by Jill James
Feeling like Ebenezer Scrooge he pulled into a parking space and slammed out of his car. Even the lawyer's office was decorated for the season. He rolled his eyes and stepped into the office. The petite young woman at the desk smiled with blindingly white teeth and red pom-poms in her long, blonde hair.
"Hello, Mr. Thanos. My dad is expecting you back in his office."
He tried to smile back at the bubbly young lady but his heart wasn't in it. Chase trudged back to Whittaker's office, knocked on the door, and went in at Larry's yell of 'come in.'
"You look like crap, Chase."
Falling into the chair, he sighed and stared at his lawyer. "I feel like crap. How did this happen? You said they'd asked all their lawyers if Darcy had filed. Now, they miraculously have papers. I know I sure as hell didn’t sign any papers. I don't buy it."
Larry held his hand up to stop his tirade in midstream. "I didn't either. But until I can find proof otherwise, we must go along with the judge's order. It’s your word against theirs. You don't want to be fighting over your wife's hospital bed, do you?"
He shook his head, sinking back into his chair. "Of course not."
"Then you have to play along while I get someone on it. My daughter, Bethany is going over to the courthouse shortly. She may look all sugar and spice but the girl is a barracuda. She has friends at the courthouse. She'll find out if the papers are legit and aboveboard."
"You want me to go over to the hospital and say good-bye? I don't know if I can do that. Face Darcy's parents and act like this is all fine and dandy? You're asking a lot."
"Chase, you have to look at the big picture. You have to be the stable, reliable, dependable one. Especially if they did something hinky with the paperwork. You want the judge on your side, not just as mad at you as the Bennett’s are. He could give guardianship to the hospital, and then none of you would have a say in Darcy's care."
His mouth dropped open. "He can do that?"
Larry nodded. "Yes, he can. So, go make nice while I work on this."
Somehow, he'd shook his lawyer's hand and made his way to his car. He shuddered to think how he'd driven to the lawyer’s office and not remembered any of the drive there. His hands locked onto the steering wheel. He needed to pull himself together. He'd been letting the Bennett’s push his buttons since day one.
* * *
His head swiveled as he stared like a tourist in a foreign land. The Bennett family home wasn't far from the college, but the estate was a world away from anything he knew. Giant wrought-iron gates with a fancy B graced the edge of the driveway. They opened as Darcy pushed the clicker and drove through. The gates silently and slowly shut behind them. The drive down the road to the house seemed longer than the trip from the college. The blacktop wound through rolling hills, vineyards, and towering pine trees alight with red, green, and white Christmas lights.
Through a break in the trees he spotted the house. No, make that castle. He expected to see a moat and resident dragon any minute now. He whistled. "Didn't realize we were going to England for the holidays."
Darcy threw back her head and laughed at his poorly done British accent. "It does look like it belongs next to Stonehenge or something, doesn't it? Actually, my grandfather had an Italian castle dismantled and transported over here and put back together. I guess that was what was done back then. I just always think of it as old and wish we had a nice, new house."
She pulled them to a stop by the front door. Darcy's shiny new Volvo looked like a used car among the Rolls, Mercedes, and lone Aston-Martin parked haphazardly in front of the house. He waited for James Bond to come strolling out of the house in his pristine tuxedo. His shoulders sagged at the thought of his usable, but ten-year-old beat-up car sitting here among the swans of society cars and was glad it sat back at the dorm and they’d taken her car.
His heart skipped a beat. What was he doing here? What made him think he belonged meeting Darcy's parents? As if she'd read his mind, she turned to him and her mouth found his. She tasted so sweet. Of honey and chocolate and cinnamon.
Her hands held his face. "Money doesn't make people any better than anyone else. What you do to make this world a better place is what makes a man. You and your uncle make beautiful furniture to brighten people's houses. The things you carve bring beauty into this world. You are a great man, Chase Thanos and don't you ever forget it."
