Page 27 of Desperately Seeking Mr. Darcy

“Sorry, duck, but we’re all booked up tonight. So is every place around here. It’s the start of the autumn fair, ya see. No rooms left, I’m afraid,” the desk clerk says, giving me a kind grin.

He’s called me “duck” twice now, and I’m really hoping it’s not a commentary on my bedraggled, looking-like-I-was-just-pulled-from-a-pond appearance.

“No rooms?” I repeat, even though I know I heard him correctly.

“That’s right,” he says. “Just the one you’ve reserved.”

“Oh,” I say, giving him a smile with no teeth, but inside I’m feeling mostly panicked. My heart is doing a fluttering thing, and not in a good way.

When I booked the hotel originally, I only reserved the one room because I thought it would be fun and easy to share one with Derek. But now I’ve got Zane with me, and I absolutely don’t want to share a room with him. Because ... well, there are so many reasons.

“You could share the room?” the desk clerk suggests, as if he read my thoughts and knows my worst nightmare.

Okay, it’s not my worst nightmare. While ten years ago it would have been my biggest fantasy, it’s not anymore.

I give the clerk a nod and slosh over to Zane, who’s standing by our bags, my wet shoes making squeaking noises on the black-and-white tiled flooring. If I weren’t freaking out about mycurrent situation, I’d be gushing over this hotel. It’s stunning, with dark wood detailing and artwork in gorgeous gilded frames. It feels steeped in history, the kind of place where secrets and stories live, and I’m feeling like a fish out of water with my soggy American appearance. And yes, the pun was intended.

“What’s going on?” Zane asks as I approach, frowning in response to the look of frustration that’s probably all over my face.

“The only room they have is the one I booked, and all the other hotels around here are booked up as well. There’s some autumn fair going on,” I tell him.

“One room,” he repeats. “Did you ask him if there are any other options?”

“No,” I say. My brain is a little waterlogged, but I’m pretty sure when the man says he has no rooms, he has no rooms.

“So you’re just going to accept that?”

He said the same thing when, feeling more comfortable, I opened up to him on the flight and told him about the program I wrote and how Verity got her paws on it, and then he said it again when I stayed silent after some guy cut in front of me in line at the Atlanta airport while I was trying to grab a drink.

Obviously, I know this. I know I should say something in these situations. But it’s hard, and there are perfectly good reasons not to—like keeping my job, for one. Or avoiding a potential punch in the face from the line cutter. I don’t want to be punched. I have a very nice nose. It’s my favorite part of my face. It’s the only nice thing my father gave me.

“Well, yes,” I say. Even if sharing a room with Zane is the last thing I want to do right now.

He scratches the side of his head before turning on his heels and heading toward the front desk. He walks up to the clerk, and I can’t really hear what they’re saying, but Zane is using a lot ofhand gestures, and a couple of times he points over his shoulder toward me.

He walks back over to me, a confident smile on his face. Did he fix it? Hope blossoms inside me like it did the moment before I found out Christine gave my program to Verity. Bright, yet fragile.

“So, as it turns out, there’s only one room,” he says when he reaches me.

I glare, my stomach doing a sinking thing, the tenuous hope dying a very quick death. Not unlike when I talked to my boss.

“I already told you that,” I say.

“But you shouldn’t always accept the first answer you get,” he tells me. He’s got his lecturing face on ... again. One eyebrow raised and his gaze intense. It’s familiar—a look he used to give me a long time ago.

“Because that’s working so well for you now,” I say.

“Come on,” he says, bending down to pick up his backpack and hoisting it over his shoulder before taking my suitcase by the telescoping handle. He insisted on carrying it, even when we were running in the rain.

Okay, so I guess I’m sharing a room with Zane for the night. I’d love to protest, to offer to sleep in the lobby, but I’m too wet and tired to do it.

So I follow him through the lobby and down a hallway, my insides twisting at the thought of having to sleep in the same room as him. It’s not like it’s the first time; when we were young, he, Amelia, and I would build a fort in the living room of his house and sleep in it often, and we also camped out on the trampoline every once in a while. But we’re adults now, and what if I do something embarrassing in my sleep? Like talk, or pass gas. Elizabeth Bennet would never. She’d also never share a room with an unmarried man of great fortune.

At least things are better with Zane. Like, I’ve been able to actually speak around him. Leave it to my people-pleasing, wanting-everyone-to-feel-comfortable ways to make that issue better.

I think I fully started to relax more around him when we worked on lines. Zane picked them up quickly, which he blamed on Amelia and me for making him watch the movie so many times. His accent improved too. He told me I was a great teacher, which made my cheeks redden and had me listing off all the reasons why I’m really not, until he told me to just take the compliment.

Things are definitely better between us, but I still think this is a terrible idea. Getting dressed up and reenactingPride and Prejudicewith him feels mortifying, and I can’t shake the fear that having him here will ruin the one bright spot I’ve been clinging to in my otherwise train wreck of a life. Even so, there have been moments—small ones—that felt like old times. Back before silly crushes and stupid letters messed everything up.

---