Hiring Mr. Darcy

by Bowman, Valerie

  Oh my God. Harrison wasn’t the only possibility.

  Chapter 23

  Still Friday

  Despite the embroidery and the spectacles and the cheering, we still got an eight, the same as Lacey and Harrison and Migel did. That Mr. Periwinkle was a stickler. We remained tied with Lacey and Harrison for first place with Migel close behind us.

  I’d changed out of my Regency gown and was on my way to the first floor to meet Jeremy for dinner. He’d undressed first and much more quickly and then helped me unbutton the back of my terribly authentic gown (that is to say it had a ton of buttons down the back) before leaving the room to give me privacy.

  “I’ll just be downstairs getting drunk under the table by Patsy,” he’d said with a smile as he left, while I desperately wondered how we could possibly go from friends (one of whom had a BF) to married...ever.

  The door shut behind Jeremy and I pulled my gown over my head and hung it up. Then I slowly loosened my front-fastening stays and pulled that contraption off too. All the while, I scolded myself for even considering that the man in Mr. P’s prediction wasn’t Harrison. Of course it was Harrison. It had to be Harrison.

  I tossed on jeans and a T-shirt that had the P&P quote, “My Courage Always Rises with Every Attempt to Intimidate Me” on it and left the room, headed for the lift. As I strolled down the hallway, I scolded myself for giving any credence whatsoever to a psychic premonition—which was why I was already messed up in the head when I rounded the corner and saw Harrison and Lacey standing in front of the lift. Kissing!

  Lacey was Harrison’s height due to her heels, and her lips were pressed to his. I gasped. Or at least I think I gasped. I’m pretty sure the noise that came out sounded more like someone strangling a cat. Lacey and Harrison quickly broke apart. Harrison pushed Lacey away and wiped his hand across this mouth.

  “Meg.” He turned toward me. “Let me explain.”

  Tears blurred my vision. In a panic, I turned and pushed open the door to the stairs and rushed down them and out into the hotel foyer. Jeremy was in the parlor with Patsy. He must have seen me hurry past and out the front door because he followed me. I dashed out into the cool night air and the lengthening shadows and quickly made my way toward the side of the building, my breathing coming in gasps and gulps. Was this what a panic attack felt like? I’d never had one before but I was pretty sure I was in the midst of one.

  “Meg. Wait.”

  At the sound of Jeremy’s voice, I stopped near a hedge that curved around the building’s edge. I leaned over and braced my palms on my knees, trying to right my erratic breathing.

  Jeremy caught up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. “What happened?” His voice was caring. He leaned down and searched my face. “Are you all right?”

  Still bending down, I swiped the tears from my eyes. “I’m fine,” I breathed, hoping that if I said it, I’d believe it myself.

  “Are you crying?” He rubbed his hand in little circles over my back.

  “No. I’m not!” I was too emphatic. Damn it. Plus, I was still staring into the hedge, which didn’t make my claim of being ‘fine’ all that believable.

  “Meg, what happened?” he repeated. “Tell me.”

  I expelled a long, deep breath before forcing myself to straighten to my full height. Jeremy’s hand fell away. What was there to tell? I pressed a hand to my forehead. “I saw Harrison and Lacey...together.”

  Jeremy winced. “In bed?”

  “No.” I drew up my shoulders. “Not in bed.” Oh, God. How awful would that have been? I closed my eyes. “They were...kissing. Near the lift.”

  Harrison came around the side of the building and stopped short when he saw us. Guilt was plastered across his face. “Meg, I need to talk to you.”

  I clenched my jaw and jerked my head to the side. “No, Harrison. Go back upstairs.”

  “It’s not what you think,” he insisted, his voice tight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him take another tentative step toward me.

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s not what I think? Seriously? That is the most overused line ever. You can’t come up with anything better to say than ‘It’s not what you think?’”

  “Let me explain,” Harrison pleaded, scrubbing a hand through his hair. I’d never seen his hair so mussed.

  I ground my teeth so hard my jaw hurt and glared at him. “Were you or were you not kissing Lacey?”

