Page 55 of Forever Fighting
“So you brought us on a booze cruise to make me cry?”
He smiles at my attempt at humor and wipes my tears with his hand. “I don’t talk about him a lot and I’ve been thinking that’s not the healthiest approach. If you don’t talk about him, then it’s like he never existed. Like he never happened.”
“Like documenting.”
“Huh?”
My lips curl up on one side. “I had a nursing school professor who told me that if you don’t document something, it didn’t happen.”
“Where do you think he’d be if he hadn’t died?”
This might be the first time Roman has ever said that in a way that didn’t imply that he killed him. It was a freak accident. The two of them were out in the water sailing around when a rainstorm blew in out of nowhere. Not uncommon off the coast of New England, but it brought rough waves with the rain, and one capsized their small boat. They were holding hands over the hull when another wave came and tore Nash from Roman’s hands.
Roman dove into the water and searched for him, but he never found him, no matter how many attempts he made. Roman was in that water for three hours before he was rescued by the Coast Guard, clinging to the boat and screaming for his brother. They never wore lifejackets. Maybe that’s stupid, butNash was a professional sailor, and from the time he was sixteen on, he stopped wearing one.
Since then, darkness has lived inside of Roman. A perpetual anger. A need for control. An unsettled quietness that if you don’t know him or why he’s this way, seems elusive and makes him mysterious and a bit of a dick. It’s sexy to women and alluring to men, but he shies away from all of that. He’s just Roman. Quiet and soulful and deep and broken, but with the heart of a lion.
“I like to think he would have become a doctor as he said he wanted to. I think he would have worked with your father as a neurosurgeon. He would have settled down and gotten married and had a dozen kids.”
“With you, you mean.”
I smile up at him. “Maybe. Who knows. We were kids back then and had a lot of growing up to do.”
His fingers graze along my cheek and his hand on my waist tightens. “I always felt like I robbed you of your future with him.”
“You didn’t rob me of anything. Life took him. Not you.”
His eyes dance about my face, and a soft smile hits his lips. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
He holds my eyes and inches in ever so slightly. My heart starts a drumroll, and I grip my drink so hard I’m shocked I’m not cracking the plastic. My belly tightens with an uncontrollable flutter. Because it feels like… like he’s going to kiss me. Like hewantsto kiss me, and I don’t know what to do. If I want him to kiss me or not. I don’t know what happens to us, to me, if I let him.
Would it be just a kiss or would it turn into sex? Just a vacation thing?
Or would it be the start of something else? We’re technically married, and that complicates this further. I can’t sleep with my fake husband.
Am I even ready for that with anyone?
He dips again, his thumb dragging along my cheek. “Brae,” he whispers, and I don’t know what comes over me, but I shift toward him and put my hand on his chest. His heart is pounding beneath my palm, but before he can do something crazy like kiss me, a woman screams across the boat, and we break apart.
“Help! My son! He was leaning over to see a fish and fell overboard.”
There’s a flurry of gasps and cries for help, but before anyone can respond, Roman is racing across the boat and without stopping, flips himself over the railing and dives straight into the ocean.
Panic seizes me, and I run, my stomach slamming into the railing as I frantically search the choppy blue water. The sails are lowered, and the boat slows to a crawl. A horn wails through the air, and two attendants are armed with life rafts, searching the water as I am.
“There!” a woman cries, pointing to the left behind the boat about twenty yards back. “There they are. He has him.”
Relief like I’ve never felt before slams through me, settling some of the adrenaline that had taken over. My knees threaten to buckle beneath me and more tears spring to my eyes.
Two life rafts are tossed right at them. Roman grabs one of them and secures the boy onto it by wrapping the strap around his chest and making sure he’s holding on tight so they can haul him in before he does the same for himself with the other raft.
I run to the back of the ship where they’re lowering a platform for them. An attendant waves me back. “Señorita, please stand back.”
“I’m a nurse. I can help.”
He reads the expression on my face that tells him I’m not going anywhere because he lets me stay. They pull the boy, whoisn’t much older than twelve or thirteen, up onto the ship and his mother all but dives on him, holding him tightly. He’s obviously soaking wet, but his color is good and doesn’t appear to have swallowed or breathed in too much water.
“I’m fine,” the boy tells her, sitting up and removing the strap from his body. “He saved me. I didn’t go under for long. He found me right away.”
