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“Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
Macy sat back in her seat and folded her hands in her lap just as he had. The sun hit her face, lighting her chocolate-brown eyes. Her skin blended with the sun, making it golden. Damn, she is beautiful, Duke thought to himself.
“You know, I recognize that frown. You were thinking of an ex, weren’t you?”
Duke knew better than to answer. But he wasn’t going to lie to her. She didn’t even seem bothered by it; she just asked the question the way a friend would. “I’d rather not say.”
“That’s probably wise,” Macy mumbled, and then grinned. “But for whatever it is worth, you can work things out if you truly want.”
He wanted Macy. Her attempt to sympathize with him was even more endearing. She was trying to give him hope that things could work out with Kristina. Perhaps his kisses didn’t mean that much to her or just weren’t sinking in. He leaned in closer. “If we’re referring to what I think, trust me, I truly don’t want things like that to work out.”
“I can understand.”
“You and your ex?” He knew she was married once before. He knew she had children with this man, and Duke didn’t think of himself as the jealous type, but a part of him was glad that Macy’s relationship hadn’t worked out. Otherwise, this luncheon would have gone a completely different way. “How long have you been divorced?”
“Seven years divorced now, but we were the best of friends for the longest time before marriage,” Macy shared with him.
“How did you two meet?” Duke thought the man had to be the world’s biggest fool for letting her go.
“Both sets of my grandparents were friends with his parents, and they thought it would be cute to put us together because of our backgrounds. We each have a grandparent who migrated from Italy, so they insisted we attend the Sons and Daughters of Italy Club.”
Duke didn’t give a damn about Macy’s background. A beautiful woman was a beautiful woman. In the DR, women came in every shade of color.
“We just knew we were destined to be friends.”
As much as he hated to admit it, the thought of Macy still friends with an ex made him uncomfortable, unsure. He’d never felt that way before. Jealousy was not something he had in him. He used to think there were too many women in the world to get jealous, but then he met Macy. She was the only person he was concerned with right now.
When Duke took his initial break from the news desk, he’d done so with the blessing of the station production manager, Oscar Orsini. Oscar also produced Kristina’s Spotlight on Socialites show. Without caring whether or not Duke accepted Kristina’s business proposal of marriage, the two of them conspired together and planned out the Rodriguez/Barclay wedding; the list of sponsors and endorsements had taken over three pages in an email. Still with no idea how to say no to Kristina, Duke returned to DC and found out exactly why Oscar and Kristina were spending so much time together. Duke had guessed that, with his absence and lack of response, an affair between the two must have been foreseeable. This time, when Duke left DC, Oscar accepted his open-ended leave of absence.
How Macy’s ex could just be friends with her was beyond him. He couldn’t imagine watching her go out with a different man. And that was after only one kiss. He couldn’t imagine how he would feel after making love to her.
“I doubt I can be friends with...”
“Kristina?”
He wanted to tell Macy he wasn’t sure he could be just friends with her, not Kristina. But instead of telling her what he was thinking, he just cleared his throat. It didn’t surprise him that Macy had heard of Kristina. He’d tried as much as he could to keep private life private; stories got out.
Since he’d been away from the limelight in DC, he hadn’t had that problem as much, and it was refreshing. When he played baseball, he was used to reporters asking him questions after a game, but when he became an anchorman himself, it almost seemed as if he was stalked every time he went out with Kristina. The more he thought about it, the more he realized Kristina could have easily phoned in their whereabouts.
“I really can’t see Kristina and me being friends, just because we have nothing in common.”
“Is that why you two broke up?” Macy asked and then quickly shook her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked such a personal question.”
Relaxing in his chair, Duke chuckled. Macy could ask him anything in the world. Considering he’d already told Macy about his infertility, why not go ahead and blab about Kristina’s infidelity? But he did not want to come off as wounded. The tabloids already speculated a breakup, along with a graph of how many events Kristina attended alone. It was only a matter of time before the truth came out. He just didn’t want to bring that drama here. “It’s okay. I haven’t spoken about the situation. Without divulging too much, let’s just say that we had a difference of opinion.” He held back a grin when she started to nod her head in understanding and reached for her tea. She was on the edge of her seat, clearly waiting to hear the whole story. The whole world had been on the edge of its seat.
“She wanted to get married, didn’t she?”
Duke had left DC first and as a result, the media pegged him as the bad guy. Typically, he didn’t care what people thought about him. As long as he knew the truth, he was okay with what others thought. But today it was different. It affected Macy’s view of him.
“Yes, she wanted to get married, but not for the reasons you may think. In her eyes, we were this power couple in the news.”
“You guys did rival Jay-Z and Beyoncé or Brad and Angelina for a while in the media,” Macy chimed in with a cocky smile. “Not like I paid attention or anything.”
“You’re good for my ego.” Duke clutched his heart and wobbled to the side a bit in jest. “The whole media thing was not my idea. I wanted something low-key. Believe it or not, I like the idea of an intimate relationship, one that’s not plastered over the gossip tabloids.”
Slowly Macy nodded her head as if she understood. He doubted she did. No one did. “Yet you continued the relationship with her?”
“I just went with the flow of things. But we had different ways of getting ahead in life. I thought journalism meant getting the story by any means necessary. I just never thought sleeping with someone to get a story was the way to go.”