He ran his fingers through Darcy's long, shining hair, the half-healed cuts on his fingers catching in the fine strands. He leaned forward and touched her forehead with his. He inhaled the rose scent that permeated her skin and by connection, his. His fingers slid to her petal-soft cheek. Chase could have stayed like this forever if not for the slamming of a door and chatter of multiple conversations.
Darcy looked up and out the car's windows. He stared as she planted a fake smile on her face and swept out of the vehicle to be surrounded by a group of blondes who looked enough like her to be cousins or some closely related people. He smiled as they hugged Darcy and did those stupid air kisses he thought only happened in movies about the uber-rich. She glanced over to him past a woman’s shoulder and rolled her eyes.
Chase got out of the car and moved to her side. She grabbed onto his hand and pulled him close to her. "This is Chase Thanos. My friend from college."
He might have been put out by the 'friend' comment if not for the scorching looks he was getting from Darcy's family. The tone she'd used let them know he was more than a friend without using the what he'd always thought as juvenile 'boyfriend' moniker. If that didn't imply he was more than a friend, her wrapping her arms around him and pulling him in close certainly worked. The tallest of the blondes pulled away from the group and held her hand out to him. "I'm Veronica. Darcy's cousin on her mother's side. You must be something else in bed. Darcy's never brought anyone home before." Her gaze swept his entire body.
He started coughing as he didn't know whether to laugh or stammer a denial. Or something in between. A dreaded blush heated his face as he glanced at Darcy and noted her bright-red cheeks. One of the men pulled Veronica back to his side.
"Really, Roni. Do you ever think before you talk?"
She smiled and wrapped herself around the man like a well-fed cat. "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission."
The man yanked her toward the door just opening. "Roni, you have never asked for forgiveness in your life."
The woman's husky laugh preceded them through the doorway.
They seemed unreal, like something from a movie or another planet. He couldn't figure out where Darcy fit into this picture. The girl with the torn jeans falling into his lap with a football was a distant memory he tried to recall.
She handed her car keys to a man in a suit holding the door open. "Welcome home, Miss Darcy."
"Edgar, our bags are in the trunk. Can you put them in my room, please?"
"Darcy Elizabeth Bennett. That man is not sleeping in your room." The words came in a loud whisper from a woman who didn't look old enough to be Darcy's mother admonishing her.
"I don't think there will be much sleeping, Aunt Margaret," Roni said in the sudden silence of the foyer.
Chase groaned, hoping the pristine marble floor would open up and swallow him. Death was preferable to the looks he was getting from Darcy's mother and an older gentleman who he could only assume was her father. Hell, even Edgar, who must be the butler, was looking down his pointy noise at him. Meanwhile, Veronica and the other younger people were smirking at him.
"Really, Mother. It's almost the twenty-first century," Darcy complained.
He fidgeted as his face flushed hot. Darcy's mother was shooting him looks to kill while Darcy crossed her arms on her chest and stood her ground. The older woman was not backing down. Chase moved to Darcy's side.
"I can find a room in town. I saw several hotels on Main Street."
A heavy sigh escaped Margaret Bennett. "Mr. Thanos, there isn't a room to be had in town. It's Christmas. I do a
ppreciate the effort though. If you don't mind, Edgar will put your bags in a guest bedroom in the North wing."
He released a big breath he hadn't known he was holding. From the looks of the bed and breakfasts on Main Street he couldn't afford a shed at those establishments, but to help Darcy he would have used his emergency credit card.
"Well, now that that is settled, let's all have a drink to bring in the holidays," the older gentleman announced, leading the way through an arched entry way into a room that defined elegance, with overwhelming dark wood and lush fabrics. The cousins headed right to the bar and helped themselves. He reached out and took Darcy's arm.
"You didn't say we would share a room," he whispered.
"I wanted to surprise you," Darcy said, a blush painting her porcelain cheeks a soft pink.
He took both of her hands. "There's no rush, sweetheart. When we have our first time it won't be under your parents' noses just to spite them."
