Page 26 of Desperately Seeking Mr. Darcy

“But you’re okay with me being here, right? Because if you’re not, just tell me.”

Tell him. Tell him!

“Yes. Of course,” I say.

Okay, listen. I wanted to tell him I’d be fine on my own, that he should stick to his Costa Rica plan, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. He did something big for me. Huge, really. No one has ever done anything like this for me before. It feels wrong to take that away from him, to dismiss this grand gesture.

Besides, I was nervous about going by myself, wasn’t I?

Zane tilts his head, watching me with those steady, disarming blue eyes of his. “You sure? Because if this trip means as much to you as it seems like it does, I don’t want to ruin it.”

His words make tiny butterflies flutter around in my stomach. Maybe it’s the sincerity in his voice, or maybe it’s the fact that he even bothered to notice how important it is. I fidget with the strings of my hoodie, twisting them tighter.

“It does mean a lot to me,” I admit.

“Why?” he asks, sounding like his sister.

“I know it probably sounds silly, but when I found out I won, it felt like things were finally going my way. Like ... maybe I won’t always be stuck where I am.”

Zane leans back in his seat, his brows pulling together. “Stuck where?”

I let out a shaky laugh. “In my life. At my job. In this rut where I don’t know if I’m ever going to do what I really want to do.”

His silence urges me on, even though I’m not sure why I’m spilling all of this now. It’s weird that he knows so little about my life, when once upon a time he knew pretty much everything.

“Winning this trip felt like a sign, you know?” I tell him. “Like maybe I deserved to have something good, for once. Something that was just mine.”

He looks away, toward the front of the plane, and I instantly get that uncomfortable sensation in my chest, the one I get when I feel like I’ve overshared.

He glances back at me, a tender-looking smile on his face. “Well then, do you have a script so I can try learning some lines?” Zane asks, giving me a hopeful grin. There’s a focus in his eyes now, the same intensity I’ve witnessed when he’s about to tackle something head-on.

I let out a breath, pulling my backpack out from under the seat in front of me. Resigned, I pass him the thick script. I guess Zane Porter is going to Pride and Prejudice Park with me.

And now I have to figure out a way to survive it.

MACEY

A text exchange between Macey and Amelia, Sunday, September 15, 5:35 p.m.

Macey:So, somehow your BROTHER surprised me and is going with me to play Darcy

Amelia:What? YES! Are you serious?

Macey:He got himself a ticket for my flight, and we’re on our way to Manchester

Amelia:THIS IS SO PERFECT!

Macey:Not really. I blame you for putting this in his head. I would have rather gone alone!

Macey:Yeah, I guess

“YOUR RESERVATION IS FOR JUST the one room,” the portly front desk clerk says, his vowels clipped and softened. A slightly different accent than the ones I’ve heard since arriving in the UK.

“Yes, I know. I actually need a second room,” I say, exhausted and practically soaked to the bone. Both my hoodie and my T-shirt are wet. My hair is matted to my head, and I’m pretty sure I look like a soggy poodle. What a waste of a blowout.

My first impression of England is that it’s very green, very cloudy, and very rainy. After taking the train from Manchester—with two transfers, no less—we had a short, twelve-minute walk that started with a light spritz and quickly turned into a full-blown downpour. By the time we arrived, we were cold and soaking wet, and all I can think about right now is crawling into bed and sleeping for the next twenty hours. Even with the lie-flat seat in first class on the second leg of the flight, my sleep was patchy at best.

You are cold. You are wet. You can’t even think positively right now.

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