Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THIRD ACT brEAKUP
C ontentment thrums through me with my full belly from our breakfast this morning and the delicious ache between my legs after our rigorous sex.
The only thing more rigorous than our sex was how Davis cleaned his table while I made our breakfast. The lopsided grin on his face as he wiped down the wooden surface telegraphed zero regrets.
With my appointment with the witchcraft consultant later today, Davis is dropping me home so I can change. The clothes I’m wearing are clean, thanks to his extreme thoughtfulness, but I prefer not to walk around in last night’s outfit.
Also, I want to spend time with Wentworth. The guilt about my bad puppy parenting this week is eating away at me. I never spend this much time away from him. My remorse waned a bit thanks to the picture Hope sent of Rem spooning my good boy in bed this morning.
As much as I know, it’s time for me to move out, I’ll miss things like that. It’s nice having an entire team to help me parent Wentworth. But as Rem says, he’ll still be there. It might just be be a drive versus a short walk.
“Not to be that guy…” Davis blows out a breath. “But would you and Wentworth want company at the park?”
“Don’t you need some alone time to recharge?” I shift in the passenger seat to face him.
“I’m good.” A crease furrows his brow. “Unless you need space. Am I being too much? Like… is this too clingy?”
“No!” I reach over and take his hand, laughter laces my protest. “Not at all. I like spending time with you. I just don’t want you to think that you’re expected to be with me all the time or anything like that. If you need your time, that’s fine.”
“I don’t expect that or, rather, I don’t think you expect that.” He squeezes my hand. “I also enjoy spending time with you. Maybe I’m a little greedy because I got so much of you in the last nineteen hours that I’m not ready to let go. Plus, this week won’t offer any opportunity to see you.”
Over breakfast, Davis shared that he’ll attend a tech conference and some meetings in the Bay Area on Tuesday, not returning until late Saturday.
The conference is only until Thursday, but the meetings he’d canceled to fly home after his grandfather’s accident were rescheduled for Friday and Saturday morning.
His assistant finalized the details yesterday.
This may be our last chance to hang out until then.
While he worries that asking to hang with me and my dog may make him appear clingy, the icky sensation sloshing inside me comes from the fact that I may not see him for seven days, teasing that maybe I’m the clingy one.
Not to mention, Davis says this is what he wants. If he needed time alone, he’d ask for it. We made each other that promise last night, and as I already know, promises are important to him.
“Let’s get Wentworth.” I grin.
“Awesomesauce.” He beams, reaching for the door handle.
“Did you just say awesomesauce?” I chortle, opening my door.
“The woman who cried out good gravy after I went down on her in the shower this morning has no room to judge my use of awesomesauce,” he teases.
Heat blooms in my cheeks. Okay, so maybe my pampering of him wasn’t that altruistic. In my vagina’s defense, he did say he’d take care of her… and take care of her he did.
Laughing, we walk hand-in-hand toward the back gate. We both snicker like teenagers as our gazes jump from the gate to one another. It shall be a very long time before I look at this gate with anything but heated memories.
“Georgia.”
We spin at the sound of James’s smooth English accent. Standing at the start of the walkway leading to the gate, his mouth is drawn into a firm line, and his bloodshot eyes are locked on me.
“I told you to stay away from her,” Davis snarls. His arm loops around my middle and pulls me close to him in a protective, possessive gesture that I like far too much.
Bad feminist.
“What are you doing here, James?” Spine straight, I glare at him, surprised to see a plea swimming in his green pupils.
“I came to apologize,” he says, his voice thick. “I am ashamed of my behavior. How I treated you.”
“How you manipulated her, you mean?” Davis snipes. He takes a step forward, but I halt his movement with a hand on his arm.
“Yes. I did that. Georgia, I used your initial attraction to me and the uncertainty of this entire situation to manipulate you. You deserved better than a cad using you to get what he wants.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Is this more of your manipulation? Are you hopeful that I’ll forgive you and you can try to, what … Worm your way back in and figure out some way to use me or?—”
“No.” His protest is quick. “It is understandable that you would doubt me. I toyed with your emotions from the beginning. Even my last visit here had been a game. I had overheard Owen tell Lars about him.” He gestures at Davis.
“That’s why you came to my apartment Thursday morning?” I scoff. “Why tell me this?”
“To be honest about who I am. About the type of man that I am…” Teeth gritted, he shakes his head. “Though, my actions are not the trademark of a man. At least, not a good one.”
“That’s for sure,” Davis mutters.
“What I did was inexcusable. I’m not here for forgiveness.”
“Then why are you here?” I narrow my eyes.
“To own my actions and assure you that I was wrong. You are not a poor imitation. You are your own woman. Just as Lady Cecily is. It was not only cruel for me to say so, but misguided. The idea that even for a moment you would think that you are somehow less than because of my words gutted me.”
“ You should be gutted,” Davis hisses. “Not only did you play mind games with her heart, but after she realized you aren’t worthy, you insulted her.
I know men like you; you can’t have something for whatever reason, so you ensure nobody else has it.
But Georgia isn’t a fucking toy for you to play with. ”
Jaw clenched, Davis’s icy stare locks on James.
Something a little predatory drifts between the two men.
Not from James, but more from Davis, who appears like a wolf protecting his pack.
Dangerous doesn’t waft off Davis. However, if I unleashed him, I don’t doubt he’d strike on my behalf. And again, I like that way too much.
“It’s okay, baby,” I murmur, stroking his arm.
His posture eases.
“You are correct about me, Davis.” James nods, his throat bobbing.
I assess him. The dark circles under his eyes.
The slump of his shoulders. The downward curl of his lips.
James is the picture of remorse. Not to mention his confession calls out his actions.
He doesn’t just offer apologies but acknowledges what he did and how sorry he is for it.
