Not In My Wildest Dreams (McKenna Series Book 2)

by Jamie Hollins

  Darcy smiled at Rhys and shrugged. She wished Sean was trying to get her drunk. What would that mean? What would he do with her? Maybe she should pretend to be drunk just to find out.

  A balding, middle-aged man took the stage and tapped the microphone. He was addressing the crowd, saying something about a battle of the sexes karaoke contest. She turned her attention to Sean.

  “Not to talk about business or anything, but my hotel reservation is only through tonight. What’s the plan?”

  Sean sat forward, placing his beer on the table. “Well, we need to actually sign the contract, which should be done by the end of the week, I hope. At that point, we get working on permits. Once those are a little clearer, I can give everyone some direction on when we can expect to start.”

  “So just wait to hear from you then?”

  “Yeah. I’ll keep you updated. But I’d start thinking of a game plan if I were you. If everything goes perfectly with the contract and the permits, we could be breaking ground in two weeks.”

  “Which doesn’t give me a lot of time to get my staff and materials in order. Once we sign, I’ll start assembling my team.”

  “We’ll have a kick-off meeting before the end of the month to go over timelines and deadlines. Once we get into the swing of things with this hotel, you’ll pretty much be in Boston every day for a while. I’ll look at some corporate apartments for you. You too, Rhys.” Sean glanced across the table as he picked up his beer.

  Rhys looked over at Darcy and smiled. “Wanna be roomies? I don’t snore, I promise.”

  “What if I snore?” Darcy asked. “Would you still wanna room with me then?”

  Rhys nodded slowly, and there was no mistaking the look in his eyes. He wanted to pick things up where they had left off last weekend.

  Sean cleared his throat, pulling Darcy out of Rhys’s hungry gaze.

  “Sorry,” Sean said curtly. “Not gonna happen.”

  She would have thought he would ease up on his intensity with putting the project first. She guessed she was wrong.

  “Relax, man. I was just joking.” Rhys winked at Darcy.

  “Yeah, right,” Sean muttered under his breath as he took another pull of his beer.

  The balding emcee took the stage after a loud round of applause for a lively rendition of “Welcome to the Jungle” by some college kid. He called the first female contestant up, who shyly stood next to him as he randomly selected a piece of paper from a fishbowl.

  The emcee laughed as did most of the audience. The girl who stood on stage looked as if she wanted to crawl into a corner and die. Darcy understood why when the opening to Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” came on. Poor girl. She shouldn’t have signed up for a karaoke contest of she wasn’t prepared to take the heat.

  Trampy Waitress showed back up and leaned directly in front of Darcy to get to Sean.

  “Um, excuse me,” Darcy said.

  The waitress didn’t even hear her. She kept trying to get closer to whisper into Sean’s ear. Darcy tapped the waitress on the shoulder until she got her attention.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you mind? Your tits are in my drink.”

  She gave Darcy a look before straightening back up and sauntering away.

  “Are you cock-blocking me?” Sean laughed.

  Darcy’s eyes widened in horror. “No, you ass. I’m STD blocking you. That girl reeks of chlamydia.”

  Sean nearly spit his beer back into his bottle. He grinned at Darcy and shook his head. “You have such a way with words.”

  “Yeah, I’m Oscar Fucking Wilde. Honestly, Sean, you can do better than her.”

  “Okay, then. Who in this room would you suggest?”

  Me.

  She wanted to say it. But of course she didn’t.

  Instead, she just rolled her eyes. She sure as hell wasn’t going to point out anyone, because knowing Sean, he’d take it as a challenge and waltz right up to the unsuspecting woman.

  “How about her?” Sean pointed to another waitress nearby.

  “What’s with you and waitresses?” Darcy hoped to deflect his question with one of her own.

  “It’s not so much a thing for waitresses but a thing for short skirts that barely cover their asses.”

  “You’re a pig,” she said, shaking her head. He just laughed in response.

