Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
IT TOOK ABOUT TWO DAYS of persistent persuasion, but Elizabeth agreed to a second date with Daniel. He had been kind on the first, and she felt a measure of guilt at the thought of putting him off after he had driven her home when he did not have to.
That was the honest version of it. After the first date, Daniel had texted the next afternoon to say he had enjoyed himself and hoped she had got home safely.
She had replied that she had. He had written back the following day asking if she was free that weekend, and Elizabeth had already made up her mind before she finished reading it.
It felt like the right thing to do — to give someone a second chance who had shown her, without being asked, that he could be considerate.
To say thank you in the only way that made sense.
So she had said yes. And told herself it was just dinner.
When the day came, the first hour had been fine. The same ease as before, the same good conversation, the same sense that he was a decent person making an effort. She had relaxed into it. That had been her mistake.
When the evening ended he offered to drive her home again and she accepted for the same reason she had the first time. He had offered. It seemed unkind to refuse. She had no reason not to trust him.
They were two streets from the restaurant when his hand moved from the gear stick to her thigh.
She looked down at it. Then at him.
"Daniel."
"You have been great company," he said. Eyes on the road. The easy, unbothered tone of someone who expected this to go a particular way.
"Move your hand."
He did not. He slid it higher instead, and when she pushed it away he reached across and his hand moved to her chest and she caught his wrist and held it and said: "Stop."
He stopped. He sat back. He made a sound, low and dismissive, the sound of someone who found her response unreasonable, and then his hand moved toward her face and she caught it a second time and this time she did not hold it. She slapped it away.
The car was silent.
"Pull over," she said.
"Elizabeth —"
"Pull over, Daniel. Now."
He pulled over. She picked up her bag, opened the door, got out and closed it behind her and walked to the end of the block without looking back.
She stood under a streetlight with her hands shaking in the way hands shook when they had been required to be very still and were now catching up with themselves.
She reached for her phone and saw that Darcy had called. The timestamp put it right in the middle of the drive, right around the moment Daniel had decided what kind of person he was going to be. She stared at it for a second.
Darcy would have to wait. She was not late. He had no reason to panic yet. And she was not in the mood to talk to anyone right now, least of all someone who would ask questions she did not have the capacity to answer standing on a pavement in the cold.
At least Mia was at Priya's for a sleepover. That was one thing. She would not have to walk in the door and arrange her face into something that explained nothing.
She opened her Lyft app and booked a car and stood under the streetlight with her bag over her shoulder and her hands still not entirely steady, her mind turning over what had happened with the particular restless energy of someone who had not yet decided what to do with it.
What the bloody hell did Daniel take her for.
The car pulled up. She got in, gave the address, and looked out of the window the whole way home and did not think about anything she was not ready to think about.
***
The lights in the living room were on.
Elizabeth had not messaged ahead. She opened the front door and Darcy was in the hallway, phone in hand, clearly about to call.
"I have been trying to reach you," he said. "You were not —"
He stopped, his expression tightening into a frown as his gaze settled on her face.
"Elizabeth." His voice changed, dropping to something quieter and more careful. "What happened?"
She had intended to say something efficient. Something that covered the facts without requiring her to stand in the hallway and feel them. She found she did not have it.
"Lizzy." He had never called her that since they started living together. Not since she had broken up with him. "Talk to me. What happened?"
She told him. All of it. The second date, why she had agreed to it, the drive, his hand, telling him to pull over, the streetlight, the car home. She told it in the scattered way things came out when you had not yet had time to arrange them.
She was not going to cry about it. She was angry, mostly, in the quiet specific way she was angry when something should not have happened and the anger had nowhere useful to go.
Darcy listened without interrupting. When she finished he was still for a moment.
"Where were you when you got out?" he said.
"Darcy —"
"Which street."
"I do not want to —"
"You do not have to do anything you do not want to do," he said.
"But what he did has a name and there are people you can report it to and I will help you with that if you want to.
Tonight, tomorrow, whenever you decide. Entirely your choice.
" He looked at her. "I just want you to know it is an option. "
"All right," she said.
"All right you will, or all right you hear me?"
"All right I hear you. I do not know yet about the rest."
"That is fine. You do not need to decide tonight."
He turned toward the kitchen. "Come and sit down."
She followed him. He put the kettle on. The good tea, from the back of the shelf, the one Charlotte had kept for difficult evenings. He set a mug in front of her and then stood back and looked at her properly.
"Have you eaten?"
"We had dinner."
"A full meal?"
"Yes, Darcy."
He nodded. "Go and have a bath. Hot water. As long as you need. I will be here."
"You do not have to stay up."
"I know."
She looked at him. He was leaning against the counter with his arms folded, not blocking anything, not demanding anything. Just present.
"Thank you," she said.
"Go," he said. Simply. Without making it into anything.
She went upstairs and ran the bath hot.