Page 14 of A Searing Acquaintance
What!Elizabeth sat up, stunned and embarrassed, and pulled a pillow over herself to hide her chest. “No,” she said, “bad idea. Big mistake.”
“No…it could be, though.” Darcy sat up, put his head in his hands, and sighed. He didn’t appear to notice Elizabeth’s anxiety but saw her looking around for her sweater. He picked it up from the floor, handed it to her, and pulled on his own. He said nothing but suddenly wrinkled his nose and jumped up. “Dammit.”
He ran off to the kitchen, and Elizabeth could hear the clatter of drawers being flung open and the oven door being slammed. She stood gingerly, adjusted her clothing, and began picking up pillows and cushions. A minute later, Darcy returned.
“The lasagna’s baked hard as a rock but at least we didn’t burn down the house. Good thing I set it to auto-timed cook.” He glanced around the room before looking at her.
“Good catch. They say timing is everything.”
“Elizabeth—”
“Better clean this all up.” She briskly gathered the cashmere throws and blankets from the floor and sofa and began folding them as he watched.
“Are you all right? How is your leg?”
“Better. Thanks for helping me. I appreciate it.” She stacked the blankets and leaned over to pick up her boots. “I’m heading to bed. Can you get the rest of it?” She gestured at the water-filled plastic bag, dishes, and glasses.
Darcy nodded. “Do you need help getting there?”
“No, thanks. I feel about ninety-percent better.”
“Are you sure? We should, um, talk?—”
“Nope,” she said crisply. “You were smart for both of us.”
“I wasn’t trying to be smart, but—” Darcy’s words faltered as he watched her slowly walk out of the room, waiting to see whether she was limping. He fell onto the sofa and leaned his head back. His head was a muddle. Smart? He’d been a gentleman, hadn’t he? He hadn’t surrendered to his basest impulses.
She’d taken a prescription painkiller. He’d poured her wine. Shewas woozy; he couldn’t take advantage of her. At least, not any more advantage than he already had. He scowled. Besides, she had a boyfriend, and he had no condoms. She’d regret it in the morning. It would have been fine—fantastic—under better circumstances. He was sure of it. But what of her boyfriend? Even if she was feeling a bit off from the painkillers and wine, how could she come on to him when she had a boyfriend?
Damn. She was so beautiful lying there in the firelight. Teasing him and making him talk. He’d become lightheaded merely talking to her, and that was even before all the blood had pooled in his groin.
He hadn’t wanted a woman so much in months. Years. Maybe ever. Why did he have to startthinkingin the middle of everything? Because it was the right thing to do? Becauseshewasn’t thinking? He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He could still taste her on his lips. Now what?
What was I thinking?
What was I thinking? I let a little wine and a Vicodin go to my head, and I jump him? Him!
Elizabeth looked around the rustic bedroom, and her stomach lurched at the room’s sweet domesticity. She pulled off her clothes, threw on her flannel pajamas, and brushed her teeth. The pain in her leg had dulled and was replaced by a throbbing ache of regret and unfulfilled need. She felt stupid and base, and however polite the man had been about it, he clearly didn’t want what she had offered.
She was not the kind of girl who did one-night stands or hook-ups; she was the dullest, straightest girl who’d ever attended UM. But she attacked a wealthy, handsome man as if he were a piece of meat and she a starving peasant, and he pushed her away. How humiliating. He reverted back to the cold, angry man she’d met weeks ago at the football game. She saw the look of horror on his face when she reminded him she’d gone to a state college.Not Ivy League. And last night, his look of disbelief that she was getting her master’s at Columbia was obvious. He looked past her social inferiority just long enough—until cold reality hit him. She preferred Nurse Darcy, not some cold fish worried about getting an STD from her. Elizabeth pulled the covers up over her head and sank deeply into the feather pillows. She was asleep within seconds.
Breakfast was a lesson in avoidance. Darcy was up early and out riding when Elizabeth grabbed a bagel and a bottle of juice and went for a walk in what she hoped would prove the opposite direction.
Both were absent when the Hursts and Caroline arrived. One complained of hunger, another whined about foot cramps, and the third wheel was focused on discovering the whereabouts of Charles and his best friend.
Upon her return to the house, Elizabeth was staring at the dizzying stacks of fat-free yogurts and organic smoothies in one of the custom refrigerated drawers when she heard Caroline calling her brother’s name and her heels clicking across the expansive wood floors. She crouched and quietly closed the drawer. If she stayed down, she’d be safe behind the enormous granite-topped island. She heard the kitchen door open.Damn, how low can I go?she thought, amused at her double meaning. Then she noticed a tiny label stuck to the drawer:Caroline’s Food. She started to snicker. Then she heardhim.
“C’mon, girl.” Darcy, just back from a walk with Coco, froze in the doorway at the sound of Caroline’s voice.
“Darcy, thank God! It’s so quiet here I was sure we’d walked into some horrible slasher movie and you were all dead in your beds.” Caroline walked quickly toward him but stopped when she saw the muddy-pawed dog. She glanced down at her calfskin boots and adjusted her winter-white pashmina. “I keep telling Charles we need a puppy footbath in the mudroom.”
“My fault. I’ll find an old rag or something.”
“Oh, Darcy, don’t be silly. We don’t haverags. Take these.” She thrust a wad of paper towels at him. “Let me go unpack and we’ll meet in the living room.” In an exaggerated whisper, she added, “You can fill me in on just what my brother is doing with Jane. He’s out of his head over her, and we must do something. She lives in New Jersey, for God’s sake.”
“Yes, I know, Caroline. It’s not Manhattan.” Elizabeth could hear his disgust.
“Nothing is, darling. And she’s dragging him back to that godforsaken state college she went to for another football game. Pretty soon, she’ll have him wearing orange sweaters with a giant M on the chest.”
