by Staci Hart
A motion in my periphery broke the connection—Georgie waved, and once she caught my eye, she motioned for me to them.
“I’ll, uh, be right back,” I said to the back of Collin’s head, though I didn’t know if he’d heard me, so entrenched in a monologue regarding the merits of the Tomb Raider game franchise, he didn’t even notice me slip away.
I hurried over to Georgie and Jett, keeping my back to the room in the hopes of dodging Collin, even though I knew it was probably pointless.
“I need you two to do me a favor,” I said when I reached them. “Please save me from Collin tonight.”
Georgie laughed. “Aww, he seems sweet.”
“Wait until he corners you and talks about obscure manga for a half an hour and tell me how you feel.”
“I’m impressed you’ve held him off this long,” Jett said.
“So is he. But social cues aren’t exactly his thing,” I noted, “and I just don’t have it in me to break the poor kid’s heart.”
“How about I go get us some drinks?” Jett stood. “Gin, Georgie?”
“Yes, please,” she said, all googly-eyed.
“And I already know what you want,” he said in my direction.
“Hey, I’m not that predictable.”
“Bulleit Rye, up.”
“Okay, fine. Maybe I am.”
On a chuckle, he headed for the bar, and we watched him go. Collin appeared at the far end of the bar with shots in his hand, and I whipped around, slinking in my seat.
“Does he see me?” I asked.
“You’re safe so far, but I don’t know for how long,” Georgie answered, amused. “I’m glad you guys came tonight.”
My brow quirked. “Why wouldn’t we have come?”
“I guess … well, I guess I didn’t think I’d see Jett. I don’t know why. Sometimes, I wonder if I just made him up,” she said on a chuckle. “Like one day, I’ll come to Wasted Words and everyone will say, Jett who?”
“He really is spectacular, isn’t he?”
“He really, really is,” she answered wistfully in his direction. “I … I don’t know if I should even say this, Laney …”
My heart skipped with hope. “Say what?”
She shook her head. “I shouldn’t. If I say it out loud, that’ll make it real, won’t it? And I can’t do what I want. Not right now, at least.”
Through a pause, I sat up and leaned in her direction. “If this is about what I think it’s about, would it change things if you knew for a stone-cold fact that he feels the same way as you do?”
“Does he?” The color in her cheeks rose. “He’s never made a move, but it feels like we’re in a state of perpetual anticipation. Like we’re always just about to kiss. Honestly, I don’t know how much more my nerves can take.” She shook the thought away and sighed. “But I can’t. We can’t. Not without repercussions.”
A protective flash of heat streaked through me. “Says who? If it’s a problem with work, keep it a secret. It wouldn’t be too hard to sneak around, would it?”
“Liam would figure it out. We live together, you know.”
“So? Is he going to tell on you?”
“No, but he wouldn’t approve, and neither would my aunt—she’s sworn us off any Bennet interaction outside of work. Plus, it’s against the rules, and I don’t know if you know this, but my brother has a thing for rules.”
“Who, him? No,” I deadpanned.
“I couldn’t keep it from him,” she said miserably.
“But you could keep it from your aunt and work?” I prompted, my thoughts coming together.
She frowned. “Probably, but—”
“Then it’s just your brother. If he wasn’t a factor, what would you do?” I challenged.
Without hesitation, she said, “I’d march up to Jett and kiss him right here, in front of God and everybody.”
“Then do it. I mean, maybe not in front of everyone—your brother sadly does still exist—but go talk to Jett. Throw caution to the wind and go get what you want. Not what anybody else wants—what you want. Because you deserve that happiness just as much as Jett does. If Liam doesn’t understand that, you’ll convince him. And your aunt too, if it comes to that.”
Georgie straightened up, her face set in both determination and worry. Her eyes cut to Liam, who was deep in conversation with Cooper a ways off, his back to us.
“Could I really get away with it?” she mused. “Could I hide it from my aunt, from the company?”