  Rhys watched them silently from across the table. The speculative look on his face told Darcy that he might be on to her little game. She needed to stop with the jealous outbursts unless she wanted the whole table to know she’d offer herself on the altar of Sean McKenna any day.

  Sean’s embrace after the meeting sure as fuck didn’t help things. When he’d picked her up against him, she’d been able to feel the hard, firm contours of his chest against her breasts. Breasts that quickened and became heavy as they pressed against him.

  If there was any moment in her life worth freezing, she’d have gladly picked that one. It had taken every ounce of decency she had not to wrap her legs around his waist.

  Just the thought of his mouth so close to her neck made her wiggle in her chair to calm the ache that was growing between her legs.

  After “Like a Virgin” was done, the crowd voted by decibel level which they liked better. “Welcome to the Jungle” won by a landslide. The men were up by a point.

  As the next guy took the stage to sing a 50 Cent song, Darcy turned back to Sean. “Why did you pick a karaoke bar for tonight?”

  “I didn’t know there was going to be karaoke tonight. But I think it’s kinda funny. Look at those poor schmucks. It’s humiliating and so much fun to watch.”

  The short man on stage, who must have been pushing sixty, was singing about “giving hugs to those who were into getting rubbed.” He was drunk and enjoying himself up there.

  Men must have some sort of switch that turned off all brain function that would enable them to do something like karaoke.

  “Hey, Darce.” Sean leaned closer to her. “I didn’t have time to tell you earlier, but you looked really nice today.”

  She glanced over at him in surprise. His eyes weren’t glazed over, and he seemed to be in control of all his faculties. He definitely wasn’t drunk, which made his comment all the more unbelievable because she could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d complimented her.

  “Thanks,” she replied softly, hoping he couldn’t see the blush creeping up her neck.

  As she was staring at his face, she heard her name. When she turned to her left to see who had called her, she didn’t see anyone standing there. It took her all of five seconds to realize that the emcee had said it.

  “Where’s Darcy Owens? Darcy, are you here?”

  “She’s right here,” Sean yelled loudly.

  Darcy spun around to look at him. He was standing, waving his arms in the air, and pointing at her.

  Oh, sweet Jesus.

  “There she is. Darcy, you’re up next. Get on up here, girl!”

  Darcy looked back at the balding man on stage and blinked. Cold, gripping panic clawed at her throat, and she couldn’t breathe. Spinning back around, she latched on to the bottom of Sean’s shirt.

  “Sean, I can’t.”

  He laughed, thinking she was joking. “Oh, yes, you will, Darce. You have to.” He didn’t seem to notice the sheer terror in her eyes.

  She looked across the table at Rhys. Although he was trying to hide it, she could tell he was smiling too.

  She couldn’t.

  This wasn’t even an option. She’d sworn she would never again sing in public. Never put herself up on that soapbox her parents had dragged her on when she was only three years old.

  Sweat rose to the surface of every pore on her body. Icy chills sprinted up and down her spine.

  “I think Darcy has some stage fright,” the emcee said, prompting the crowd to start chanting her name.

  “Darcy! Darcy! Darcy!”

  Sean joined in, clapping along with the rest of the room. She thought
of running for the door, but it would take her twenty minutes to get through the crowd. Maybe she could slip out the fire escape. She didn’t care if she looked like a coward.

  She was a coward. She was petrified.

  Some ogre of a man, bigger than Rhys even, grabbed her arm. He started pulling her toward the stage. She shot a beseeching look back at Sean.

  “You don’t understand! Sean, please!” She put all the fear she felt behind it. Her voice cracked on the e sound. Sean just wiggled his fingers in a little wave.

  Once she got up on stage, all she could see was the spotlight in front of her. She still had her whiskey, which she’d spilled a little as the ogre pulled her along. She chugged the fiery balm and managed to get her shaking tumbler onto the table next to the fishbowl.

