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Rayne had put the kids to bed. It was already dark and besides the lights from the yacht, only the moon and stars illuminated the night. She walked up to the bow of the boat, where Duke was seated. He was on the daybed, his back turned to her. From where she stood, she could imagine how he looked, with his face turned up to the sky, probably with his eyes closed. She could see his content, peaceful face as the night breeze wrapped around him. She imagined it, because ever since they had boarded the boat a few hours before, she hadn’t had the courage to look him in the face.
What was she supposed to say? Should she apologize, and if yes, what for? What was her fault in all of this? It wasn’t that she didn’t know the answers to these questions: it was if they were they the right answers, and beyond that, what were his questions. With Duke, unless he expressly said it, you’d never know exactly what bothered him or not. Jake was the obvious point, but he wasn’t there, in fact he never had been. To Rayne, Jake had always been another person who supported her, but nothing more than that.
Ever since she’d met Duke, she never saw men the same way other women would. To her, they were just others while Duke was the only one. It was a weird thing to have your world in black and white, and have only one thing in color. He was a dream that she somehow never seemed to be able to make come true. Rayne stood there, admiring the back of his head and neck, wanting nothing more in this world than to touch them.
“How long are you going to stand there?” Duke asked, his deep baritone shocking her out of her fantasies.
“I just-uh...” Uh—what. What was she supposed to say? “Do you need anything?”
“I have a nurse for that.”
“For something else, I mean.” She rolled her eyes at how stupid she sounded.
“Like something a nurse can’t give me?”
“Yes, something like that.”
“You?”
What was that supposed to mean? Rayne’s brain froze before she said something completely ridiculous and irrelevant. “Me?” “What do you mean?”
“Are you going to keep talking to the back of my head?”
“Yes—I mean no. Of course not.” Actually, she would prefer it but it would only prove how ridiculous she was being. Rayne walked up to him, turned to face him, and sat by his feet on the daybed. “Are you comfortable?”
Duke bit his bottom lip and gave her one nod. He, too, seemed to have been deep in his thoughts before she interrupted. Rayne was going to risk it: she was going to start a conversation between them, the first they were going to have since before she’d taken RD and ran.
“What are you thinking about?”
“You.”
Me? “What about me?”
“Have you ever tried catching the wind?” he asked.
“What?”
“Ridiculous, right? To think that you could catch something so magnificent in the palm of your hand. How do you hold on to something that can’t be seen or touched, just felt? That is what you are to me.”
“I don’t understand.” Rayne searched his face and for the first time, she could see his composure melt away. She saw worry that could easily be interpreted as fear in his eyes. His jaw trembled a little as he spoke and his expression sagged a little bit.
“At first you were a puzzle I couldn’t solve. Now you are just like the wind. I love you but I can’t have you.”
Rayne’s whole body shuddered at the confession. “You love me?” she whispered.
“What else would you call it?” Duke looked at her for a moment, his face lifting in a slight smile. “It’s hardly an obsession. Maybe a little bit close to it. I didn’t know how to describe it, but love fits. A little bit more than love. How do they say it? I’m in love with you?”
“I only care about how you say it.” Rayne placed her trembling hand over his as her vision blurred from the tears. “I’m in love with you, that’s how I would say it.”
“Are you saying it?” He brushed her tear away with his thumb and cupped her jaw.
“I’m saying it.”
“Good. That’s good to know.” Duke looked away from her, actually right past her, and said, “You are a hard person to trust.”
Rayne swallowed that like the bitter pill it was. But she didn’t let it burst her bubble, or pull her down from the cloud she was sitting pretty on. “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
“So we are Rome?”
“No, we are us.’ Rayne moved so that they could sit side by side. She wove her fingers through his, holding his hand. “As long as you don’t let go of my hand we can be us for the rest of our lives.”
“If you don’t let go, I won’t let go.”
“Even if you let go, I’ll keep holding on.”
“For the kids.”
“For me first, then you, then the kids. I like prioritizing myself,” she teased.
Duke chuckled, then said, “Okay, for me, then you, then the kids.”
Rayne cupped his jaw in her palm and gently moved his face closer to hers, “Duke, I’m in love with you.”
“Rayne, I’m in love with you.”
*The End*