“It’s only for a few months. I think you can manage the secret that long.”
“And if it goes the way I have a feeling it will, I’ll tell Catherine as soon as the project is over and deal with her feud with your family then.” She paused, watching Jett’s back. “I should do it.”
“You should definitely do it.”
“I should. And I’ll tell Liam tomorrow when he can’t argue.”
“Future Georgie’s problems. And Right-Now Georgie has a boy to kiss who really, really wants to kiss her back.”
She watched Jett’s back for a second as a smile brushed her lips. “Okay.”
“I spotted a couple of dark hallways behind the bar. I’m just saying.”
Georgie reached for my hand and smiled. “Thank you, Laney. Sacrifice a goat in the hopes this doesn’t blow up in my face.”
“If it does, you’ll have the best guy on the planet to comfort you through it. I promise.”
She stood, looking nervous, and I imagined by her expression that she was giving herself a pep talk. I stopped myself from bouncing in my seat as I watched her talk to him, saw the look on his face and the look on hers. A furtive glance from them both—probably to check Liam’s location—and they took off, hand in hand, abandoning our drinks at the bar.
I got up to gather them and bring them back to our spot, forgetting about Collin. Two steps, and he slid in front of me.
“There you are. One for you”—he put a shot glass in my hand—“and one for me. Cheers!”
He lifted it and knocked it back. I took the tiniest sip of mine.
“Listen,” he started, “I know I’ve been hinting around that I like you for a while now—”
I legitimately had to swallow a laugh.
“—but you and me? We make sense. You know? You’re single. I’m single. We work together.”
“Collin, that is the extent of things we have in common.”
He laughed, oblivious. “Seriously, Laney. Why fight it? You don’t have anyone else to date, do you?”
I blinked, leaning back in shock. But in a grand display of restraint, I didn’t say what I wanted, which was for him to fuck off. “I’m sorry if I misled you, but I’m not interested in dating.”
He took a step closer and said with a knowing smile, “We don’t have to date.”
Several responses crossed my mind. A swift punch to the nose would stop him, and if my brothers had taught me one thing, it was to throw a successful punch. I considered going ahead and telling him where he could go and the best way to get there. I could throw the remaining tequila in my shot glass in his face in the hopes it would get him in the eye. Or I could just turn around and do nothing, which didn’t feel like me at all.
Before I could decide, gravity shifted in the direction of one very tall, very serious Mr. Darcy.
“Excuse me,” he said to Collin with unmistakable anger beneath the thin veneer of politeness. “I don’t think we’ve met. Liam Darcy.” He extended his sizable hand for a shake.
“Collin.” When he went to shake Darcy’s hand, his almost disappeared. His face tightened, and I wondered over the force of Liam’s grip.
“And what is it you do at the bookstore?”
“I’m the manager of the comic and graphic novel department. The whole department,” he bragged.
“The whole department, huh? Impressive,” Liam said with a wry tone. “Pardon the intrusion, but I was hoping Laney would dance with me.”
Collin frowned. �
��Actually—”
“See, I owe her one. We’ve been caught in a series of misunderstandings, and I thought this would be a good start in making it up to her. You understand.”
“Hey, man,” Collin started. “I was just about to ask her to—”
“That is, if she’d like to dance with me,” Liam said, watching me with an amused glint in his eyes, his hand out, palm up, waiting for mine.
“Now hang on a minute—” Collin interjected.
“I’d love to,” I answered, slipping my hand into his with just enough friction to feel electric. “I’ll catch you later, Collin. I think Ruby’s over there alone! You should ask her to dance.”
Collin opened his mouth to argue, but Liam was already towing me away toward the dance floor. When we passed a cocktail table, I managed to rid myself of the tequila, and with a quick glance, I noted that Georgie and Jett were nowhere to be seen.
If I wasn’t with Liam, I would have giggled, and maybe even clapped.
