All For You
Darcy
“Fuck’s sake,” I spat out. “Have I died and gone to hell?”
In front of me was a small group dressed in all denim, gyrating to a brain-numbing beat and unintelligible lyrics. Surely we weren’t expected to dance on this bloody weekend?
At my irritated words, Wills raked through his head of messy red hair and rolled his bright-blue eyes to the Italian glass chandelier.
“Darcy, keep your bloody voice down,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the music,” I said.
Instead of presenting me with his usual grin, Wills exhaled a long-suffering sigh.
“Oh my God, Darcy, you are such a grumpy bastard,” he said between his teeth. “We’re staying in a beautiful inn, set in green and daffodil pastures. Look at this magical room.”
He swept his hand over the colorful, eclectic kitchen featuring a blue AGA stove, intricate, decorative pastel ceilings, and plump, pink sofas around an old fireplace, not something every bloke would notice and appreciate, but we were property developers after all.
He went on, “We’ve been greeted with music, the promise of cocktails, and the chance to meet some fun, beautiful women. What’s your problem?”
Max, my Irish setter and beagle mix, whined in sympathy and peered up at me, like, Yeah, dude, what now? Max, the little traitor, clearly didn’t care that I fed him his meals.
I loosened my tie, took a wide stance, and crossed my arms over my suit jacket. “Well, let’s see. For starters, we’ve just driven two hours for a weekend themed, ‘Must Love Animals.’ For singles with pets. Who want to meet their soul mates.”
My brother turned to me, mystified. And?
I squeezed the bridge of my nose. “Themed. A word which should never be spoken. And there is no such thing as a soul mate.”
Wills snorted. He’d heard my theories about love.
“Well, at least you get to spend the weekend with your favorite creature in the whole world,” he said, his eyes still trained on the dancing group in front of us.
I looked at him skeptically.
“Max, your dog,” he said. “I would never suggest you would afford your little brother that accolade.”
That got a chuckle from me. Just a small one.
“Wills, even you must agree,” I insisted. “I mean, look.”
A small group of men and women lunged with hands in the air and shook their hips.
“It’s…hip-hop,” I said. “The schedule said line dancing, but that is not this. And even if it were, I don’t like any kind of dancing.
I have essentially given up my weekend to learn hip-hop from someone our mother’s age, dressed—” I swiped a hand in her direction “—in head-to-toe sparkly leopard and red cowboy boots.”
And blond extensions and thick eyeliner. Creatively dressed, my kinder brother would say. But then, he always was the sweet, positive one. I was the arsehole, supremely arrogant one, according to the press, online comments—and friends. But I was always honest.
“Why are we here?” I pressed my lips tightly. “Remind me?”
He groaned. “Darcy, you know why. We’ve been advised that we need to allow the public into our lives if we want to build a community for kids around West City.
” That was the big shopping and housing development we’d recently finished.
“You agreed on TV to attend, if the public matched your donation to build a clubhouse for local kids. You’re such a bad-tempered arsehole, everyone we know gave money—so that’s on you. ”
He was right, and the clubhouse was the only good thing to come out of this.
“Being filmed on a matchmaking reality show is the exact opposite of the way I want to live my life,” I said. “C’mon, even you have to draw the line. My eyes are burning from the shoulder shaking and hip popping. I say we hit the local for a whisky by the fire and stay at that place nearby.”
“What are you talking about? And leave all these gorgeous women? And we’re already booked in upstairs.”
“What gorgeous women?”
“Look, man. The woman over there, the one with the blond bob, shorts, and high boots—she’s that It Girl, Emma Woodhouse.” He laughed out loud as she shimmied down to the ground with abandon and slapped the old wooden floor. “She looks great fun.”
My chest tightened. It Girl. She wasn’t what I wanted for Wills. With one look, I knew she was one of those women who would break his gentle heart, humiliate him, use him, and leave.
“What about that blonde over there?” he said. “Isn’t that Jane Bennet, the one who used to be a model, and then she left to be a primary school teacher. What a beautiful smile.”
“Okay,” I conceded, as unlike Emma—who looked like she had the world laid at her feet—Jane seemed shy and down-to-earth. “Maybe she’ll do for you.”
He observed her more keenly than I would have liked. “If she’d have me. There’s something about her.”
I grunted.
“You don’t have to protect me all the time, Darcy. I have good instincts. She looks amazing. Imogen was just…bad luck.”
“We will agree to disagree on that,” I said.
Wills was naive and trusting and saw the best in everyone.
Evidence: Imogen Volpe. A true cloutchaser.
Thank God she’d revealed her true colors before they’d gotten hitched.
I’d suspected she wasn’t interested in him for himself from the beginning, and then she proved it by coming on to me because she thought I had more money than Wills.
“What about that woman with dark, curly hair?” Wills said. “She looks interesting.”
The woman in question was swinging around with the rest of them, dressed in ripped jeans, sandals, and a white peasant blouse, her wild, brown ringlets tumbling everywhere.
Cracking up and joining in gleefully. Definitely not my type.
I had to admit, there was something quite captivating about her, though.
But I was tired, fed up, resentful at the prospect of my precious weekend being taken up with get-to-know-yous and meet-and-greet activities. I was in an utterly foul mood.
“She’s okay, I suppose, but not pretty enough to tempt me,” I shouted just as the music stopped.
Fuck.
Wills and I were both staring right at the woman with the dark, curly hair, making it obvious who I was talking about. My gut hurtled into my Irish brogues.
Everyone turned to me, appalled.
Wide eyes, curled lips and…complete silence.
The curly-haired woman didn’t shoot me a scathing look, though.
She turned to her friend and burst into peals of laughter behind her hand.
Probably repeating my rude remark, and they laughed again.
The hilarity rankled me, and too late, I noticed how her brown eyes glittered in the firelight, how the dimples from her laughter made adorable punctuation marks in her cheeks, how her lithe body swayed naturally like she was always hearing a song in her head.
This woman wasn’t unattractive. She was pretty. More than pretty. She had a grace and vibrancy that went beyond her shining eyes, sensual mouth, and athletic figure.
I instantly wanted to redo the moment.
Then I noticed the camera in the corner, held up by a bloke in Arsenal colors. He was in red for God’s sake, so why hadn’t I noticed him? He kept his eyes averted, clearly embarrassed for me, and a little sheepish about witnessing and filming my perceived boorishness.
Double fuck.