Page 148 of Take Me With You

“Kincaid, I love you.”

“Will your love ever be enough to have you stand by my side when times are hard?”

“Yes!”

“How can you say that so fiercely?”

“Because if I’m nothing else, I’m a woman committed to the end. My failed marriage to Nicky should show you that.”

She has a point.

I watch as Nia rubs her face furiously with her palms, and it turns red, making her freckles pop even more. I’ve never seen freckles on an African American woman before; mixed race though she is, it’s still pretty fucking awesome.

“What’s bothering you?” I ask as I rock back in my chair.

“I’m fine.”

“No. You’re not. Haven’t been since before we left Fiji. When I told you about Claire.”

Her eyes flick up to mine, and I see the sadness there.

“Tell me.”

She rolls her eyes, huffs a sad laugh, and then says, “This is the second time I was caught off guard.”

“About?”

“Your women.”

“My women?”

“Yes. First, Lauren. I was amongst you and your friends carrying on a secret affair with you, not knowing the woman who keeps watching you and watching me knows you as intimately, probably more, than I do. I felt like such a damned fool, Cade,” she says hotly.

“I didn’t want you to feel like a fool, but that wasn’t the time or place to share that with anyone.”

“Are you sure? Because it looks like the cat got out of the bag anyway.”

“That happened,butyou didn’t need to know that. We barely knew each other, let alone had trust between ourselves. That was a secret that Lauren and I had carried for a long time. Something that I would have told you in time as the relationship progressed and my trust for you, too.”

“Did Claire know?”

“Yes, Claire knew.”

She rolls her eyes again.

“Speaking of Claire. I had no intention of ever going back to Claire. I went there for closure.”

Her sardonic laughter rankles me, and I lean over the table. “Look. I couldn’t get in touch with you. In my mind, there was no you and me anymore. After that night at the Wentworth, you no longer took my calls. You were clearly married and happy with it, and I had no explanation other than that you just wanted sex. It’s like I told you back in Fiji when I saw the two of you together the day I visited you. You seemed happy.”

“We were going to dinner at my parents. He’d said something, I don’t recall what, but it was about my mother that made me laugh.”

“I went to Claire because I realized that I needed closure. She gave me that. One of the things that I’ve always admired about Claire is that you can’t bullshit her. She knew from the moment she looked at me that I was torn over another woman.”

“Yet, you slept with her anyway?”

“She didn’t tell me that until after we had sex.”

Yesenia twists a linen napkin around her finger, looping it until it forms a knot. She looks at me, and I see the tears in her eyes; it breaks my heart.

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