The second we reached the edge of the dance floor, he turned me with little more than a hand on my waist, and before I knew what was happening, we were dancing to an Adele song. Thankfully, the crowd had gotten over their nerves—even Cam and Tyler and the rest of them were swaying on the parquet.
But Liam looked down at me, and it didn’t matter if anyone was there or not. One glance, and we were an island.
For a moment, I couldn’t speak, stunned silent by his presence alone. He wore a small smile that did something bright and alluring to his eyes. And though my tongue was a fat and useless thing in my mouth, he seemed unaffected.
His gaze flicked to Collin, I guessed when he said, “I hope I just saved you and that you weren’t waiting for whatever proposition he was about to give you.”
A bout of laughter eased the tension. “You did save me. Thank you—I wasn’t sure how I was going to get out of it. No didn’t seem to be working.”
At that, a shadow passed across his face. “He wasn’t out of line, was he?” There was some possession or protection in his voice, and the sound did something warm and tingly to my insides.
“He was, but not in the way you’re suggesting. Collin is harmless. Clueless maybe, but harmless.”
“Good.”
We swayed in a circle, observing each other.
“So was your line about making a misunderstanding up to me just for the sake of the ruse, or did you really want to dance with me?” I asked.
“It wasn’t a line. In fact, I’ve been thinking about asking you to dance tonight for days.”
There again was the shock, but it wasn’t cold. It was hot as the inside of a firecracker when the fuse reached its destination.
I shook it off, covering my reaction with redirection. “And what about the misunderstanding?”
“It seems the two of us have been in a state of constant misunderstanding, haven’t we?”
“How so?”
“We’ve been known to only share a handful of sentences before one of us is mad. But then there are the times between when everything feels … possible. Like now.”
He picked up our momentum, turning us around in wider steps. As we spun, I felt opposing forces try to pull us apart. But he kept our bodies pressed together with his hand on the small of my back, defying the science and logic with nothing more than that palm. And when we slowed again, I was left breathless.
“I know I’ve apologized,” he said, which was good because I couldn’t speak, “but I’ll do it again. And again, if I have to. Because this?” He turned us. “This, I like. So I’m sorry for misunderstanding you. For underestimating you. Has proving me wrong been entertaining, at least?”
“It really has.”
His smile lifted by degrees. “I mean, you’re still going to lose.”
“I thought you said yesterday I was sure to win?” I asked with one brow arched.
“That was before you told me all your secrets.”
A zip of electricity shot through me. “Well, get ready to eat crow when I win. And then you’ll have to endure my unstoppable mouth.”
The air tightened between us.
“I’ve been thinking about your unstoppable mouth for days too,” he said in such a way, I didn’t know if he realized he’d said it aloud. His eyes snapped from my lips to meet my gaze. “Your ideas are too good to keep to yourself. I have a feeling keeping you quiet wouldn’t serve the team the way that letting it run wild would.”
He didn’t mean it like you think he did. He doesn’t want to kiss you, and remember that you don’t want to kiss him either. Not really. Like, not really, really. Stop imagining things.
“You say that now,” I joked, ignoring my fluttering heartbeat. “Remember that I don’t usually agree with you.”
“But what if that’s exactly what I need?”
His eyes were hot and somber, as if the realization caused him unseen pain. It was a longing I saw in the depths of his eyes, an empty space he didn’t know how to fill. And I was struck with the impulse to smooth his brow, to wash away his pain. To fill that empty space.
But before I could speak, he looked away. And what he saw erased the man he’d just shown me. It was the slamming of a door, a wall of steel sliding into place, separating him from the rest of the world again.
I glanced over my shoulder in frustration and curiosity and found a face that shouldn’t be there for a dozen reasons. But inexplicably, there he was, Wyatt Wickham, eyeballing Liam from across the room.
Liam returned the favor.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Liam growled. He actually growled, the words coming from so deep in his throat, there was no other way to describe it.
“I don’t know,” I answered, confused.