  Harrison made an impatient gesture with his hand. “I realize what it looked like, but—”

  I squeezed my arms around myself. I’d put up with a lot from him in the last few weeks, but a deal-breaker was a deal-breaker. And ‘no cheating’ was number seven on my Future Husband Checklist. “I’m not blind, Harrison. I saw what I saw.”

  “You’re being unreasonable right now.” His voice was calm and measured. I hated it when he told me I was being unreasonable. Unreasonable, dramatic, or my personal favorite, hyperbolic. Fine. Guilty as charged. I was being unreasonable for being pissed after seeing my boyfriend locking lips with a hot actress.

  “Listen to me,” he continued.

  Jeremy stepped between Harrison and me. “She said no.” Jeremy’s voice was menacing. Okay, that was slightly hot. “Give her some time,” he added.

  Harrison turned away in disgust. “Fine. Meg, we’ll talk in the morning.”

  I couldn’t even look at him. I kept my face sharply turned away, biting the inside of my cheek to keep the bloody tears at bay. Harrison stalked away as if he was pissed too. Damn him. As if he had anything to be pissed about. He clearly hadn’t appreciated Jeremy’s interference, but too bad.

  “I wanted to punch him,” Jeremy admitted. “Not very Darcy-like, eh?” He put his hand on my elbow.

  I gave him a half-smile. “No, but completely human. I appreciate the sentiment.”

  “There’s still time,” Jeremy offered. “I can catch up to him.”

  I shook my head and pressed my lips together. “No, thanks.”

  Jeremy stuck his hands in his pockets. “So, they were kissing? That sucks. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.” I heaved a sigh. “I kept feeling jealous and kept explaining it away. I’ve been defending his behavior this entire time, and now this. I’m an idiot.”

  The moonlight illuminated Jeremy’s handsome features. “No. You’re not. You’re just loyal and you trusted your boyfriend. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  I paced away, still trying to right my ragged breathing. “I know she’s tall and beautiful and perfect and has nails that match her clothing, but—”

  Jeremy did a double take. “Wait. What?”

  “I can’t compete with Lacey. She looks like Megan frickin’ Fox.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he replied.

  “The point is, she’s a gazelle and I’m a hobbit. I get it, but—”

  Jeremy stopped me with a hand on my elbow. “Look, Meg, you’re making excuses for him. It doesn’t matter what she looks like, and by the way, you’re not a hobbit. Not even close.”

  “I’m not?” I blinked. That was the nicest thing anyone had said to me in a while.

  “No. And the point is, he should not have been kissing her, no matter what she looks like. He’s with you.” He said it so calmly and steadily, it made me realize what a fool I’d been to explain away all of Harrison’s bad behavior.

  I pressed two fingers to my eye. “I never thought she’d want him, you know? She hangs out in Hollywood. I mean, Harrison’s cute and all, but he’s no actor, or, say, as hot as you...” I gestured to him.

  Jeremy’s brows shot up. He pointed at himself. “You think I’m hot?”

  I furrowed my brow, obviously skeptical. “You don’t know you’re hot?”

  “What?”

  “Nevermind. The point is that Harrison and I...we made sense. Or at least I thought we did. He meets every criterion on the FHC!”

  Jeremy narrowed his eyes on me. “The FHC?”

  “The Future Husband Chec
klist,” I admitted, wincing. Oh great, not only was my crazy flag flying, it was flying at full staff.

  “Wow. Okay, I’ve got to hear more about that sometime. But even if he does meet every criterion, you deserve someone who is faithful to you.”

  I put my hand on Jeremy’s sleeve and tried to ignore the sizzle of electricity I always felt whenever we touched. Down, girl. Geez, what sort of person was I, for being attracted to Jeremy in the middle of my probable break-up with the man I thought I would marry? I was so screwed up. “Thank you, Jeremy. For everything.”

  “Let me take you to dinner,” he said, cocking his head to the side in that way of his. That way I found irresistible.

  I pressed a hand against my belly. “I don’t know. I’m feeling kinda sick at the moment. I’m not sure I could eat right now.”

  He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Wanna drink instead?”

