Page 102 of The Forbidden Fling

“I’m glad you came,” she said, breaking the silence. “I wasn’t sure whether you would.”

“I wanted to be here for Riley.” Faye’s words were sharp, perhaps harsher than she’d intended, because she cleared her throat and smoothed out her dress, then added, more softly, “I wasn’t sure whether you would, either.”

“I wanted to see you.”

Faye huffed. A dark lock of hair fell across her face. “You waited long enough, didn’t you?”

“I know.”

“It’s been three months, Diana.”

“I know.”

Faye shot her a steely gaze. “Do you have any idea how much you hurt me?” The raw honesty sliced straight into Diana, and she fought the instinct to turn away. “Hearing you voice aloud the fear I had. That I meant nothing to you. Blaming me to try to save your own skin.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. “I felt so stupid.”

Diana’s heart squeezed. “Faye, I—”

“I’m not finished.” Faye held up her hand. “I need to get this out.”

Diana nodded, surprised but impressed with the new fierceness.

“I know I’m not an innocent party in this,” Faye went on. “When I found out you were Molly’s mum, I still wanted to explore what we had. I wasn’t thinking about Molly. I just wanted to know you. I do feel guilty about that, but I don’t, and will not, regret it.” Her eyes slowly found Diana’s; the earlier feistiness melted away. “I will never regret you, Diana. Even after you stomped on my heart.”

Diana blew out a breath.

“In a way, I should’ve known better,” Faye continued. “But I was so enamoured by you. You made me feel special.” She swallowed. “You made me feel wanted. I was naïve to think I wouldn’t want more from you when our stay was over.” Her gaze flicked to Diana again. “It took a lot for me to tell you that before we left. I spilt my heart to you and then… nothing…” She pressed her lips together in an attempt to fight off her emotion and exhaled a shaky breath. “I gave you my heart…and you just dropped it.”

Goosebumps covered Diana’s skin now, too, despite the Portuguese sun overhead. She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Can I talk now?” she asked.

Faye nodded.

Diana reached for her necklace. The hard lines of the dove rough between her fingers. “I never really understood people’s obsession with relationships,” she admitted. “Very time-consuming, emotionally draining, a distraction mainly from getting you what you really wanted in life. I had a few arrangements, naturally, but the desire for more didn’t interest me.”

Faye muttered something Diana didn’t catch and shook her head, assessing Diana as though she had a million thoughts racing through her mind—and not one of them good.

“I never understood it,” Diana continued, “until I met you.”

Faye’s glare softened, and it took everything in Diana not to pull that perfect face to hers and kiss it. But just as much as Faye needed to get things off her chest, so did she.

“From that first moment I saw you, I was hooked. What twenty-something-year-old sits in a bar and does sudoku?” She let out a breath of laughter. “That shy confidence, the passionate speech about chickens… The way you rushed to save that idiotic man from choking.” Her smile stretched. “I was completely swept up in you, Faye. I have been ever since. I told myself it was a researcher’s curiosity. When something intrigues us, we encourage our brains, follow the trail, and try to uncover something new. But that ‘something’ isn’t measured by data or by collecting samples. It just is.” She looked out at the sea, the sunlight glinting off the rolling waves. “It’s difficult to trust in a gut instinct that has always felt foreign to me. So imagine my surprise when I finally recognised the truth.” She turned to Faye, catching those beautiful eyes. “I was forty-one when I finally understood love.”

The words lightened the weight in her chest, and she breathed out. A breeze tickled the hair around her face.

“And not only that, I’d fallen in love with someone who was living in another country. With someone who, for many reasons, was off-limits. But in all my theories and dissecting, I’ve come to the same conclusion. Love just is. It doesn’t discriminate by age or location. Nor complicated circumstances regarding previous partners. Love exists in the spaces between, without scientific reason or purpose. Love just…is.”

Faye’s eyes welled. That unexplainable feeling flowed through both of them. Pain mutual, joy shared.

Diana placed a hand on Faye’s, her heart soaring when she didn’t pull away. “I’m so sorry for the way we left things. For reacting the way I did. I panicked. Everything blew up in front of me, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I should’ve reached out sooner—I wanted to. But I still didn’t have any answers.”

Faye looked at her through those long lashes. “And now?”

She swallowed, recalling the words Faye said to her on this very bench those few months ago. “I want to uncover all of your layers. I want to show you how beautiful you are. I want to love you in all the ways you deserve.” She cupped Faye’s face, hoping she knew she meant every word. “In a way I’ve never thought possible, with a hunger that made me completely reckless, with more certainty than I’ve ever known, I want you too, Faye.”

“Diana…” Faye’s voice broke on her name.

But Diana couldn’t fight it any longer. She pulled Faye to her and kissed her, the kiss charged with three months’ longing. As soon as their lips touched, something in her cracked wide open. Soft melted into hard, Faye’s mouth welcoming hers in a way that made her whole soul fill with light. God, she’d missed her taste, the shape of her lips, the soft sounds she made when Diana kissed a little harder or nipped her with her teeth. Faye met her with the same desperation, their hands gripping each other like they were afraid to let go.