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“You and me. Our...romance. The sensible decision was to cut ties and let us both start anew.”
“Sensible?” A muscle on his jaw ticked.
“Yes.”
“Did you no’ think it might be a good idea to ask me if I thought this thing between us was going nowhere too?”
The water bottle shook in her hands, and she couldn’t look at him. “I did.”
***
Duncan took the bottle from her and placed it back on the bedside table. She was trembling hard, and it took all his willpower not to pull her into his arms. What a mess she’d gotten herself into.
“When did you ask me this?”
She flicked an agony-filled glance in his direction. “The night before you left.”
He went over their conversation in his mind, finding the point where he’d messed up.
What I want to know is, do you think you could ever love someone other than Fiona?
Why would you ask me something like that? Ask another question—one I can answer.
He’s been an idiot. Again.
“Oh, Donna,” he said on a sigh. “Will I ever get things right with you?”
Her face turned back to his, but she didn’t ask the question in her eyes.
“When I told you not to ask me if I could love again, it was because I was worried about scaring you off.”
“What?” she whispered as her eyes went wide.
He tucked her bed-tousled hair behind her ear. “I knew I was falling in love with you, and I wanted to give you time to, maybe, fall in love with me too before I told you.” He snorted. “I’m under no illusions that I’m any sort of catch. I come with a boatload of issues, a house that sucks money and needs to be maintained for eternity, and a reputation in the art world that can sometimes make demands on me and gets in the way of life. I thought that after you’d seen the way I struggled to get over Fiona’s death, you would think I wasn’t worth the effort. And the truth is, Angel, I’m not. But I wanted you for myself anyway.”
He saw a whole gamut of emotions flash across her face—hope, joy, fear, worry. He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
She took a deep breath. “You’re over Fiona’s death?”
It wasn’t the first thing he’d expected her to ask. “Aye.” He held up his bare left hand. “I gave her back her ring. Those promises were fulfilled. It’s time to make new ones. With someone else. With you.”
She gasped and searched his eyes. “You’re falling in love with me?”
“No.” He shook his head, quickly adding before she could misunderstand and do something else daft that he’d have to sort out, “I’ve fallen in love with you. It’s already happened. It’s a done deal as far as I’m concerned.”
She trembled under his touch. “Duncan?”
“I don’t know when it happened,” he told her softly, wanting everything out in the open between them. “It came on me slowly, and it took me a while to realise what the feelings were. That was because it was different from what I’d experienced with Fiona.”
“Oh,” her whole body became taut and she looked away from him.
He was screwing it up again. “No. Not oh.” He gently clasped her chin and angled her face to make her look at him. “I said different, not less. The love I had for Fiona was a gentle thing. It’s hard to describe, and I’m rubbish at this, but I’m going to try. So don’t freak out if I get it wrong.”
She nodded.
“Fiona didn’t need me the way you do. She needed someone to support her decisions, to think they were as important as she did, and to indulge her dreams. She needed a man who shared the power with her, and who hung back when she was sorting things out for herself. I loved those things about her, and I loved that our sex life was always a battle of wills.
“With you, it’s different, but more intense than it was with Fiona. I don’t know if that’s because her death changed me into a rougher man, or because we’re just two different people who relate to each other in a way that’s unique for us.
