The thing? I say that. Not him. He never says that.
“—I sent the woman I fell in love with home from the show, and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. Because she stole my heart from the moment I laid eyes on her on that red carpet back in Texas. She had something stuck in her hair, you see, and I helped her out with it.”
I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry.
Could he mean ... ?
Am I ... ?
I look at Penny for answers. Her eyes are brimming with tears, her hand over her mouth as she stares back at me.
And I know. I just know.
“It’s me,” I breathe, my voice choked with tears. “He means me.”
Penny nods, her face bright as tears roll down her cheeks. “It’s you, Em.”
Sebastian is still talking into the camera.
“If you are watching—and I have done what I can to make sure you are watching this—you will know exactly who you are. I know I hurt you. I know sending you home the way I did was callous. I was a coward, and you deserve so much better. I put the needs of others in front of my own, and I hurt you in the process. I should never have done it. I sincerely hope you will give me the chance to make it up to you. Perhaps even one day, you may agree to let me make it up to you for the rest of my life.”
Penny reaches across and squeezes my hand. “He’s in love with you, Em. He’s in love with you.”
The doorbell rings, making my heart leap into my mouth.
“Penny?” I question.
“Could you get that?” she asks, acting all nonchalant, like the man I’m head over heels in love with hasn’t just professed his love to me on national television.
I don’t need to be asked twice.
I know exactly who it is.
I leap off the sofa, slopping what’s left of my wine over my Timothy leggings. “Dang it!”
“Forget about it,” Penny instructs in a rush. “Go! Quick! Answer the door!”
I have so many questions, but now is not the time. I bolt out of the living room and into the hallway where I pause, my heart beating hard.
He’s come for me.
Sebastian has come for me.
I grasp the handle and pull the door open to see him standing on the doorstep. He’s holding a couple of bottles of beer in his hands. He smiles at me, and my whole body goes into overdrive: my heart races, my breath shortens, my tummy flips, and my legs go weak.
It’s a small miracle I can still stand, really.
“Brady Bunch,” he says in his deep, velvety voice.
“You’re here,” is all I manage to say.
“Were you watching the show?”
I nod, working hard to get myself under control.
His face lights up in a smile. “I brought a peace offering.” He holds up the beer bottles. “I thought we could try your favorite.”
“You brought Bud.”
“I’ve heard it runs in the Brady family veins.”
In a daze, I take the bottles from him and place them on Penny’s hallway table. “Thanks.”
Sebastian takes a step closer to me. “Emma, I am so sorry for doing what I did to you. I hope more than anything you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
I open my mouth to speak. I’ve got so many questions, so many things I need to say to him. But watching his heartfelt TV speech only moments ago, and now seeing the hope in his soft brown eyes, all I can say is, “I want to forgive you, Seb.”
He lets out a relieved breath and reaches for my hands. “You do not know how happy I am to hear that.”
But I have a few things I need to say to this Mr. Darcy.
“Why did you do it? Why did you send me away like that?”
“I’m not proud of my actions. I did what I thought I had to do. You see, the afternoon before the ball, Mother, Granny, Zara, and I met with our lawyer. She told us that the money I had made from the show wasn’t enough and we needed to find more if we wanted to save Martinston.”
“I don’t get it. What has that got to do with sending me home?”
“Unbeknownst to us, Camille had smuggled in a mobile phone, and she put it to good use. Somehow, she found out that my family was in financial trouble. She came to me with a financial deal. She’s from a wealthy New York family.”
“You don’t say,” I quip.
“Indeed.” He shoots me a sardonic smile. “She told me we would make a great team. My family name and home, and her money.”
“That’s very Downton Abbey of her,” I scoff.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“The Earl of Grantham marries a rich American heiress.”
“How very not relevant to us.” He shakes his head and smiles at me. “That afternoon, the day I saw you in the woods, I came under pressure from our lawyer to pursue the idea. She convinced me that it would work, even though she knew I didn’t have feelings for Camille. It made sense: her money could save Martinston. All I had to do was name her as my bride. Immediately after that meeting was the ball, and then I sent you home. I knew I needed to do it then, or I wouldn’t ever” He squeezes my hands. “I regretted it the moment I sent you home, my darling Emma.”
