside of his lip, as if reminding himself what was appropriate to say and what was not. Those three things showed her that he was in an uncomfortable situation, one he’d rather not be in.
Rayne wasn’t sure what that was, but the permanent poker face that occasionally sold out his true feelings had dropped the moment he’d walked into the hospital VIP waiting room, and it was still there to that very moment. Something was eating at Duke and Rayne wanted to know. Not out of curiosity, but to fix it for him.
Just then, his gaze lifted from Kat to her. And there it was, the moment that she had longed for ever since she’d come back from her failed attempt to escape him. It was a second, but she saw it: the warmth in his eyes that he used to have for her when they were first falling in love. She wanted to get that back, but she had to explain the reason she’d run away, first. However, Duke hadn’t asked for an explanation, and she hadn’t volunteered any. It wasn’t that she wanted him to ask before she could clear it up. It was fear that held her back. She was terrified that he wouldn’t care, that he would shut her down the moment her lips opened for her to breathe out her truth. And now the man she had boldly faced only nine months before, in anger, in joy, in love, and in lust, looked at her with hurt in his eyes and a resolute expression that made Rayne wish he would share whatever decision he had made.
Rayne broke out of her enamored trance when he lifted his hooked finger and called her over. She waddled to him, one hand curved at the bottom of her belly and the other holding her back, which threatened to break into a million pieces and fall on the ground.
“Why are you spying?”
Shiver.
His voice was light, low enough for just the two of them to hear. His head, leaning to the right, emphasized his question. Dear God, how could I run from this?
Rayne lifted her face toward him and shook her head, and in a voice as low as his, responded, “Not spying, just looking.”
They were having a moment and she was just about to combust from excitement.
“Mr. and Mrs. Henry,” someone called from behind her, viciously killing the connection. Although she was totally bummed about his gaze being taken from her, there was the Mrs. Henry part that she loved. So yes, the nurse was forgiven and was now one of her favorite people in the world.
“We should go,” Duke said as he started walking forward without her.
On impulse, Rayne grabbed the cuff of his jacket. Holding on to his hand seemed too presumptuous. He was yet to forgive her so she didn’t want to push it. And grabbing his jacket meant that he couldn’t shake her off. If he wanted to leave without her, he would have to strip.
Duke’s gaze shifted to where her fingers clutched at his Kiton K-50, and she lowered hers to the floor. It sounded like a chuckle but she wasn’t sure. She dared a peek at him from under her eyelids and he honestly did look amused by her.
“Let’s go. Do you want to hold my hand?”
Rayne could only shake her head. She was worried that her excitement would echo through the walls of the hospital. Duke had given her an inch and she was determined to hold on to it, until the moment he gave her all of him. She just had to make sure she didn’t do anything that would betray his trust and hurt him. This was it, one of the hundreds of moments that they had made to the journey of their forever.
Duke took her hand in his and wrapped his other arm around her waist. She needed the support but more than that, she cherished the warmth that radiated from the spot where his arm lay comfortably on her back. If she wasn’t so huge, with legs that begged for mercy every step she took, she would have tap danced.
He slowly led her to the examination room, helped her onto the table and stood beside her as the doctor got his equipment ready. She was just about to get comfortable with this scene when his phone rang. Work, no doubt: it was always the company. Duke tried to pull his hand away to take his phone from his pocket, but Rayne refused to let go. The Henry empire had owned him since the moment he was born, and would continue to do so until the day he died. So for a few minutes she was determined to claim him, not for herself, but for their baby. He had never been to an ultrasound, obviously not with RD, and not for their little girl. Today, she was determined to have him experience something life-changing in a father’s life.
“Rayne?”
“It’s just a few minutes for your baby girl. I’m sure your super sidekick Jessica can handle it.” With caution, she repeated the same words she had said to him nine months before. Then, she was just this nanny who loved his son, who he was beginning to fall in love with. Now she was this back-stabber that he hadn’t said a kind word to ever since he’d brought her back home.
“I heard you the first time,” Duke said. He controlled his face as he tried to ignore his screeching phone.
“Lie down, please,” the nurse said.
With Duke’s help she moved up the bed and lay in the most comfortable position she could find.
“Where is the doctor?” Duke asked.
“Nurses usually do this kind of stuff,” Rayne said.
