by Staci Hart
It was sick, really. An affliction of longing. At some point, I knew I’d have to let it go. Move on. But with her here, I didn’t know how I ever would.
When I left my office to meet the delivery guy downstairs, she didn’t look up. She didn’t even notice when I exited the elevator and headed to her cubicle, a little island of light in a sea of darkness. In fact, it wasn’t until I said her name that she finally saw me, and that was only after jumping six inches in her seat and ripping her earbuds out.
“Jesus,” she breathed, sitting back in her chair with her hand on her chest. “Somebody should put a bell on you.”
“Georgie tried, but I bit her.”
An easy laugh slipped out of her before she caught herself, locking down her face and clearing her throat. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”
“Can’t have you winning on Monday, can I?”
“Yes, well. If you’ll excuse me, I really should get back to it—”
“I ordered pho.” I held up the bag stupidly, realizing the sad state of my plan. “It … it’s from the place you like.”
“What the Pho?”
I frowned, not getting the joke. And then I remembered that was the name of the restaurant. I nodded. “Steak, extra spicy, with spring rolls.”
She eyed me with no small amount of suspicion. “How did you know?”
“We ordered once after a meeting.”
“And you remembered what I ordered? I don’t know if that’s sweet or creepy. But I know you’re not sweet, so …”
A smile tugged at my lips in thanks she hadn’t already told me to leave. “You haven’t eaten, have you?”
“I haven’t.” She still eyed me.
“Good. I mean, not good that you’re hungry, but that dinner won’t go to waste.”
Her brows came together in confusion. “Right.”
An awkward pause. “Well, if you want to eat here, I guess I could—”
“Give me my dinner and leave? That would be nice.”
Inwardly, I flinched. Outwardly, I was as stoic as ever.
I set the bag on her desktop and began unwrapping it. With my eyes on my busy hands, I figured it was now or never.
“I’m sorry, Laney.”
“How many times do you think you’ll have to say it until it’s true?”
“I don’t know, but that won’t stop me from trying.”
She was quiet for a beat. “And why is that, exactly?”
“Sometimes I feel like I know the answer to that, and others, I have no idea.” I unpacked the Styrofoam containers of noodles and toppings, stacking them on top of each other. “What I do know is that I can’t seem to stop hurting you. And contrary to what you might think, I don’t actually want to hurt you.”
Again, she was silent, giving me time to line up the meal, chopsticks and all. With that done, I turned to face her and found her expression unreadable, which must have been a feat. Her feelings were typically plain enough to see from space.
“That is very much contrary to what I think,” she said. “In fact, I imagined you notching a whip with a wicked smile on your face every time you successfully ruined someone’s day. Twice, if you ruined mine.”
Anger twisted in me, and I straightened up, agitated at her lack of awareness, her absolute wrongness. The grip on the leash of my self-restraint loosed.
“You have no idea, do you?” The words were hard, sharp, tugging at their tether.
“About what?” she asked cautiously.
A wave of jumbled emotions crashed into me, and for a moment, I looked off, shaking my head, rubbing my mouth.
“Nothing.” I turned to walk away, not trusting myself to speak.
Two steps, and she grabbed me by the elbow. “Stop running away every time things get hard. Tell me what I’m so wrong about.”
“I thought you wanted me to leave.”
“Not until you explain what you meant.” She took two steps back and folded her arms.
And I wasn’t strong enough to resist the challenge.
“You like to think you understand everyone, don’t you? That you can meet a person once and know them. Put them in a labeled box to keep or toss. You love to believe that what you see is who I am, which makes sense—you impose your feelings on everyone who crosses your path and expect them to thank you for it. But not everyone is so free with their feelings. Not everyone says everything that pops into their head the moment they think it. This isn’t me, Laney. This is me around you. You do this to me.”
She jerked back, affronted. “Me? What have I ever done to deserve this?”
The leash snapped. “You drive me insane. You’ve invaded me, invaded my work, my mind, my life, and I’m unable to be rational or patient where you’re concerned. Do you have any idea how little control I have when you’re near me? Against my will, against my reason, against my character, I am inexplicably desperate for you. And you can’t even see it past your pride.” My chest heaved like a bull, the admission hanging between us like a guillotine.
She stared, wide-eyed and blank-faced.
“You can’t be surprised.”
“I can’t?” she asked as she took a step in my direction. “You’ve been nothing but unkind since the moment I first met you, and now you tell me without pretense that you’ve been pining after me?”
“I didn’t say I was pining,” I argued, even though I had been.
“And what gave you the idea that I wanted you?”
I took a challenging step of my own. “Are you saying you don’t?”
Her cheeks flushed, her chin lifting to keep our eyes locked. “You’re maddening.”
“Yes, I know. So are you.”
“Yes, I know.”
“You haven’t answered me.” Another step, and the space between us disappeared. Everything was electric—the beat of my heart, the skin of my fingertips, the webs of nerves on my lips.
“Because it’s ridiculous,” she said softly, as if trying to convince herself.