  A slow smile spread across my face. “Now you’re talkin’.”

  We left the hotel grounds and wandered into town, where we bought a twelve-pack of beer and a big bag of Walker’s potato crisps from a small grocer’s shop nearby. When we returned to the hotel, we snuck the booze up to our room via the back staircase so Patsy wouldn’t see. Not because she wouldn’t approve, but because she’d probably want us to share.

  Back in the room, I drank two bottles of beer while sitting cross-legged in the center of my little couch bed, while Jeremy lounged on the edge of his bed, facing me. We both had our shoes off. I was wearing my yoga pants and a black T-shirt. Jeremy had on his jeans and a gray T-shirt. I hid my feet by pulling on my Duchess of Sassytown socks that I’d found at my favorite indie bookstore in Milwaukee.

  “Sorry I ruined your dinner,” I said as I sucked down my beer like it was mother’s milk.

  “You didn’t ruin it,” he replied, tossing a handful of the potato crisps in his mouth and crunching them with gusto. “I love potato chips, I mean crisps.”

  I took another swig of beer and sighed. “Ugh. I’m such a cliché.”

  Jeremy tossed some more crisps into his mouth. “What? Why?”

  “Because I just got dumped, and now I’m getting drunk. Cli-ché!” I moaned, opening my third bottle of beer.

  He drank some of his beer too. “Harrison didn’t sound as if he wanted to dump you. He sounded like he wanted to explain himself.”

  “What’s to explain? I know what I saw. I’ve put up with a lot, but I’m not going to put up with that. I’ve reached my pathetic quota.” I sighed. “It’s just like in high school.”

  Jeremy’s chip-filled hand stopped, arrested halfway to his mouth. “What’s like in high school?”

  “You obviously spent a lot more time in high school remembering the details of things. I spent my high school years getting straight As and being traumatized by my break-up with John March.”

  “March? I thought you two were friends.”

  “We are...now, or are supposed to be. But he was the first in a long line of guys to dump me. Left me for a cheerleader the start of junior year, a week before my dog died. Man, that was a craptastic year.”

  Jeremy searched my face. “I was at college by then. I didn’t know.”

  I snorted and drank more beer. “How would you know? It’s not like you’d give a care about the social life of your friend’s little sister.”

  He was staring at the floor. “I remember Luke telling me that you and John broke up at some point.”

  I shook my head. Jeremy’s memory was ridiculous. “Yeah, well, I’ve never broken up with a guy. Never. I’m always the dumpee. This time with Harrison, I kept telling myself that it was different, that I was being ridiculous, but when I came around that corner and saw them together...” My stomach did a sickening flip as if it was happening all over again. “Why am I so bad at picking men? Wait. Don’t answer that. That was a completely rhetorical question.”

  Jeremy smiled at me and took another swig of beer. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I don’t blame you. Cheating’s a deal-breaker for me, too.”

  I sat up straight, nearly dumping my beer on my lap. “Wait. You’ve been cheated on?”

  “Yeah. Twice. That I know of. It sucks.”

  “That’s...” I tried to let the knowledge sink into my brain for a moment, but it still wasn’t computing. “Surprising.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Because you’re, uh, super hot, and...”

  He laughed. “First of all, I don’t believe you think I’m that hot, and secondly, even good-looking people get cheated on. Take you and Harrison or John for that matter. It doesn’t have anything to do with looks.”

  I heaved a sigh and took another swig of beer. “Maybe not always, but in my case I’m pretty sure it does. Lacey looks like Megan Fox and I look like Ellen Page.”

  “Ellen Page is really cute.”

  “That’s what Luke said.” I wiggled my toes in my socks.

  “Look, trust me, if Harrison’s kissing Lacey, it’s not because she’s pretty. The guy my ex cheated with was in his fifties and had a Hitler moustache.”

  What? What in the hell was Jeremy talking about? Someone cheated on him? “Wait. Let’s be clear, was this a high school ex?” I didn’t want to be rude, but he certainly looked a lot different now from what he’d looked like in high school, at least as much as my crappy memory could recall. Perhaps that explained McFoxy being cheated on.