“Not for my baby.”
“Of course.” Rayne cleared her throat, scratched the imaginary itch on her throat as she turned her grin toward the wall.
“What?” Duke asked.
“Your ego is just amazing.” Rayne giggled.
“Of course it has to be. I’m an amazing guy.”
Rayne laughed and a huge weight lifted off her chest. With the silliness in his voice and on his face, he looked like her Duke. Tears stung her eyes as she stared at the silly grin he still wore. She scrunched her nose the way he usually liked her to, pursed her lips, then said, “You’re not bad.”
“But you are awful.” The seriousness was back in his tone and that sobered her up from her drunken happiness.
“Can we talk tonight, when you get back from work?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
“It’s a date, then.”
“Or an interrogation.”
Duke’s face seemed to take on an odd, calculating sort of expression, the one that always puzzled her, because she couldn’t decipher what he was thinking. She squeezed his hand, still in hers, and nodded. She was willing to take it, whatever he threw at her, as long as they had a chance to clear things up between them. She was not naïve enough to think he would immediately forgive her and they would go back to living on a puffy cloud of love; she was just ready to get back to the love part of their relationship. They had a son together and soon a little girl. She wanted them to live with both their parents, who had a good relationship.
“Let’s take a look at the little girl, shall we?” Kat walked in with a file in her hands.
“You are my doctor? I thought you couldn’t treat family,” Rayne said.
“You can’t, but technically only the baby you are carrying is family. Duke wanted me to personally take care of you, hence the taking advantage of the gray area.” She rushed over her words as if offering an explanation for both herself and her brother. “However, I am sure that Duke will be clearing that up pretty soon with a big ring, an orchestra in a chapel, and a Mrs. title to your name. Am I right, Duke?”
“How about you put good use to that doctor title in front of your name and tell me if my daughter and her mother are healthy. I have to get back to work soon.”
He said it in his normal business tone. She’d heard it so many times but today it cut her the deepest it had ever done. Rayne pulled her hand away, using her belly as some sort of excuse.
“She doesn’t sleep well at night.” Duke filled the silent, empty, awkward air.
“It’s to be expected at this point in her pregnancy. You’ve done this before, so I’m sure you should know what makes you comfortable,” Kat said.
“I haven’t, so tell me.”
“Crabby much?” Kat muttered. “Let’s take a look at the baby first before we do our consultation.”
***
Kit was smart, maybe not book-smart like Kat, or people-smart like Duke, but he was smart enough to pick up the hints his brother had dropped at the hospital two weeks before. He had admitted himself into the facility, just as his brother had asked. He hadn’t had another episode and the doctor concluded that the first occurrence might have something to do with Danny. He was basically allergic to living with his wife, but was perfectly fine when it came to visiting her. There was a distance his subconscious had created between them that he was comfortable with. That distance allowed for his mind not to break down, but his heart couldn’t take it.
He wanted to sleep next to his wife at night, hugging her enormous belly and feeling each and every movement his boys made. He wanted to be husband and father, not just on paper or in theory. Kit actually wanted to be involved in his children’s lives in ways his father wasn’t involved in his. He didn’t know what dragging Chris from the grave would bring him, or how that would positively affect Danny into taking him back. What he needed was to lift this weight, this yoke that kept him from fully committing to his life. There was nothing he could do about losing his brothers in arms, but Chris—that kind of felt like his fault.
Something Duke said made him feel that he could soon get over that guilt. Duke was that type of big brother, the one involved in every facet of his younger siblings’ lives. The second father most siblings didn’t want but needed, and the big brother that everyone dreamed of having. So hearing him nonchalantly talk about Chris had left Kit very unsettled. He was going to find out what was going on. Kit had carefully monitored the people around Duke, especially the ones who wouldn’t speak openly about Chris. It wasn’t difficult, because Duke only let a handful of people get close to him. Obviously there was Jessica, then his bodyguard, his executive assistant and his two trusted personal assistants, one who took care of Duke’s work life and the other who made sure that Duke wasn’t too busy for his family life. The family life P.A. was the one Kit paid close attention to as he investigated, and he had a lead.
Kit was going to Cold Spring.
***
“I set an appointment with you a month ago.” Rayne, arched her back. She was trying to stretch as far as she could. It was probably a crazy misconception expectant mothers had, that if they stretched their bodies just far enough they could create more room for the baby. Rayne knew that that wasn’t how it worked, but the knowledge never stopped her.