“Is it?”
“Ludicrous.”
“I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all,” I said, inching closer, stopping only when I was close enough to feel her breath. “Especially not when it comes to how I feel about you. You set me on fire. I’m tortured by thoughts of you. The shape of your lips. The sound of your laughter. The sight of you flaming in anger like a struck match. How many times have I almost told you? How many nights have I lain awake, thinking of how you would taste?” I searched her face. She said nothing. “If you can tell me you’ve never wished for me the way I’ve wished for you, I won’t kiss you.”
“And if I don’t?”
I slid my hand into her hair, not needing to otherwise move—she leaned into me, our bodies flush. “Then God help us both.”
It was only a moment, a long, stretched-out moment as our noses inched closer, her eyes on my lips before clicking to mine. A word flashed behind them before her lids closed in a fluttering of raven wings—yes.
And lightning struck.
Our lips met in a shock of heat and light, leaving licking flames everywhere it touched. My awareness shrank to the heat of her defiant mouth, her lips somehow both soft and hard with demand. It wasn’t a kiss—it was too consuming to be only a kiss. It was a breathing of souls, a meeting of bodies, a tangle of tongues and a seam of mouths. We were hands tasting hot skin, my palm on her long neck, my fingertips tracing that obstinate jaw, her galloping heartbeat so close to mine, it matched her wild pace. She tasted like open skies and seas that went on forever.
And I couldn’t find it in me to let her go.
I gathered her up, setting her on the desktop, learning the shape of her body without sight. Her hands fumbled with my tie, my buttons, a haphazard flurry of motions, none of which could be completed before being distracted by something else.
But it was where our lips were joined that I found salvation.
She was wholeness, rightness. The shape of her fit into the shape of me, filli
ng a space I only recognized as an absence of light. A place once filled with dark matter—unable to be seen, unaffected by force, a void only discovered because of how it affected everything around it. But for that moment, with Laney in my arms, her light blasted the darkness, chasing the shadows into every corner until they were vanquished.
This was the thing I’d feared, the redemption I’d craved. Because now that I knew her power, I would be a slave to her. And I’d be shackled willingly.
There was no future in this space. There was no past. There was no logic, no rules and no obstacles, only what we wanted now, without repercussion. I slipped into the stream of my desire for her, gave in to the feeling without considering consequence. The leash, my tether, was gone, the beast in me running free.
Running to her.
We were hands against feverish skin, frantic and seeking that which we longed for, that which we needed, outrunning the hunt of reality. We were racing hearts, racing lips, racing fingertips uncovering flesh by inches. The hitch of her skirt over her hip. The slide of her hands into the gaping V of my slacks. The primal feel of her bare hip in my palm, of the unyielding length of me in hers.
At the shock of her touch, reality awoke.
The past crept in. The future followed. And the truth of our circumstance made itself known.
There’s no way to keep her without losing it all.
But I can’t lose her either.
The thought sobered me, broke the kiss, bringing me upright so I could see her face. And we stared at each other breathlessly as my thoughts snapped into place.
“I …” was all I could manage.
She smiled with swollen lips. “Me too.”
I shook my head infinitesimally. “We should decide what to do.”
Her smile twisted into something wicked. “I can think of a great many things to do.”
I laughed before taking a moment to kiss her again, this time with enough restraint to keep from creating a vacuum of space and self. When I leaned back again, I smiled down at her, a plan unfurling. In fact, it was the only plan at our disposal, the only way to get what we wanted.
Each other.
“There are bigger things to decide. Like what we are going to do about this. Because we are doing this. We’re going to do a lot of this.”
“But do we have to decide now?”
“I think we should. And then I think you should come home with me.”
She sighed, relaxing her legs, which had been hooked around me. We parted, took a moment to right ourselves.
A sharp slice of amazement cut through me at the realization of what I’d done, at what I was about to do. I had let go so completely, so entirely to what I wanted, and the act had liberated me. A second followed when I realized that without question, I regretted nothing.
This was reinforced when she slid into me, her arms threading around my waist, rolling up on her tiptoes in silent request for a kiss.
I happily obliged.
When we parted, I swept her hair back from her smiling cheeks.
“All right, Mr. Darcy. So what do you suggest?”
Logic took charge, the words exiting me like a ticker tape of computations. “We only have one option. Your family is obviously a problem for mine—I can’t openly defy my aunt without losing everything. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do this for as long as we want, if no one finds out.”
Something in her shifted. Hardened. Pulled back and frosted over.
My brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” she asked quietly. “Are you … are you serious?”
My silence was enough.
She snapped like a switch. “Should I feel gratitude that you’ve propositioned me? Should I thank you for admitting you unwillingly want me? Should I take it as a compliment that you’d like to sleep with me, so long as no one finds out?”
Her hand on my chest was the final stop. I needed nothing more than the slightest pressure to put a yard between us.
“I can’t believe I was so foolish. I can’t believe I let myself get here, to this place. With you.”