  She was breathing hard and fast. Maybe if she could just hyperventilate, she’d pass out and wouldn’t have to sing.

  “All right, let’s see what Darcy will be singing for us.”

  The little emcee troll reached his hairy hand into the bowl and pulled out a paper. It brought back memories of the Dirty Dozen game she’d played with her friends on Friday nights in Providence. She wished she could use her pass. She’d even give back the pass she’d used the night that Sean had played with them if she could use it at this moment. Sean finding out that she was a virgin was nothing compared to what she was about to do.

  “Ah, some folk music. Sarah McLaughlin’s ‘Possession.’ That’s a sexy song.”

  Darcy wasn’t sure if it was the fact she had to sing or the way the little man said the word sexy, but she wanted to vomit.

  “Do you know that song?” he asked her as if she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

  She didn’t answer, just started to rock back and forth slightly on her feet as if she were a paddle boat lost at sea.

  “If you need some assistance, the words are going to scroll across that screen right over there, okay?” the troll explained. He seemed to feel sorry for her.

  “Just play the fucking song.”

  The crowd cheered at her crass remark. Yeah, fuck the crowd too.

  And fuck Sean McKenna.

  There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that he was the reason she was up here. And as the haunting organ chords started, tears started to pool in her eyes.

  She wasn’t thinking rationally. She knew Sean didn’t know what he had done. She knew he had no idea that he’d just subjected her to the worst type of emotional anguish possible. Even Sean wouldn’t have made her do this if he’d have known.

  But he had to have seen the panic. He had to have seen the abject terror in her eyes when she pleaded with him to get her out of singing for the room full of half-drunk people.

  Friends protected friends. They didn’t hang them out to dry. They didn’t push them out on the plank until there was nothing to do at the end but jump into the cold, dark sea below.

  And Sean wasn’t just any friend to her. He was everything.

  Embarrassment at her current situation, combined with a fierce hatred toward her parents, boiled close to the surface. Nothing like being dragged kicking and screaming down memory lane by the man you loved most in the world.

  Frustration and resentment from years of unrequited love caught up to her in that moment. Darcy squeezed her eyes shut to stop from crying. But behind her eyelids, all she could see was a familiar street corner in New York City. Pale faces stared at her, waiting expectantly. And just like it had been a long time ago, she had no choice but to sing.

  ###

  “She’s going to kill you, you know that, right?” Rhys asked.

  The architect had stood up on the other side of the table about the same time Sean had moved to get a better view of the stage.

  “I’m fucking dead.”

  Sean knew it. He knew that Darcy might just try to murder him in his sleep. A slow and painful death for sure.

  He finally got her.

  The unflappable Darcy Owens looked like she wanted to cry for her mother. He wished he’d had a camera to capture the shock on her face.

  By this time, she had to have realized that it was he who put her up there by entering her name into the Battle of Sexes Karaoke showdown. It had been sheer luck that the opportunity presented itself.

  He would have recorded it on his cell phone, but there was something about the look on her face as she was being dragged up to the stage that just wasn’t right. Oh, she was embarrassed, all right. This would go down in history as the one and only time Sean McKenna was able to make Darcy Owens squirm. But there was something wrong with her reaction.

  He’d expected her to be shocked and maybe a little pissed. But then he was sure she’d waltz on up to that stage and belt out some God-awful song, making all their ears bleed just to spite him.

  He didn’t expect her to look at him like she was being dragged to her execution.

  “Can she sing?” Rhys yelled over to him.

  Sean shrugged his shoulders. “No idea.”

  The music started and as the words scrolled across the monitor, there was no sound coming out of Darcy’s mouth. She clutched the microphone in both hands, resting it against her bowed forehead. Some of the crowd started singing the words to help her along, but she kept her head down.

  About the end of the second line, she started to sing.

  It was soft and hesitant at first, but Sean saw her lips move ever so slightly against the screen of the microphone. When she got to the chorus, she finally sang loud enough to make out the lyrics.