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him. Her soft lips slid along his and took his breath away.
"We'll just see about that," she whispered back over her shoulder as she strode across the room to join her cousins at the bar.
CHAPTER TEN
Chase stared across the carpeted expanse of the guest room. Guest room? What a joke. Two of the single room would have been more square footage than the house he shared with Uncle Dimitri. The bed would have held six people. All at once. His duffel bag sat folded on a shelf in the closet where his small amount of clothing didn't even fill half of the space.
He buttoned up his dress shirt and tucked it into his pants. The newness of the fabric rubbed against his neck. He winced at the thought of the money spent on clothing he wouldn't wear after this weekend. He couldn't imagine where he would need to wear a suit and the pricey shirts once they were back at the college.
Dressing for dinner, as Darcy had explained it, seemed like a waste of time and clothing. Uncle Dimitri would laugh his head off when he regaled him with the story when he went home for spring break in a couple of months. He smiled at the thought and stared at himself in the mirror on the inside of the closet door. Admitting he did look pretty spiffy, he buttoned his cuffs and shut the closet door.
A knock sounded at the door that he opened to find Edgar standing there. "Dinner will be served in twenty minutes, Mr. Thanos. The family is in the red dining room."
His mouth must have gaped open. Edgar smiled. "The red dining room is adjacent to the study where you were earlier."
"Thanks, Edgar."
Chase made his way down the stairs as the butler continued to knock on doors. He spotted Darcy on a staircase on the other side of the house. She looked over to him and smiled as she skipped down the stairs. They met in the foyer.
"I take it your room is in the South wing?" he asked as she slipped her hand into hers.
"Third room on the right, in case you should go walking in the middle of the night." She winked at him and licked her lips.
He shook his head, but a smile still crept across his face. "Not going to happen, Darcy. Your mother looked like she would be patrolling the hallways with a gun and guard dogs."
"Coward," Darcy whispered up to him, a smile on her face.
"No, a wise man," Roni said as she slid up to them in a cloud of overpowering perfume and wrapped herself around him. "Aunt Margaret is she-bear over her one and only bear cub. I'm surprised she doesn't still keep you in bubble wrap, Darcy dear."
Darcy frowned at her cousin, furrows deepening across her brow. Her hand tightened in Chase's. "You must be losing your mean streak in your old age, Roni," she muttered back, an ugly tone in her voice he had never heard from her. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
He untangled himself from Roni and wrapped an arm around Darcy's shoulder. Her cousin shrugged her shoulders and smiled at him. "This one is a keeper, cousin. Don't blow it."
The woman walked across the foyer, her heels clicking on the marble. Roni pulled open a door and slipped inside. The door shut with a gentle swoosh and he was alone with Darcy, although the muted sounds of conversation filtered through the wooden doors.
"We don't want to hold up dinner," he said, moving to cross the marble expanse. She clenched his hand and pulled him back.
She rubbed her forehead. "I'm so sorry about that. It's this house. It sucks me in and makes me act just like them."
He laughed and wrapped his arms around her. "Where's my football girl? That's the real Darcy." His gaze swept over her from her upswept hair held with jewels he thought might be real diamonds, to her silk dress that must cost thousands, to the spike heels he'd never seen her in that put her almost eye to eye with him.
"You look very beautiful tonight," he whispered, placing a kiss on her cheek. Darcy was beautiful in whatever she wore. Tattered jeans or a fancy dress. He loved her in whatever she had on. His breath caught.
"What?" she asked, a worried look on her face. "You're sorry you came and met them all, aren't you? You’re seeing the real me and you don’t like it."
He took both of her hands and pulled her in close. "I love you."
The color left her face. "What did you say?"
"I love you, Darcy Bennett. I love you in your jeans. I love you when you're studying. I love you all dressed up, pretty as a Christmas ornament."
A smile broke across her face, happiness shining in her eyes. "I love you, Chase."