“That’s not … Laney, I want you.”
“But only on your terms,” she shot before laughing without humor. “It’s so obvious. How I could have believed otherwise is just a testament to how able you are to control everyone around you. Even if I didn’t have my own reasons for hating you right now, I could never be with the man who ruins and destroys everything he touches. I could never choose someone who thought my family so beneath them, such a problem. Thank you for reminding me of what I momentarily forgot. Because nothing could pardon you, not even your declaration, if that’s what you’d call it.”
“What have I destroyed?” I asked, my jaw, my body, my mind tight as a garrote. “What have I ruined that you haven’t had a hand in?”
“My brother, for instance, not that you care about him. Your sister, over and again.”
“And what exactly have I done? I gave them my blessing. What more do you want?”
“What do I want?” she shouted. “I want you to do something about it! You could have saved Georgie and Jett, but you didn’t. You could have fought for them, but instead, you left them to rot, just like you did Wyatt. Or maybe you’re the impetus behind Catherine’s unbending interference?”
I took a breath so sharp, it stung. My heart was a raging inferno.
“Do you deny it?” she asked.
“I don’t deny that I did everything I could to stop Georgie from seeing Jett, but there was no joy in it. I want her happiness more than I want my own.”
“And what about Wyatt? Did you want her happiness then?”
My eyes narrowed to slits, and I said through my teeth, “You’re quick to defend him.”
“How could I not be? You ruined his chance at happiness, just like you did your sister’s and my brother’s.”
“Wickham’s happiness,” I scoffed. “Of course the state of his happiness is my fault.”
“You’re the one who stole that life from him, and yet here you are, mocking his pain. You lied to Georgie about Wyatt, filled her head with bullshit so she’d leave him. You tried to pay him off, for God’s sake, and told her you’d cut her off if she didn’t walk away.”
Lies, lies, lies, I raged in my mind. But I was too furious to correct her.
“So this is what you think of me?” I shot instead. “Thank you for explaining so fully. My faults are unforgivable, as you said, since your word is law. But maybe,” I said, leaning closer, “you wouldn’t have been so quick to judge had your pride not been hurt by my honesty.”
“Honesty?” she snapped. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“Maybe you’d be more forgiving if I’d pretended like your family hadn’t been a nuisance since the moment I met you? Or if I’d lied to you to spare your feelings regarding my aunt and her edict to reject you at all costs? Maybe if I’d disguised how I felt about you, you’d be more willing. But I won’t wear a mask, not for you, not for anyone. I’m not ashamed of how I feel about you, nor do I wish I hadn’t told you. But could you really expect me to celebrate the inferiority of your family and the burden it puts on me?”
She stood before me, trembling softly with fury. “Thank you for making this so easy. For a moment, I forgot the simple truth of your character, as you call it. From the second I met you, you have shown nothing but arrogance, conceit, and disdain for the feelings of others. Within minutes of learning your name, I knew without question that you were the last man in the world I would ever lower myself for, Liam Darcy.”
I was struck breathless, my lungs screaming for air and my heart throwing itself against my sternum, reaching for her. “Then there’s nothing left to say. Forgive me for inflicting myself on you tonight. It won’t happen again.”
With an unfathomable pain in my chest, I turned and walked away.
And with every step I took, she seeped from that space in my heart where she’d fit so perfectly, leaving it
empty once again.
25
Evasive Maneuvers
LANEY
I barely recognized myself.
Exhaustion played some part—not only had I spent the last week working three jobs, but after last night with Liam, I hadn’t slept but for the occasional drifting in and out of consciousness. This morning, I’d dragged myself out of bed and come to the Longbourne offices early to get a jump on the day.
My team’s proposal for the ad campaign was finished before my coffee, and I sent it off, washing my hands of the project. I would be there for the final presentation, and then I was finished. I’d sent Cam an email somewhere around three in the morning to ask for a leave and let her know I didn’t have time for the firm now that my family needed me, which was true. But not as true as the necessity of getting away from Darcy.
No one in this world made me so angry as Liam Darcy. Nothing confused and upset me like the presence of a man who could kiss me and insult me in the same breath. A man who made me feel so intensely, I could burst into flames with a word. A touch. His kiss was a smoldering brand on my heart, leaving a wound in the shape of his name.
I had been reduced to embers, eviscerated and consumed. Used up and flickering. I had nothing left for him, my will and patience exhausted, gone the second I’d given in to my desire. Because he’d destroyed me the moment I was vulnerable enough to forget who he was.
And this time, I wasn’t going to let it go. There was no going back. And the only solution to putting it all behind me was to extract myself from the situation. I could leave my position at their firm. Wasted Words would understand, and if they didn’t? Well, I’d figure something out. Because one thing I would absolutely not do was willingly put myself in his path again.
There were masochists, and then there were fools. I liked to think I was neither.
So this morning, I sat in the empty offices of my family’s business, picking up the mess left by whoever had set out to ruin us. Again.