“Send him in and bring us both double espressos.”
“Hey!” Rick greeted. “Glad you’re back in one piece. The family missed you Saturday night.”
“I’m surprised to see you this early in the morning.”
“Old military habits die hard. I’ve already been to the gym.”
They both sat, assuming readable postures. He tented his index fingers, tips resting on his lips, and Rick sat forward, beefy hands clasped between his knees.
“Gigi mentioned that the birthday party was a success,” he said, attempting to be unreadable in tone, even if annoyed that he’d been made to look a cuck in front of his aunt and her posse.
“If you consider a success fireworks scaring the crap outta Aunt C’s toy poodle and my drunken father accidentally referring to his sister as an ‘opinionated, mean old wig-wearing bat dressed in a satanic black robe’ in his birthday roast, then it wassmashing!”
Smiling, because who wouldn’t, given the veracity of the statement coupled with his abject hatred of the ball-snipping dog, he silently waited, adding to the growing tension.
“Right. I’m not one to beat around the bush, Darcy, so here it goes. I have feelings for Caroline.”
He didn’t expectthat, just, “I screwed your fiancée” because, frankly, everyone other thanhimhad.
Amanda came in bearing the two coffees, laid them on the table, and cautiously grimaced before backing out of the room. The tension was that thick.
“Wow. Feelings? That was fast. Did you sleep with her?” he point-blank asked.
“What? No!”
“That’s surprising, everyone else has.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Rick took a deep breath and continued. “Look, I may be many things, but an adulterous rake is not one of them. I’m hurt you would think so little of me.”
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think. I leave the city, and my fiancée spends a week being escorted around town and to family functions by my somewhat good-looking, single, straight, insanely wealthy cousin. It’s all a littlesus, as Gigi would say.”
“Hey, you left her alone in New York so you could hook up with your hot ex-girlfriend in the city of love. I assume you slept withher, since you won’t sleep with your fiancée.Did I get that straight?”
“Touché. And the answer is yes, but I won’t kiss and tell to anyone other than my fiancée.”
“Do you even love Caroline?” Rick asked.
“Not romantically, but, as you know, we’ve been friends since we were kids. There’s a kind of love there. When you say feelings, is that what you feel? Romantic love?”
“Yes.”
“How does she feel about you?”
“Let’s ask her. She’s waiting outside your office.”
He didn’t expect them to come together to face him. Man, he was off his game today, but what did he expect? He’d just spent a week banishing Fitzwilliam Darcy in the arms of the most alluring woman in the world, the one who had cut his heart to shreds only to weld it back together with her infectious laugh and shapely legs wrapped around his waist. And damn, if he didn’t want to get back to her in his humble love shack apartment.
Breezing in without a care in the world, Caroline looked lovely wearing a pastel pink floral dress and a smile that touched her eyes. For the first time in a long while, she looked like fresh, summer femininity ripped from the pages ofTown and Country.
He stood, walked around the desk, and then kissed her cheek. She kissed him back. “Welcome home, Darcy,” she said.
“Thank you. You look beautiful.”
“That’s very sweet of you.”
“By the way, your painting is in the vault,” he remarked, taking a seat behind his desk.
But she didn’t comment, just sat beside Rick, gaze meeting his nodding cousin offering her encouragement.
