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She cocks her head with an inescapable gaze, challenging me to prove my point.
I refuse to blink, accepting the challenge. Those iridescent eyes—they must be made of ocean and lightning, perhaps the aftermath of a clash between Poseidon and Zeus. They’re still wide open but now no longer challenging. Instead, they’re requesting a connection, as if she wants to tell me her story but needs my permission.
Her eyelids shut, and just like that, that tugging force is erased.
“You shouldn’t have,” she murmurs. Then she pivots, leaving me like a totem pole, standing between the ladies’ and the gents’ rooms.
After a couple of steps, she stops—standing as still as I am. It takes her a few seconds to turn her head to me. “Thank you, stranger in the dark.”
She lopes forward like I was her distant past that’ll never return.
Look at her. She’s all limbs, but she has a magnificent hourglass figure. How the hell did she fall in love with a man like Fletcher? That scumbag wouldn’t just tow a random woman overseas. She must be someone special to him.
I told Mrs. Makena that it would be inevitable that woman would betray her man. I fucking well wish she would—with me.
“Who did you see?” Mrs. Mac asks when I’m back at my table.
I settle myself, taking a gulp of beer. “My business rival.”
“Oh… and you’re in love with her?”
I give her a frowny smile. “It’s a he.”
She laughs. “Do you knowher?”
“God dammit, Mrs. Mac!” I shake my head at her insistence like she hasn’t already known. “It’s his girlfriend.”
“That woman whom you said would betray her man?”
“I guess so. And also, the one you said was swaying her hips the other way.”
“Clayton Faber Hartley.” She crosses her arms over her chest and gives me a slight nod as if confirming that she is judging me. “Granted, you’re a good man. Ridiculously generous, and handsome—too handsome for me, which I don’t say very often.”
I chuckle at her assessment. The woman still attracts men’s attention in her village, even decades after she was a contestant for Miss Kenya in the sixties.
She then holds my hand. “But love isn’t just gonna land on your lap. You must work for it.”
“I’ve sought, and I’ve failed. I’ve sat around and waited, and I still failed.” I can’t help stealing glances at the group, who are now making their way out of the dining room. There she is, her back to me, Fletcher’s arm is still hooking her waist like they’ll never be apart. But I see what Mrs. Mac observed. Something isn’t right with the way the couple keeps pushing and pulling against each other. No one else would’ve noticed, but Mrs. Mac did, and now I do.
“It just means that it’s not your time yet, Clayton.”
I calm my rioting heartbeat. “Wise words, Mrs. Mac.”
“Look, I know you’re the type who wants to save the world. Perhaps you haven’t been waiting for love. You’re just waiting for someone who needs you, young man.”
“Needs me?” I try to imagine what that looks like, and I don’t think it fits my idea of forever love.
“There’s a difference between being needy and needing someone,” she clarifies as if reading my mind. “Listen. A woman can need a man. It’s not a crime. It’s not a weakness, either. As long as you need her too. Equally.”
“Was that how you felt with Mr. Mac?”
“Always,” she grins and then lets me have a moment, perhaps to ponder what that relationship might look like for me. “Hey, it’s late. I’d better go.”
I stand up with her, take her hand, and kiss the top of her palm. “Thank you for tonight.”
“Take it easy. If she’s right for you, she won’t break your heart.”
Why does Mrs. Mac remind me of Maya Angelou tonight? Before this, I always fancied her as the Swahili Terminator.
