Chapter 2
DARCY
I wish I was bloody pissed.
The British definition of the word, not the American one. I don’t need to be angry—this deep, lurching sadness is more than enough emotion for one day—but I would really, truly like to be tits-up, passed-out drunk.
If I were anyone but Warren Ritcherson’s heir, I probably would be.
My father’s funeral has been a real event of celebrities, mining magnates, political leaders, and prominent families from across the globe.
There are reporters, paparazzi, and camera crews being held at bay by security, and after hours of dealing with this circus, my brain is zapped, and my face hurts from the permanent grieving-but-holding-it-together mask I’ve learned to perfect.
I want to be able to hurt.
Will my funeral be like this ?
God, I bloody well hope not.
I love my life, I love my family, I love the role I’m about to step into far sooner than I ever wanted, but the rest I could do without. The posturing and playing nice with people who, quite frankly, deserve a firm backhand to the face is wearing.
I glance around at the glaringly large room. It’s been a solid hour since I’ve seen anyone who wasn’t a vague acquaintance wishing me obligatory sentiments while trying to pin me down for a meeting while they’re in town.
I need Carlisle, my best friend, or my mother, or even Elle and her brother, émile. Now that he’s married and I’m not in any danger of being forced to become his husband, he’s become a whole lot more tolerable.
At this point, I’d even make do with my sniveling little brother Junior.
All of my energy focuses into conjuring someone I know out of thin air as I cross the room. I’m an expert at slipping past conversations with a simple “excuse me, bathroom” while promising to come back later. I’d rather be force-fed shoe polish, but they don’t need to know that.
“Shit, Darcy, there you are.” A hand latches onto my arm, and I’m about to snatch it away when I register Elle’s voice. Relief trickles into me as I turn and find her, émile, and his husband, Christian.
“There I am? Where have you been?”
She sniggers into her champagne and exchanges a look with émile. “Met a marquis who did blow off my chest in the loos,” she says.
My lips twitch for the first time all day.
Elle’s notorious for getting bored at any events we have to go to and so makes up wild stories for her own entertainment.
Some days, I wish I could toe outside of the line like that.
“In other words, hiding in a back room, downing champagne as quickly as you could?”
Elle pins me with an unimpressed look. “It’s no fun when you don’t go along with the rumors.”
“ Fake rumors.”
émile shakes his head like he’s also disappointed in me. “I was so looking forward to telling people Elle had a drug-induced prophecy about the coming of our second lord, Christian Kilpatrick.”
Christian chokes from his place beside émile. “You will not . Leave me out of your games.”
“And I thought you were cool,” Elle laments.
“The three of you almost make me forget I’m in mourning.”
“Really?” Elle cocks her head. “Because I’m in constant mourning. It’s much easier if you embrace the hopelessness of it all, love.”
“And now I’m struggling to remember why the hell I wanted to see any of your faces.”
“Because we’re incredibly attractive beings.” Elle squeezes my arm that she’s still holding. “And so are you, which is why I was astounded —nay! Horr-i-fied to learn that you hadn’t been out with Carlisle for months. Months, Darcy. What the hell have you been doing—beating out a marathon?”
My cheeks flood with warmth. “He’s not the only person I go out with, thank you.”
“Of course he is. Other than us, you have no friends. People think you’re boring or intimidating, and no one wants to party with someone like that.”
I huff. “I’m neither of those things.”
“ We know that. But you might want to do better with letting other people in on that secret. Like your hookups. Has it really been months? No wonder you’re so tense.”
“Don’t need to hear this,” Christian says, face scrunched up.
“Really?” émile asks. “I’m mildly curious.”
The heat from my cheeks has traveled down my neck. “Not that my sex life is anyone’s business, but in case you’d forgotten, my father was dying. I’ve been too busy to scratch my own ass, let alone find someone to pound it.”
“But you’re Darcy Ritcherson,” Christian says. “You could pay someone, or?—”
I hold up my hand quickly to get him to stop.
Sure, sex workers are overutilized by people I know, but I’m not one of them.
I don’t need flowers and poetry to get my dick sucked, but at the very least, I like to spend a fun night getting to know a guy first. Besides, sex work is a necessary industry but still comes with a lot of stigmas attached to it, and I can only imagine the type of scandal the media would drum up if they found out I’d been bedding prostitutes.
My entire life has been a lesson in avoiding scandals. It’s one of the reasons people do think I’m boring; playing it safe is my default.
I cast my gaze over the three of them. “You know, this morning, I’d assumed I was all cried out and would be able to get through today without splotchy-faced images all over the news, but the three of you are dangerously close to making me weep. With despair for humanity.”
“There we go.” Elle beams at me like I’m not trying to insult them. “You’re learning. All aboard the bitter express.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I don’t think today can get any worse.
” But while I say that, they have succeeded in distracting me from the mess around us.
I’ve always thought the Cromwell siblings were odd, but Christian is no better, and sometimes a little odd is exactly what I need.
Pity I don’t have the luxury of letting go the way they do. For so, so many reasons.
émile and Christian leave to get more drinks, and Elle turns to me with sympathy in her eyes. She shaved her long blonde hair off sometime last year, and she’s kept it short ever since, which just highlights how incredibly beautiful she is.
“Do you need me to hatch an escape plan? Smuggle you out the side door?”
“And have to listen to Junior run his mouth about how I skirted my duties all week?”
“True.” She thinks for a moment. “You know, if you want to do blow off my chest, I can make it happen.”
I bark out a laugh. “Certainly not. It’d be my luck that we’d be caught and …”
My eyes catch on a man across the room, and I do a double take.
The sadness suffocating my insides rears up for an anxiety-inducing second at the familiar face.
The jawline, the nose … all Father. And even though his hair is brutally shaved around the sides and longer on top, I’d be willing to bet Father’s had been that exact shade before he went prematurely gray.
The resemblance is strong, but it only takes a second to pass before the sadness drains away and my gut twists with panic as I’m left looking at a near stranger.
A stranger I’ve known about since my early teens.
A stranger who’s been a shadow on my consciousness since I learned about his existence.
A stranger who I knew was invited but never, ever would have guessed would actually come here.
While we’ve never met, I know exactly who he is. Spent some weak, alcohol-fueled 3:00 a.m. guilt trips looking him up on social media, following his life, becoming almost stalker-level obsessed, but only once everyone else was in bed and could never find out.
My entire awareness of the room funnels down into the one spot.
Wren Porter.
My family’s biggest secret.
“Who is that?” Elle asks, following my line of sight to the man who so doesn’t belong here.
He’s the me from another life. The person I would be had Father not accepted his family’s expectations and raised me as his own.
I swallow past the thick lump in my throat and push out the lie Father had trained me to say in this very moment. “That’s my brother.”