Not because his actions hurt me, but because he hurt me.
Every argument with Will flashes in my memory.
This honest contrition is so opposite of Will’s blanket “Sorry for that’s” or “Sorry you feel that way.” Those were rare, however.
An apology from Will always twisted into everything being my fault.
This wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t pushed me to move in.
She gave me what I was looking for, what was missing with you.
“Why this sudden change of heart?” I ask, gesturing at him.
“As you can imagine, your brother gave me quite the tongue lashing after my deplorable behavior yesterday. As did Lars and Owen,” he says.
“So, you’re only apologizing because of them?” Anger coats my accusation.
“No!” Frowning, he pulls out a copy of The Duke’s Darling from his suit pocket and holds it up. “Because of this.”
My face pinches. “What does my book have to do with this?”
“After the tongue lashing, I brooded in the guest room?—”
“You mean sulked,” Davis grumbles.
“Brooded.” James glowers. “The copies of your books were there. I reread Lady Cecily and my story… And your gentleman”—he gestures to Davis—“was spot on. I engaged in the same manipulation of Cecily as I did to you. Good men do not toy with a young lady’s heart for their own gain.
I love Cecily, but she deserves better, as do you. ”
“Yes, I do. We both do.”
Lady Cecily ending up with the wrong man is my doing.
The last twenty-four hours has me questioning the story I wrote.
The book follows the typical historical romance pattern of a rakish duke’s redemption.
My obsession with a story, where the rake chooses the plump bookworm, blinded me to any alternative.
It doesn’t take my Master’s in Social Work to assess that The Duke’s Darling may be less about his redemption and more about my own.
A redemption where not only am I chosen, but the power is in my hands to decide if I’ll take him back.
“While you’re responsible for your actions here, you may not be in the book. I wrote the story,” I offer, my shoulders slump with a long sigh.
His expression turns sorrowful as he shakes his head. “I’m not entirely sure how any of this works, but even if you are the author, it is still my story, my actions.”
Davis squeezes my middle. “Like you said, the story spoke to you.”
Chewing on the corner of my mouth, I take in both their words.
So much of what I know about my stories is topsy-turvy now.
I talk about them speaking to me. Didn’t I just spend two hours this morning listening to Patrick and Elsie’s characters?
How much of the stories I write is me, and how much is them?
“I don’t know how any of this works either,” I confess.
“What I do know is that it appears that this time, at least, the better man won the lady.” James juts his chin toward Davis.
“This isn’t a game, and Georgia isn’t some prize to win. She’s so much more than that.” Davis glares.
I press into him. “It’s okay. I know that.”
He kisses my temple.
Gaze cast down, James shakes his head. “She should never have ended up with me.”
“I didn’t,” I say, my head tilts.
“Cecily. She should have married Simon Davenport, not me. The third act breakup, as Owen calls it, should have been our end. I do not deserve the happy ending the book offers. Simon should have been her Davis, not me.”
I blink. “But you claim to love her. You said you did all of this because of her. To get back to her.”
“I do love Cecily… And I did do all this for her, but now, I wonder how much of it is love for her, or my need to win. To beat my fellow fictional brotherhood of would-be suitors and Davis, here, for your affection. Even the book’s happy ending is tarnished by the fact that it still gives me what I want, while taking away everything from her.
In marrying me, she loses her family. Her father may be a bastard, but he is good to her and was all she’s had since her mother passed as a girl.
I may want the ending promised in the book, with her carrying my name and my child, but I do not deserve it.
Not at her expense. Nor at yours.” He meets my gaze, his eyes shimmering with regret.
“I was willing to take everything from you to get what I want. Men like that, like me, do not deserve happy endings.”
The raw emotion in his voice stills my breath.
I believe him. James may be inspired by Will, but he’s not him.
Just as Owen isn’t Hope, and Lars isn’t Jackson.
Nor am I any of the women I wrote about.
The seeds of who each of my book boyfriends is may have been planted by me, but they have grown into their own people.
“I won’t take her, nor anyone else’s happiness to ensure mine. I don’t want to be t hat man anymore,” he says, his voice quiet.
“You truly mean that,” I murmur, certainty coursing through me.
“I do.”
“I accept your apology,” I step forward, holding out my hand.
“Georgia, I do not deserve?—”
“It’s not about what you deserve, but what I want.” I look between Davis’s cautious expression and then back to James. “I don’t know what the future looks like for us, but what I know is that I accept your apology.”
“Thank you.” A phantom smile flexing, he takes my hand. “You truly are spectacular, Georgia Lane.”
“You really are remarkable,” Davis whispers, his watchful gaze locked on James, who strides away. “I don’t know if I can forgive him.”
“You don’t have to.” I turn to face him and wrap my arms around his middle.
“Acceptance of someone’s apology doesn’t equate forgiveness.
It just means that I accept they are sorry.
Forgiveness is a longer journey, and I’m not sure if that’s one I will walk with James or not, but I do believe he is remorseful. ”
“Again, you are remarkable.” He leans in, pressing his forehead to mine.
“I think you’re pretty remarkable, too.”
“Shall we go get Wentworth from Hope and Rem?”
“Let’s make a quick stop at my apartment first.” I scrape my teeth along my lower lip.
“Someone’s insatiable.” He quirks his right brow.
“It’s your fault, you went all primal, protective caveman for a moment. And I’m choosing not to examine it through a feminist lens and just go with what it does to my lady bits.”
“Well—” he squeezes my ass, pressing me flush with him. “You calling me baby did cause a stirring in my man bits ,” he says, his timbre low and playful.
“Someone best get to carrying me to my apartment.”
He hoists me over his shoulder. A barrage of obnoxious giggles belting from me earns me a playful swat on my butt.
“To your lady cave!”