I begin to tear up. “You put the needs of your family before your own. It’s very noble of you. I mean, saving your home was the reason you did the show in the first place.”
He nods. “It was. But in the end, it wasn’t enough.”
“Why did it take you so long to come find me?” I keep my voice light, but my heart is thrashing around in my chest like a wild animal.
“I was going to go through with it right up until the last moment, until Zara told me what an idiot I was being to walk away from you.”
I allow myself a small smile. “Go Zara.”
“I’ve spent the last weeks waiting for that final episode to air. I felt after what I’d done to you, I needed a grand gesture to win you back.”
I don’t want to tell him that it worked, but it so did.
He moves so close to me we’re almost touching. “You see, there was something I didn’t share with our lawyer that day, something that has changed my life.”
My breath catches in my throat. “What?”
“I’ve fallen in love with you.”
I beam at him, my heart bursting. “You have?”
“Head over heels, completely and utterly, madly, deeply in love.” He cups my face in his hands and I breathe in his intoxicating Sebastian aroma. The next thing I know, we’re clasped together in an embrace, his lips on mine, my fingers tangled up in his hair, his hands pulling me close.
And in case you’re wondering, it’s an amazing kiss. Unforgettable. The kind of kiss that makes you see an entire universe of stars.
My grin threatens to crack my face in two. “I’m in love with you too.”
“Oh, Brady. You don’t know how good it is to hear you say that.”
“Oh, I think I do.” I pull him down to me and kiss him with all my might.
“I should never have listened to our lawyer and I should never have sent you home. I am so very sorry.”
“But Martinston?”
“I will find a way to keep it. I don’t know what it will be yet, but I’m absolutely determined not to lose it. What matters to me is that I love you, and I want to be with you. I’m not going to let anything come between us ever again.”
My heart soars high above the clouds as tears sting my eyes. “I promise to do whatever I can to help you save your home.”
“My, God, I’ve missed you, Brady Bunch.” He pulls me into him and smothers me in kisses once more.
He’s here.
He came back for me.
He loves me.
My heart is so full with love, it could burst.
“Ahem.” We turn to see Penny standing in the hallway, grinning her head off at us both. “I take it you’ve made up?”
“You must be Penny,” Sebastian says, reaching past me to shake her hand. “Thank you so much for a
ll your help.”
I look, open mouthed from Penny to Sebastian and back again. “You’ve been in contact with Seb?”
“He called me after you stopped messaging him. At first, I told him to go take a flying leap at himself. But then, he told me all about trying to save the house and how much he loved you, and I knew you weren’t over him. Even though you said you were.”
“You know me too well, Penn.”
“I hope you’re okay about it. It felt weird going behind your back like that.”
I let go of Seb long enough to pull her into a hug. “It’s going to take chocolate. A lot of chocolate.”
“Oh, chocolate I can manage.”
We share a smile, my heart completely full.
“What does a man have to do to get invited into someone’s home here in Texas?” Sebastian asks.
“Oh, where are my manners,” Penny says. “Come in. I’ll pour you a glass of wine and get out of your hair.”
“I brought some beer.” He gestures at the bottles in the side table.
“Let me go open those for you,” Penny says before she leaves us for the kitchen.
Sebastian slips his hand into mine and I look up at him. “Thank you,” he says in his low, sexy voice.
“For what?”
“For not giving up on me, despite wanting to.”
I loop my hand around his neck. “If you ever do anything like that to me again, I will personally hunt you down and kill you.”
His laugh is low and reverberates through me, reaching right down to my toes. “I love you, Emma Brady.”
I beam at him. My heart contracts, filled to the brim with the most wonderful feeling in the world. “I love you, too, Mr. Darcy.”
THE END
Thank you so much for reading Dating Mr. Darcy! I LOVED writing this book, and I so hope you loved reading it. If you did:
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This is the first title in the new Love Manor Romantic Comedy Series. The second book is Marrying Mr. Darcy, and it continues Emma and Sebastian’s story right where this book left off. Here’s more about it …
Marrying Mr. Darcy
Is it a truth universally acknowledged, that a girl can humiliate herself on reality TV and still get her fairy tale ending?