Rayne watched Duke walk past her, his nose buried in a file full of papers. Probably important work stuff, especially since he’d brought it home with him. Either he was out of town, or she was too chicken to start the conversation. Rayne wondered why he didn’t initiate the talks. He was the injured party. Or was he intentionally trying to make her go crazy with anticipation? Rayne was tired of waiting and sick of being a coward.
However, here she was, trying to be brave, and the man was paying no attention to her. Wiggling down the sofa, she stuck her chubby leg in his way. Duke tripped, throwing his papers across the room. Duke wasn’t normal, so he didn’t laugh or ask “what are you doing?” in a high-pitched, startled tone. He just caught his bearings, his eyes on his papers, before slowly turning his head to face her. His brow slowly lifted, giving him that what-the-hell question-look, but never disrupting the stoic set of his expression.
Rayne pushed herself back into a sitting position. She didn’t avert her eyes from his irritated expression but stared right at him. She was tired of being this overly cautious and anxious Rayne that he’d brought home from the islands. She wanted to be Kay, the girl whose insistent nature he’d fallen for. Rayne wanted to call herself forceful, the woman who could move the mountain named Harry Henry the...whatever number he was. But she knew that she was just the persistent nanny/mommy who got Duke to spend time with his son. And because of her insistence, she’d managed to help Duke form an unbreakable bond with RD, and RD now had a father who loved him more than anything in the world.
So she was going to use the same technique to get this man to stop being the body she slept next to every night, had casual meals with, and noncommittal hi-hellos. Their family was just about to grow by one and she wanted to gift her baby girl with a functioning, happy home.
“I have no problem with you doing ridiculous things to get my attention, but try not to do them when you are still carrying my daughter.” Duke crouched and grabbed the guilty foot, then carefully scanned it before letting it go.
“I knew you wouldn’t crush into me with all your weight. Your ability to notice things quickly is amazing. And besides, your daughter is in my belly, not my foot.”
Duke sighed as he dropped onto the sofa next to her. “You talk back these days. Brave.”
“Sometimes you need to make a stand, and for me this is it.”
“The ability to notice things quickly. Are you making fun of me?” The corners of his lips turned up into a pained smile. His eyes were fixed on something else in front of him, obviously avoiding her, and Rayne was curious as to what he didn’t want her to see.
Here we go. She willed herself to be a bit more brazen. “I’m not making fun of you.”
“What would you call what you and Lola did?” His middle finger drummed into his knee, one of Duke’s tell-tale signs. He was quickly getting irritated. Rayne hadn’t expected that. He usually had his emotions in a strong hold, and when he did get mad, it was a slow simmer. Rarely did he raise his voice or bark out his rage. It usually took a special kind of idiot to get him to the point of losing his cool. And Rayne was hoping that would be her, today.
“I was stupid, scared, and she was the smart one. I just did whatever she told me.”
“So why the switch? Let me guess: you were scared, stupid and she was the smart one.”
“When I found out I was pregnant, I just didn’t know what to do. I just did what she told me.”
“She was getting a rich husband out of it. What were you getting?”
“Freedom.” There it was, the truth she had been terrified of saying out loud. Saying it meant that she had to face the ugliness of her words and have Duke judge her because of them. Rayne had been around after RD’s birth, but only long enough to express her breast milk for him. Lola needed evidence of being a good mother of her fake child to present to Duke. But Lola didn’t realize that Duke wasn’t that invested in the home life. He would never have checked the fridge.
It took him a few seconds, but Duke finally realized what she was saying. He slowly turned his whole body to face her and that when she saw it. That dark flicker. “I don’t understand. You were RD’s nanny.”
“When he was ten months. I was an orphan. I didn’t know what being a parent looked like. Plus, I was more interested in finding my brother. Lola was helping me find Reno and take care of our son.”
“So you just weren’t there.”
“Neither were you.” It was guilt that made her fire back at him. She immediately regretted it. “I was there, but I just watched from afar. I couldn’t abandon him but I also couldn’t be here. I wasn’t ready.”
“Okay, but why not tell the truth? I was in a better position to help you find your brother.”
“Yes, but it was Lola’s name on RD’s birth certificate.”
