“I don’t have time for your girlfriend’s tomboy sister. I’m busy.”
Tomboy sister?
“Got some blondes lined up around the corner, do you?” Charles puffed. “Geez, man, are you out of practice with the walk of shame? You used to embarrass the rest of us.”
Darcy didn’t respond.
“You need to get out more, my friend.”
Finally, there was a heavy sigh over the phone line. “Look, I’m working here. Just text me the particulars, all right?”
A full minute passed before Elizabeth realized she was still gripping a fistful of flatware.Blondes lined up? George has him pegged.She was furious. What had he said to her that night?“I don’t casually sleep around.”
She had integrity. She had nevereverdone the walk of shame. The closest she’d come was that night with him at Netherfield, for reasons she still could not fathom.So he’s king of the one-night stands, but I’m not good enough? He tells me he doesn’t sleep around, and it turns out he does with everyone but me? Does he check their diplomas? Or the Social Register?
Elizabeth stomped to the front door, shoved on her boots and a jacket, and headed out. She needed to stop at the ATM and go buy orange juice. And if she happened to see a familiar face at Starbucks, she wouldn’t pass up an hour talking to somebody who appreciated her.
Darcy leaned against the wall and glanced around at his fellow do-gooders, a hundred or so well-heeled, socially conscious types noshing on maki and trying to grasp the environmental consequences of global warming. He was jaded, but even he had to admit that this crowd seemed more aware, and definitely more alarmed, about thechanging environment after Hurricane Sandy had flooded the city. Still, did they need a high-end party at the Waldorf to get them to contribute money?
But here he was as well. For what was likely the 423rd time since he’d met Charles, Darcy had given in to his friend’s wishes. Why did he always say yes? How did Charles get him to do things he didn’t want to do? And where the hellwasCharles? It was bad enough he’d agreed to come to a fundraiser hosted by the Bertrams.
His mother had known their parents but had kept the Darcy heir far away from the Bertram girls. He’d been a handsome boy from a young age, and his mother had noticed the way even college girls eyed her barely teenaged son. “Look in their eyes before you say or do anything, Will,” she would say. “There are some cold hearts in this world that could break yours, but you could break a few as well. Be careful. See what’s in their eyes.”
One pair of heavily made-up eyes appeared especially focused on him tonight. Her well-manicured hands weren’t shy either. After a long week of reading contracts and playing referee at management squabbles, Darcy didn’t have the energy to fight off Samantha Bertram. He didn’t have any interest in what she clearly had in mind either. She’d spotted him within minutes of his arrival and had barely left his side. He’d already excused himself twice in an hour for the men’s room, and unless he found Bingley fairly soon he’d be heading there again—or heading home. Relief arrived when a few friends from the club drifted over and started talking about the future of the euro. He made a small joke about Holland’s seventeenth-century economic meltdown from tulip bulb inflation and forgot about the blonde standing too close.
Then he saw Elizabeth walk in the door with some kind of blond Viking beside her.Seriously?
Samantha noticed the newcomers almost as quickly as he did. “Who is that?” she breathed into his ear. He knew she didn’t mean the dark-haired one in the short red dress and black boots. He thought Elizabeth looked stunning. He shrugged his shoulders. “No clue.”
“No clue? Really? Because she seems to recognize you, Darcy,” Samantha replied icily. Her fingernails dug into his arm.
His eyes met Elizabeth’s as she finished scanning the room. She gazed at him and Samantha without expression, dipped her head in acknowledgment, and disappeared with her date into the throng. Darcy pulled his arm away. “It was good to see you, Samantha. And itwas nice catching up with all of you,” he said, nodding to the three men still immersed in dissecting the global economy.
He’d never seen Elizabeth in anything but jeans or sweats; she was a vision in a little red dress. A vision in the arms of another man, apparently. What happened to that Brian guy? Or that brute from Christmas Eve? Was she always with somebody, flitting from relationship to relationship? Were they always hulking athletes? Did she have co-dependency issues and simply had to have a boyfriend? How was she so different from Jane, who seemed laser-focused on Charles? Wherewasshe, anyway?
He finally spotted her, standing with the happy twosome by the penguin ice sculpture. Darcy set his empty glass on a passing waiter’s tray and headed toward them.
Charles saw him first. “Hey man, having fun? Did you make your pledge?” He gestured toward a giant aquarium empty of water but filled with plastic ice cubes and checks.
“I did it online.”
“Online giving: the face-saving refuge of people who forgot their checkbook—or don’t really believe in a cause.” Elizabeth smiled and bit the olive off her toothpick.
“Or those who live in the twenty-first century,” he replied. “How are you, Elizabeth?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Mr. Darcy.”
Mr. Darcy?“And your friend?”
“Who? Oh, Stefan? He ran into an old chum.”
He nodded. “Um, you look very nice.”And you’re here with a Nordic sex god. The perfect male specimen. Every woman’s dream. Maybe every man’s too.
“I clean up pretty well for a tomboy, don’t I?” She stared Darcy straight in the eye.
“You heard that?” He glared at Charles. “Your phone was on speaker? And you didn’t tell me?”
Charles shrugged. “I was doing yoga. It never occurred to me that my highborn friend would say something stupidly insulting about my girlfriend’s sister.”