Emma Brady is in shock. She fell in love with Sebastian Huntington-Ross on national television, showing everyone that opposites can most definitely attract. Now, he’s asked her to marry him and live happily ever after in his fancy English manor. It’s a fairy tale ending.
Or is it?
The problem is the TV audience wanted Sebastian to marry someone else. And in choosing Emma to be his bride, Sebastian could lose everything his aristocratic family has held dear for generations. Not to mention Lady Jilly Fotherington, who goes out of her way to make Emma feel like she doesn’t belong.
With enough hurdles to keep an Olympian jumping, can Emma and Sebastian find a way to stay together? Or will the pressures pulling them apart cancel their trip down the aisle?
You can pre-order your copy of Marrying Mr. Darcy here. It releases on November 10, 2020.
Acknowledgements
I wrote this book while it seemed the world was on fire. New Zealand had been in total, country-wide lockdown to combat COVID-19 for several weeks, news from overseas was increasingly grim, and it felt like the last thing I could ever do was sit down to write something heartwarming, uplifting, and funny. But in between home schooling, endless dog walks (sorry, dogs), and trying not to read the news, I wrote a story that had been percolating away in my head for well over a year. As the words began to flow, I felt I’d found a way to escape the insanity and instead concentrate on finding some happiness. I absolutely loved writing this book, and Emma and Sebastian have a special place in my heart.
I’ve always been a huge fan of Jane Austen’s work, Pride and Prejudice in particular, and the idea of having a Mr. Darcy figure in a modern, 21st century world was so appealing I had to write this book! In the process, I realized it could be more than one title, and so the Love Manor Romantic Comedy series was born and I get to live with these characters for a while longer.
Now, onto my acknowledgments . . . I am lucky to have the most amazing support people around me. My family is so understanding and supportive, even when they lose me to books for a while. They know how important writing is to me, and they give me the space and time to follow my passion.
I was lucky to have a couple of critique partners for this book. With her in-depth knowledge of reality TV dating shows and chick lit stories, Kirsty McManus helped make the dating show feel authentic and possible. Jackie Rutherford, as always, put me through my writerly paces, not allowing me to get away with any of my bad habits, and helping me create a book to be proud of.
I’m part of a few writers’ groups that are wonderfully supportive. I was lucky enough to be invited to be a part of a small group of like-minded authors who share the same goal: to write the best books we can and to have them experience the success they deserve. Thank you to all of you in the Chick Lit Think Tank and Chick Lit Chat Head Quarters. You are all amazing and I’m so grateful to have your support.
Thanks also to my new editor, Melissa at Grapevine Editing for doing a great job ensuring my language is American and my t’s were crossed and i’s were dotted. I always learn something knew through the editing process, and this time was no exception.
And Sue Traynor, you took my vision and made it into the most gorgeous cover, as you always do. Thank you!
And finally, as always, thank you to you, my readers. I love having the opportunity to write for a living, and your readership is what makes that possible.
About the Author
I am a bestselling author of fun, feel-good romantic comedies and chick lit. I live and love in beautiful New Zealand with my family, two scruffy dogs, and a cat who thinks he's a scruffy dog, too. He's not: he's a cat.
When I’m not penning my latest story, I can be found hiking up hills (slowly), traveling to different countries around the globe, and eating chocolate. A lot of it.
My titles:
Love Manor Romantic Comedy Series:
Dating Mr. Darcy
Marrying Mr. Darcy
Finding a New Darcy – coming soon
High Tea Series:
No More Bad Dates
No More Terrible Dates
No More Horrible Dates
Cozy Cottage Café Series:
One Last First Date
Two Last First Dates
Three Last First Dates
Four Last First Dates
Wellywood Romantic Comedy Series:
Wedding Bubbles
Styling Wellywood
Miss Perfect Meets Her Match
Falling for Grace
Standalone titles
Manhattan Cinderella
The Right Guy
One Way Ticket
I'm Scheming of a White Christmas.
All my books are available from Amazon to buy or to read in Kindle Unlimited.
I would love it if you would sign up to my newsletter! I only send emails when I’ve got news (approximately once a month maximum), so you won’t be bombarded with communications by me, I promise.
Dating Mr. Darcy: A romantic comedy (Love Manor Romantic Comedy Book 1) Page 24