He leaned over and swept his lips across her mouth. She opened for him and their tongues tangled amid groans from them both. She tasted of honey and cinnamon. Pulling her in closer, their bodies pressed together. The blood thrummed in his veins, pounding in his ears. His heart raced in time with hers, as she pulled them closer.
A cough broke them apart as Roni leaned through the doorway and stared at them. "Aunt Margaret wants to start dinner," she whispered. "You better get in here now before she gets one of her migraines and no one will get dinner."
Her cousin slid back into the dining room as Chase pulled himself away from Darcy. "The others are waiting."
"Let them wait," she whispered as she wrapped her arms around him.
He could have stayed that way all night, but Brock, her cousin slapped him on the back as he walked by to the dining room. "I wouldn't keep Aunt Margaret waiting. You know how she gets."
Darcy sighed and stepped back. "Fine, dinner it is."
He kissed her pouting lips and smiled at her. "It's just dinner."
She sighed as he opened the door. "No, it isn't. It's the inquisition. The only thing missing is the rack and the iron maiden."
China and crystal glistened on a table big enough for twenty. Margaret Bennett sat at one end and Mr. Bennett sat at the other. Folded cards sat above each plate. Chase found his seat beside Roni and another female he hadn't met yet. Darcy walked over to the other side to take a seat across from him, between Brock and another young man.
A low voice sounded on his right. "Hi, I'm Darcy's cousin, Naomi. You must be Chase."
He turned to her as Darcy took her seat across the table. "Yes."
The young girl, and she was a girl, had him blushing as her gaze swept up and down his body and she licked her lips. Roni leaned forward.
"Naomi, behave yourself. Aunt Margaret will send you to bed without dinner."
"Oh, fine," she whined and turned to stare at her plate.
A bell tinkled from the head of the table. A swinging door opened behind Margaret and an army of people brought the food. He knew his mouth gaped open but he couldn't help himself. He'd thought only royalty lived this way. Like a synchronized dance, the plates of food sat in front of them and the group of servants passed silently through the door again. As if it were a restaurant instead of a home.
He glanced across the table where Darcy smiled and winked at him. His football girl seemed a million miles and a million dollars away. He sat up straighter as Margaret raised her wineglass. "To family." She glanced at Chase and pasted such a fake smile on her face he thought her che
eks would crack. "And friends."
Course followed course and glasses of wine mysteriously appeared beside his plate. He'd never been a drinker, especially since he wasn't twenty-one yet and Uncle Dimitri wouldn't have allowed it because a teen, drunken driver took his parents’ lives. He took a sip or two from each glass to be polite and still felt a buzz in his head by dessert.
Margaret put her hands together under her chin as the last of the plates were cleared and everyone sat back and sipped coffee. Darcy groaned across the table and Roni laughed quietly at his side. He suddenly remembered Darcy's comment about an inquisition. He'd thought he might escape it with all the small talk at the table during the meal, but her mother looked ready to cross-examine him in a court of law.
"So, Mr. Thanos. What do your people do?"
His people? It took a moment to filter through the slight wine haze. "There's just Uncle Dimitri and me. My parents died when I was a kid. It's been just me and the uncle ever since."
"And what does this uncle do?"
"He builds furniture. He owns Thanos Fine Furniture in Lake Willowbee." He sat up straighter. They might not have the Bennett’s money, but he was proud of his uncle and the things they built with their hands.
"What kind of name is Thanos?"
"Mother," Darcy groaned across the table and her face was red as he glanced at her quickly. He turned back to Margaret.
"Thanos is Greek. My grandparents came here from Greece during World War II to escape the Nazis. The family have been woodworkers as far back as we know."
"Mother, that's enough." Darcy threw down her napkin. "I brought Chase home for the holidays since he would be alone for Christmas. His uncle is on a wood-buying business trip and I didn't want him to be alone. No one should be alone at Christmas."
"Wow," Roni whispered. "The girl found her backbone."