––––––––
Duke had known that. It was how he’d gotten full custody of RD. It was an exchange Lola offered for not being locked up in jail for fraud. He understood all that, not being ready to be a parent and the fear of having a legal parent take away your child. But that wasn’t enough for him. It wasn’t an excuse he thought justified the crime. Duke wondered why he was even pursuing the whole thing, anyway. It didn’t matter, what happened before. He cared about the reason why Rayne left after they’d become a couple.
“Why did you leave?”
“What?”
“Why did you pretend to die? Why did you take my son and leave me?” He hoped that she would come up with a suitable answer, but doubted it. She had scarred him so deeply, he didn’t think there was a way of making it right again.
“She was going to take RD from me. I couldn’t let that happen,” she responded in a whisper. “She gave me a choice. I could only have one of you and I chose my son.”
“Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”
“When?” The high pitch in her tone made his question sound like the most ridiculous thing she had ever heard. “You were always in one meeting or the other, jetting off for days at a time. I tried to wait for you, I really did. But you were just never around, so I made a decision. I would go but come back later.”
“But you never came back. I brought you back.”
“I found out I was pregnant and that you thought I was dead. So I thought that maybe, I could just stay on the island.”
Duke couldn’t believe what she was saying. He couldn’t even formulate a comeback. He just sat and watched as she tried to justify the reason she’d broken his heart and taken away his children.
“My decision seemed less dramatic and easier. I just wasn’t in any way ready, physically or mentally, to take both you and Lola on.” She rambled on just as he was about to ask a very obvious question. “I wasn’t sure you would take my side. We had only been having an affair for three months, and we had fooled you. Plus, you didn’t seem like the forgiving type.”
“Affair?”
“That was what we were doing.”
“Lola and I were never married. She just thought we were. She had fewer rights in this house than the weekly housekeeper did.” Duke scratched the side of his jaw as his gaze lay fixed on a stain on the carpet. Probably one of RD’s little accidents. Her explanations, her reasons...Duke sat there and realized something. The reason why he had been pissed off wasn’t because she’d fooled him. It was because she hadn’t trusted him.
Duke was in love with her at the time; now he just plainly loved her. The trust that had led him to fall deeply and madly for her was gone. All these whys and becauses, he didn’t care about them. He also realized that there was no way he could make Rayne trust him or have faith that everything he did was in her and their children’s best interests.
“Is it possible to have that conversation with me?” Rayne interrupted his thoughts. “You do that a lot. Call a board meeting up there and leave me out of the loop.”
Duke nodded his head, acknowledging that little fact. “The board,” he said, tapping his temple, “we met and came up with a possible explanation to your actions. You don’t trust me.”
He waited for her to refute it. Instead, she half-convincingly shook her head, before lowering her gaze to her belly.
“I didn’t expect you to disagree with me but I thought that you would at least make an attempt.”
“I think we are past the point of lying to make each other feel better,” she mumbled.
There was a point, he realized, when couples reached a place where they either fought to make it work or continued with business as usual. Duke and Rayne were at that point. He didn’t know what Rayne was hoping to get out of their conversation. But for him, they were still in the same spot they’d been in when the conversation started. Duke didn’t feel any better about her betrayal; he just felt numb to it. Yes, he was bothered by the fact that the mother of his children didn’t trust him. Then there was the other thing that pissed him off.
And right on cue, the source of his annoyance and yes, jealousy, manifested himself. Rayne’s phone rang and Jake’s name flashed on the screen. Duke didn’t move or say anything. He waited to see what Rayne would do. Sure enough, she picked up the phone to answer. At that moment, when they were supposed to be fixing the wedge that was between them, Rayne answered the phone.
He silently sat and waited for the five-minute conversation to end, before he asked, “Do you trust Jake?”
“Yes, I do.”
There wasn’t a pause, a beat, nothing. So the problem wasn’t that she was an orphan who had been taken for a fool so often she had difficulty trusting. It was just she didn’t trust Duke.
“Do me a favor. Next time, take at least a second before you answer any questions I ask you about Jake. Pretend to think about it.”
“What? Why?” Rayne’s confused expression turned into one of realization. At least she seemed sorry, but that didn’t change the reality.
Duke stood up and walked toward his office. “Nice talk. We should do it again someday.”