  Loud enough for Sean and everyone else in Dirty Heron’s to realize that Darcy could really sing.

  Sean stilled and watched her in utter amazement. She didn’t just sing on key, there was a pureness to her voice that he wasn’t expecting. It swam through his head, sliding past his ears, rubbing its silky perfect pitch against his eardrums.

  Even though her head was still bowed, her voice was strong and full. She climbed and lowered with the notes of the song perfectly, as if she’d sung it a million times. The crowd was eating it up. She was the best singer they’d heard all night. She was probably the best singer Sean had ever heard in his life.

  As the lyrics of the song implied, Darcy took his breath away.

  “Is that Darcy up there?”

  Sean didn’t take his eyes off the stage but nodded to answer Michael’s question as he rejoined the table.

  “Why’s she shaking like a leaf? She looks downright terrified.”

  Although completely drunk on her voice, Sean looked closely and saw what Michael saw. Darcy’s knuckles were white as she gripped the microphone. Her shoulders were pulled in toward her middle as if she were being hugged too tightly. If he squinted, he could see that, through the strands of hair that fell down over her shoulders, she had her eyes closed. And they weren’t just closed, they were squeezed shut with a single-minded focus.

  And they stayed that way through the entire song. Even after she released the final note.

  The melody of the song ended, and she stood there frozen. It must have been the applause and noise of the crowd that woke her from her trance, because she straightened and shoved the microphone in the emcee’s gut.

  Something was wrong.

  A nasty feeling rolled around in the pit of his stomach as he watched her stagger toward their table. His feet started moving as he pulled chairs out of his way in an attempt to get to her.

  She never looked up at him, even when she got to the table. Before he made it to her, she grabbed her purse and her jacket and pushed out of the emergency exit, sending alarms screaming in protest.

  “What the…?” Sean quickly skirted around the remaining chairs and darted after her, catching the door just before it closed.

  Once outside, he saw that she’d turned left and was headed toward the busy main street. “Darcy!”

  She didn’t look back. She moved faster, alternating between a jog and a walk on the concrete sidewalk. It was full-on dark, and she moved quickly between the warm gl
ow from the gaslit lamps hanging from the side of the building. There were few people on this side of the bar to slow her escape as she raced to the corner.

  “Darcy, wait!”

  She was pulling on her jacket as she hurried away from him. It was a wonder she didn’t fall and break her neck as she raced away on her high heels. He kicked into a jog and caught her just before she made it to the front of the building, where more people were waiting either to get inside or to catch a ride.

  “Darcy, wait up,” he said, grabbing her elbow.

  She threw off his grip with a violent jerk of her arm. “Let go!” It came out as more of a snarl than anything. Her eyes burned with temper and he momentarily stilled.

  Half her face was shrouded in shadow, marking her features with dark angles. She was raging mad. Madder than he’d ever seen her before.

  “What? What’s wrong?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, her nostrils flaring before she turned back toward the street to hail a taxi. The wind picked up and blew her hair across her face, and she hastily pushed it out of her eyes.

  Was she fucking with him? And if she was, could she possibly do it out of earshot of all the loiterers outside the bar? He reached for her again, wanting to turn her back toward the less crowded section of sidewalk, but she once more swatted his hand away.

  Trying to placate her, he said, “Okay, so I totally threw you to the wolves. I meant for it to be a joke, but the joke was totally on me. You were amazing! I had no idea you could sing.”

  “Fuck. You.”

  She’d said that to him a lot over the years. As far as he knew, it was always in a kidding manner. This time was different. Malice sharpened those words. Each enunciated with bitter poison that had him momentarily speechless.

  Darcy was trying to wave down a cab, but someone else got to it first.

  “You’re pissed at me.”

  It was a statement. An obvious one.

  She stood with her back to him. Her jaw was clenched, and she just shook her head.