45. Lizzy
Lizzy
Igasped as warmth and giddiness bubbled through me. My heart was bursting. Darcy looked at me expectantly.
“I think I’m going to cry,” one of the coaches behind us murmured and sniffed.
I should have felt embarrassed about this all playing out in front of the kids and the coaches and parents, but I didn’t care. I was so happy.
His brave words echoed through me as my mind flicked through all the Darcys I’d thought I’d known.
The first-impression rude Darcy, then the one who’d taken a chance to go on the rope swing with me, the funny Darcy who’d teased me after I’d fallen on him in his forest, the vulnerable Darcy who’d asked me to spend the week with him, swim with him, hike with him, brainstorm my book with him, the sexy, confident man who’d worshipped my body in his bedroom, and the man who’d heard my family needed help and had done everything he could, at great pain to himself.
I searched his eyes and tender face, linked my fingers through his, craving even this small touch. The thought of being without him hollowed out my chest. Of course this was love. Love I’d never felt before. Like him, I had to take the leap. I had to have courage.
“Darcy, I love you too.”
He looked relieved, and his face broke out in a wide grin.
I stepped into him and wound my hands around his neck. He circled his arms around my waist and crushed his body to mine.
“Give her the friendship bracelet,” one of the middle school girls said.
Releasing me a little, he dug inside his pocket and pulled out a beaded bracelet. “It’s got my digits on it. The kids at the clubhouse insisted I make one for you. They taught me how.”
I took the bracelet from him and turned it around in my palm, taking in the colors and the numbers. I smiled as I thought of him at the clubhouse, sitting on a too-small seat at a craft table, the kids showing him how to thread those beads on the string.
“I love it. Can you put it on me?”
He fitted it onto my wrist and pulled the toggle tight.
“It’s never coming off,” I said. “You can’t change your digits now.”
“I won’t. I need you to always be able to hit me up.”
The kids gave out a collective groan. Darcy laughed at their reaction, and I loved that about him.
I’d thought he was prideful, someone who never reflected on himself, couldn’t laugh at himself, but that wasn’t true.
He’d realized on his own that he was insular and self-reliant to a fault, but I believed he’d try to communicate better.
I believed he would do better in the future. Maybe mess up, but he’d always try.
“And I’m supposed to call you on the megaphone, but I still don’t know what that means,” he said.
“I think because we have an audience, you’re already doing it,” I said.
“That works, then.” He smiled, then gave a shaky sigh of relief. “Oh Lizzy, I love you so much. I don’t know what I would have done if you’d turned me down.”
He shuddered, and I saw in his eyes a deep yearning. He pushed his hands into my hair and took my mouth passionately. I briefly worried about our audience, but then with a turn of his mouth, the world disappeared.
Until the clearing of throats and shuffling and a loud whisper came from behind us. “Kids. Let’s leave them and head back now,” said one of the coaches.
But I couldn’t hear any movement behind me.
He smiled against my lips. “I think we have an audience.”
“I think you’re right,” I said with a happy hum.
He held my hands, and we stared at each other, smiling like idiots as I heard the kids reluctantly head back with their other coaches.
“What now?” I asked.
“Do you want to come back to my place after this?” he asked.
“Oh, but I’ve left Oodles at home with Mum. And even if I got Mum to stay overnight, I have to be back at home for a reading at my local bookstore tomorrow morning. They’ve been so loyal over the last year when I haven’t released anything, I don’t feel I can cancel.”
“That’s okay. I’ll drive us. I’m coming home with you.”
“Just like that?” No invite needed.
“Just like that.”
He’d been humble before when he needed to be, but still, I liked how he was also assured and confident.
“Oodles is going to be so happy to see Max,” I said. “And get better acquainted with Topaz.”
He kissed me softly on the lips. “Not half as happy as I was to see you.”
We headed back to the sidelines, his arm around my shoulders, his hand rubbing my arm, resting our heads against each other’s. He kissed my cheek, my neck, and my lips. We strode along, locked together, passing silly comments and smiling at each other dazedly.
Walking like this, wrapped around each other, me swaying against his broad chest, should have felt new. But I was home under the weight of his arm, my head tucked securely under his chin. I circled my arms around his waist, squeezed, and looked up at him.
“Hello.” I was so overcome, tears pushed at the backs of my eyes.