  “Nope. This was only a couple of years ago,” he replied, rolling up the Walker’s bag and tossing it onto the nightstand.

  I sucked in my breath. “Wow. A Hitler moustache, really? That’s tough.” I flipped over onto my belly and rested my chin on my propped-up elbow. “You must tell me more.”

  “Like what?” Jeremy asked.

  “Like how you found out.”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  I frowned. “What? Why?”

  “It’s personal,” he said, but he was smiling.

  I threw a pillow at him. “I just told you all about my embarrassing break-up. Two of them, in fact.”

  “Yeah, well, I think these things are best left for the right occasion, such as...playing Truth or Dare?” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  Warning bells sounded in my head. We’d already established that I always choose truth. What if Jeremy asked me something like exactly how hot did I find him? Answer: Smoking. Or whether I’d ever had a sexual fantasy about him? Answer: Guilty.

  “I don’t think so,” I said, guzzling more beer.

  “Why not?”

  I rested the bottle on the blankets in front of me and contemplated the question for a moment. Why not, indeed? What’s the worst thing that could happen? Jeremy could find out I had the hots for him, he could drunkenly take me up on the offer, and we could have a night of unbridled passion as revenge for what Harrison most likely had already done with Lacey? Perhaps not surprisingly, the beer assisted in my deciding this was a potentially good idea.

  “Okay,” I relented, gulping down about half my bottle in one probably completely unsexy maneuver. “Let’s do it.”

  “You have to promise me you’ll take at least one dare,” Jeremy said.

  “No way.” I shook my head emphatically.

  He brushed his hands together and grabbed another beer. “Why not?”

  “Because I never take dares. That’s how you end up streaking through a parking lot or eating a dead cricket.”

  Jeremy snorted. “A dead cricket is better than a live one, isn’t it?”

  Oh God. “Have you eaten a live cricket?”

  “No, but my point is that it’s no fun to play Truth or Dare with someone who always picks the same thing.”

  I narrowed my eyes on him. “Who told you I was fun? They’re a liar.”

  He shook his head at me. “Come on, Meg, at least one dare. I promise I won’t make you do anything gross.”

  I stared at my beer bottle for a minute before sternly pointing my finger at the bottle. “I’m going to blame y
ou for this tomorrow,” I said to it before tipping it back and draining it. The bottle didn’t reply.

  I pulled myself over to the edge of the bedlet and let my feet hang over the side facing Jeremy. I reached for another beer, which was sitting on top of the bed. Jeremy grabbed it first and held it away from me. “Whoa. Maybe you should take a break.”

  “Just one more. I promise. I’m fine.” I made grabby hands for the bottle.

  He reluctantly gave it to me. “You go first,” he offered.

  “Fine.” I pulled my pillows from the top of the bed and arranged them behind me, then I settled back against them and propped my feet on the edge of the bed, my knees in the air. “Truth or dare?” I intoned.

  “Truth,” he said.

  I smiled smugly. “How did you find out your ex was cheating on you?”

  “How did I know you were going to ask that?” Jeremy replied.

  “That’s not an answer.” I remained smug.

  He ran a hand through his hair, sighed, and leaned forward off the bed, his bare feet braced on the floor. He hung his head. “She told me.”

  “That’s it. That’s the big personal secret?” I immediately felt like an ass for saying that. It was clearly painful for him. Beautiful people hurt sometimes, too. I’d do well to remember it.

  He shook his head. “She told me when I called her cell at four a.m. I asked her where she was and she said she was in bed with another man.”

  “Oh.” I shut my mouth and plucked at the label on the beer bottle. “Man, that sucks.”

  “Yep.” Jeremy was still staring at the carpet. I could tell he was remembering it. I knew just how a moment like that felt. Being mentally catapulted back through space and time to a shitty moment was no fun. “What did she say after that?”

  “That we’d talk in the morning.”

  I waved a hand in the air to try to lighten the mood. “Cheaters always want to talk in the morning.”

  “Yep.” Jeremy was plucking at the label on his beer bottle too.