“Laney—tell me you didn’t bring him here tonight.”
I backed away, offended. “Of course not. How could I do that to Georgie?”
Another emotion shot behind his eyes, but he schooled it before I could tell what it was. “He told you what happened?”
“That’s too big of a conversation for right now. We’ve got to get him out of here.” I moved in his direction, but Liam outpaced me.
“Yes, we do.”
I cursed under my breath, doing my best in heels to keep up with him, his stride so broad in his hurry, he could have cleared a yardstick.
By the time I reached them, I’d missed whatever question Liam had asked, only catching Wyatt’s response.
“Fuck you, Liam. Whatever you think I’m here for, you’re wrong.” Wyatt saw me and smiled. It was then I noticed his suitcase. “Hey,” he cooed. “I got called out for another story. I’m flying to Chicago tonight.”
Liam let out a singular, derisive laugh. I didn’t know at what.
Wyatt pinned him with a look.
“But you just got back. We had plans tomorrow night,” I noted, confused.
“I know, which is why I really wanted to see you before I left.” He took my hand. “I didn’t realize it was their party.”
Liam all but stepped between us. “You need to leave. Now, before Georgie sees you.”
“Jesus, Liam. You can’t let anybody decide what they want, can you? You think you’re better than every person in here, but you’re not. Do you get that? You’re not.”
“Oookay,” I said, stepping around Liam to take Wyatt’s opposite arm, turning him toward the door with the motion. “That’s enough of that. Liam, go that way.” I nodded to the back of the bar. “And you—this way.”
Liam didn’t move, just stood there like a goddamn grizzly bear in a suit, arms folded across his wide chest. He didn’t take his eyes off Wyatt.
I wanted to yell at both of them, but somebody had to keep their cool. So I put on my softest voice and guided Wyatt to the elevator well.
“So … you’re leaving?”
He huffed, dragging a hand through his hair. “Yeah. I … I wanted to say goodbye—I’ll be gone at least another week.”
The door dinged, and we stepped
inside. When I turned, I found Liam still standing sentinel, ready to take Wyatt to the mat if he so much as stepped a foot into the bar again.
“I’m sorry. For coming here,” he clarified. “I honestly didn’t know they’d be here, or I’d never.”
I could have sworn I’d told him exactly what tonight was and who would be here. “I’m surprised to see you.”
He chuckled. “So much for my big, grand gesture.”
“Why do you need a gesture? Do something wrong?” I teased to cover my suspicion.
“No. I just wanted to talk to you. I … I want to see you. Officially. I’ve waited a long time to meet someone like you, Laney. When I get back, I want to take you on a date. A real date with a reservation and everything.”
I laughed, my cheeks flushed not from his proposal, but in a flustered, surprising discontent. “I don’t know. I’m partial to falafel.”
But he smiled, stepping into me, slipping his hand into my hair. “Say yes.”
My lips parted to speak, but before I could answer, he kissed me.
I experienced the kiss as if from some distance, noting things I should have been too distracted to note. Like his limp hand on my hip. Or the fervency with which he kissed me, mismatching my enthusiasm by double. Or the way his lips felt. Because they felt wrong.
Everything was off, our chemistry suddenly as dynamic as a stretch of prairie. Was it him? Was his enthusiasm genuine? Was he just a more charming version of Collin? Or was it me? Had Darcy somehow scrambled up my brains? An unbidden comparison flashed in my mind—Darcy and Wyatt, opposites in every way. Darcy’s dark features to Wyatt’s light. Darcy’s intensity to Wyatt’s charm.
When placed side by side, there was no comparison. Wyatt paled next to Liam.
And perhaps that was the most telling sign of all in the matter of Wyatt Wickham—I was thinking about Darcy while Wyatt kissed me.
When the kiss broke, I considered it again with a scientific objectivity. Wyatt, on the other hand, looked thrilled.
“So what do you say? Go on a date with me,” he said, pulling me into his side to press a kiss to my hair.