“Hello.” He blinked quickly as if he felt the same. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
A couple of hours later, I spotted Wills and Jane striding toward us as the tournament was ending.
Darcy had joined in again with the coaching, standing on the sidelines next to the benches and water canteen and other coaches, and I’d waited beside him, cheering and chatting with the other coaches and surreptitiously ogling him in his sweats.
Jane waved some papers as they got closer, a huge grin on her face.
“It’s going to be okay,” she said, joining us. “We got our cease and desist.”
I enclosed her in a huge hug, and Darcy slapped his brother on the back.
“What happened?” I asked. “How did Sebastian do it?”
“He’s had five law clerks on the job since he heard from Darcy Sunday morning,” Wills said.
“He’d thought he’d found a hole in the contract, because Jane’s and Wickham’s signatures should have been witnessed.
But Seb didn’t want to rely on that. He also found evidence to argue that the photo was never for commercial release and was instead for Wickham’s own use.
But then we wouldn’t be able to enforce an action where Wickham was forced to hand the photos over to us.
His law clerks ended up working through the night and found an obscure case precedent in the law books.
It’s the revenge porn rule, where if you use pornographic material as a form of revenge, you can be sued. ”
“But would we want to sue him in court?” I asked. “That sounds very public.”
“It’s never going to get that far,” Wills said, hooking his arm through Jane’s elbow.
“Partly because we heard Sebastian call Wickham and read him the riot act. Seb clearly has all the legal resources of London at his fingertips, and he knows how to use them. Even I was quaking in my shoes, and Seb is on our side. But then we got the cease and desist with a court stamp, and the judge seemed sympathetic toward Jane. So much so that if Wickham does not hand over those photos by the end of today—or if he harasses Jane or comes near her—he will be fined and subject to jail time.”
A sob escaped my throat. I hugged an equally tearful Jane in relief and then William and Darcy.
“Thank you, Darcy,” Jane said. “I’m so sorry I misjudged you.”
“And I misjudged you, which was unforgivable,” Darcy said, his brows drawn in a frowning apology.
After Max and Topaz LeStar were dropped off at the field by Darcy’s assistant, Darcy grabbed his gym bag, and we loaded into his car.
He adjusted the seat to a precise position, even though I was pretty sure he was the only one who’d driven this car, then there was interminable fiddling with mirrors and phone and settings on the dash.
We set off. I called Mum, who’d heard the good news from Jane.
Turned out Mum had to leave my house just before we arrived back.
Phew. I’d tell her about Darcy tomorrow.
On the way home, I kept giggling at things I learned about him. He took my teasing in stride and was, in turn, amused at things he did that he’d never thought to question.
The truth was, we’d gotten to know each other much better at Pemberley, but there was still so much to learn.
I didn’t know how he drove—aggressively, sardonic comments addressed to Max about drivers who tried to overtake.
What music he liked—silence or boring podcasts that had five subtitles.
And snacks he enjoyed—no snacking, boo. So there was a lot of teasing from my quarter, which he met with good-natured acceptance.
After two hours, he pulled his car up outside my place—a thatched-roof stone cottage with a garden bursting with roses and flower bushes and lavender, and a grass front lawn that needed mowing and was sprouting daisies. There was no garage because the cottage was so old.
He leaned over and kissed me and squeezed my knee.
Max squealed from the back, maybe sensing Oodles was waiting for him, Topaz joined in, and Darcy let them out.
I raced to the front door to let Oodles out.
No sooner than I had opened the door, Oodles bounded out and sprinted to Max on my front lawn.
They pounced around each other, barking and squealing with glee.
Seeing Darcy walk up my front path, his bag in hand, I felt the same unbound rush of love.
I ran to him and leaped on him, wrapping my legs around his waist.
“Oh shit,” he cried out in surprise. His head tipped back, and his bag flew into the air.
He toppled backward, but it was in slow motion, his arms winding cartoonishly.
“Bloody hell.” I fell with him. A split-second panic slammed into me at the thought of us hitting the stone path. Instead, we landed in the low prickly hedge, a buffer but a painful one.
“Oh my God,” I said, my face smushed into Darcy’s chest. “I’m so sorry.”
We righted ourselves and rolled onto the grass.
The three dogs bounced around us.
“Are you hurt?” I turned my face to him sprawled beside me, testing all my limbs tentatively.
“No. You?” He plucked a stick out of my hair.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Promise not to do that again.”