Skye #3
I should have told him the first night. Right there in the villa, before the dinners, the boat, and the ring, before I let myself have a whole week of him first. I’d told myself I was waiting for the right moment, but there was no right moment coming.
There was just me, running out the clock on my own cowardice.
My tears fell freely while I did some breathing exercises to calm down. I couldn't fall apart. Cadence needed me to be what I'd always been for her. Stable.
I let myself have sixty seconds. To grieve the way I’d done it. What I’d taken from both of them.
I pulled the old, weathered photo strip from my pocket and felt myself smile despite it all. We looked so young. Cheshire grins, foreheads together, not the first clue what we were starting or what it would cost us to keep it.
Then I opened my compact and looked at my sweet baby’s face, and there it was. This was what those two grinning kids had made. The best thing either of us would ever do, and I’d been doing it without him.
“You can do this.”
I wiped my face, straightened my spine, and put myself back together.
Sixty seconds was up. I pushed down the pity I felt. Because the truth I wasn’t ready to say out loud yet was this… under all the fear, part of me was relieved. It was out. After all this time carrying it by myself, I didn’t have to do it alone anymore.
Airalynn had been holding me down through all of it.
She stayed on me about telling him, never letting it rest, because she liked Ducane and always thought we were supposed to be.
But my sister never once called me wrong for protecting Cadence.
She couldn’t. She’d been the one protecting me since we put our parents in the ground, so she knew exactly what it was to make a hard call for somebody you love and carry it by yourself.
She’d been waiting for this day for years. I already knew how it’d go. She was gonna say I told you so then hug me so hard I couldn’t breathe, in that order. I smiled, thinking about her, and stepped out of the bathroom.
When I came out, Lydia was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed and her eyebrows up to her hairline.
“Jesus—” I jumped. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough. I got called in two hours ago for a charter. Nobody told me it’d be for Mr. and Mrs. Simmons,” She said, watching my face. “Mrs. Simmons. You wanna run that by me?”
I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.
“That’s what I thought.” She grabbed my left hand before I could pull it back and held it up so the ring caught the light.
“I worked that first flight, Skye. I saw the way that man watched you. Like he already knew you. Like he was trying not to let on how much. I had questions then, and I’ve got a whole lot more now. Spill.”
“It’s complicated, Lyd. So damn complicated.”
“It always is with the fine ones.” Her face softened. “You okay, though? For real?”
And that, for real, after a week of holding all of it by myself, almost took me out right there. My eyes stung.
“No,” I said quietly. “But I’m gonna be.”
She pulled me into a hug, quick and tight.
“Whatever it is, you got my number.” She squeezed once and let go, then nodded toward the cabin. “Now get back up there before your husband comes looking. That man does not strike me as the patient type.”
“Oh, he’s patient,” I said with a snicker. “That’s exactly how I know I’m in trouble. The man’s got the patience of a saint. I ran him clean out of it today.”
“Gotta give ‘em a little hell, right?”
I pointed at her with a smirk.
“I’ll call you.”
We hugged again before I made my way back to my seat. Ducane watched me the whole way back before lifting his drink.
“Took you a minute. You cool?”
“Yeah, I ran into Lydia. Everyone has questions.”
“Mm.” He didn’t say anything else, but some of the ice had thawed, just a little. He’d told me on that beach we’d handle whatever I was carrying. Cold as he was being, he hadn’t taken it back. I held onto that. Then he was quiet a beat too long, and I knew something was coming.
“Did Lydia know about my daughter before I did?”
I couldn't lie my way out of this one, and I didn't want to, even if my answer hurt. The answer was yes. Lydia knew. Airalynn knew. Half my world had known there was a little girl with his eyes walking around, and he'd been the last to find out she existed at all.
“Ducane—”
“It’s a yes or no, Skye.”
“...Yes.”
His jaw flexed and he turned back to the window. Whatever fraction of warmth had crept back in was gone, sealed off again. I didn’t bother reaching for him or trying to explain. He’d earned the right to freeze me out. So, I sat in it and let the plane carry us home.
Home.
The word turned my stomach over. Because home meant that door, and that door meant Cadence meeting the father she’d been asking about. The father who almost died without ever knowing she existed. That was the hardest part of it.
If his heart had given out, he’d have died not knowing he had a daughter. Because of me.
My insides started rearranging themselves just thinking about whether he’d stay or go. That parachute wasn’t sounding half bad right about now. But there was no jumping out of this one. I’d built it, and now I had to land in it.