Page 74 of A Certain Appeal
“Lizard.” She mimics the warning in my tone. “You only made lunch suggestions that would get us to this part of town, anyway. Let’s make the most of your little ruse, eh?”
I glare at her. I thought I’d been clever about lunch.
And I do want to go inside. Desperately. Since showing Chloe my work, I’ve spent all my downtime on a Pemberley design. The drawing I started to defuse my frustration with Darcy atRed, White, and Boobshas been the jumping-off point to more concepts than I can count, but the version inspired by the sunburst has quickly become my favorite. It’s evolving well enough, but something about it hasn’t quite gelled. Trespassing aside, a fresh view of the spacewouldbe helpful.
When I don’t say anything else, Chloe wiggles her eyebrows and darts into the building. The door slowly whispers toward shut.
I lunge for the handle. “Brat.”
Chloe is halfway up the catwalk by the time I get to her.
“Oh, Lizzy,” she says admiringly, “it’s beautiful. And you’re right. The barn wood has to go.”
I turn in a slow circle, trying to take it all in. Most of the lights on the main floor are off, but sunlight streams in from the windows upstairs to illuminate the catwalk. Without the attendees from the Work It event, Pemberley is the torturous blank slate it was the first time I saw it. The sheer potential is almost overwhelming.
Chloe bumps my shoulder, returning me to the present. “Is this going to be like your first trip to LA when I took you to Union Station and you cried?”
“Oh, hush.” I nudge her back. Though her allusion to the train station tickles my brain. That missing element...
“Tile!” I scurry to the railing around the lake and peer into the dark water. “Tiling the lake...” The vision unfurls, washing over the scene in front of me. “Not white, like subway tile, that’s everywhere now. But... taking a color from the mother-of-pearl?” I riffle through other memories from that day with Chloe, our walking tour of the Historic Core of downtown LA. The Bradbury Building, the Million Dollar Theater, and the grand dame herself—
I gasp. “The Eastern Columbia Building!”
Chloe frowns. “What’s—oh, yeah! In LA. The turquoise one with the clock tower.” She looks into the lake. “Ooh, that blue would be perfect.”
I nod, bouncing on the balls of my feet. The pop of color would liven up the room without distracting from the architecture or taking the focus from the stage. I already colored in gold accents, and warmer lighting would balance the cool of the imagined tile. Chloe’s bemused smile tells me just how bonkers excited I must look, but I don’t care. “This has been plaguing me for weeks. It’s all clicked.” I shake my head, still not quite believing it. “It’sperfect.”
“That’s awesome,” she says. “Especially because I think we’reabout to get kicked out.” Chloe waves, and I realize her attention is behind and above me. “Hi there!”
“Bennet?”
The low voice sends a shiver down my spine, and my pulse kicks up another notch. No. Effing. Way.
I wheel to find Darcy peering at us from the second floor. For a moment, we gawk in silence. If anything, he looks as stunned as I feel—though I hope my version looks even half as appealing as his. He’s dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, and holy bespectacled hotness, he’s wearing glasses. With the sunlight coming in behind him, he’s an urban Adonis.
And he’shere.
Useless, I toss him a wave. “Hiya.”
“What, ah—” He takes off his glasses, hurriedly hooking them on the neck of his shirt. It takes him three tries. “Are you here for something?”
Oh, God. Chloe and I just barged in here like we owned the place. “No—”
“She wanted to show me the building,” Chloe says. “I’m Chloe, by the way. Are youDarcy?” She says his name with incriminating enthusiasm.
... and now he knows I’ve been talking about him.“I thought you were gone until next week,” I say, hoping to sideline his own realization. “I was going to reach out—”
“I flew back with Charles.” He slides his hands into his pockets, rocking back on his heels. “You may have noticed he couldn’t stay away.”
Charles.Charles, who just sat across from me for forty-five minutes of sushi and idle chitchat, knew Darcy was here and didn’t sayanything. That little... “Yeah, Ididnotice. He didn’t say anything about you.”
“I asked him not to,” he says quickly. “I didn’t want to impose.”
My forehead wrinkles. The idea of his being an imposition on anything other than my recent dry spell is too foreign a concept until I recall that all our reunions have taken place in my head.
“No!”Too loud; jeez, Bennet, keep it together.I take in a breath, willing myself to slow down. “Not at all. Thanks for the consideration, but... no. You’re no imposition.”
“You wanna come down here?” Chloe calls, her hands cupped around her mouth. “Or would you rather keep hollering from different floors?”
