21. Chapter 21 #2
"You called me for both and you know it." A rustle—she's settling in, preparing to be present for the long haul. "Okay. Here's what we're going to do. You're going to order proper room service right now—"
"I'm not hungry—"
"You're growing a person, Darcy. The person doesn't care about your anxiety. Order something with protein."
"Fine."
"Then you're going to take a bath in that obscenely fancy tub—"
"With the ocean view."
"Do not rub it in. You're going to take a bath, get some sleep, and tomorrow before the gala, you're going to find Declan and tell him everything."
"And if it destroys us?"
The question hangs in the warm Miami air and Bria answers it.
"Then at least it'll be the truth," she says. "And you'll still have me. And Jess. And the baby. And a job you earned." A beat. "And if he's half the man I think he is from everything you've told me? He'll need time to be furious. Then he'll come back."
My eyes sting. "You don't know that."
"No," she admits. "But I know you. And I know that whatever happens, you're not your father. You never have been. The fact that you're in a fancy hotel room crying about this instead of executing a hostile acquisition is proof."
I laugh—watery this time.
"I love you," I tell her.
"I love you too. Now go eat something. The baby needs fuel. You've got a gala to survive."
I hang up and sit for a long moment, listening to the faint sounds of Miami at night drifting up fourteen floors.
Music. Water. Laughter.
My father's city.
My baby's city, maybe.
Declan's battle, almost won.
I order room service—grilled salmon, sweet potato, a glass of water I don't want but drink anyway.
I take my vitamin with dinner like Bria told me to.
And I sit by the window and watch the ocean and try to figure out how to blow up the best thing that's ever happened to me.
Ambling back to the hotel sometime after midnight, I cross through the quiet lobby and take the elevator to the fourteenth floor.
Thoughts buzzy, skin still damp with ocean spray, I swipe the key card and push open the door to my room.
And nearly die on the spot.
Because someone is inside.
The scream that comes out of me is not dignified.
Or composed.
It is a full-body, arms-pinwheeling, key-card-launching-across-the-room shriek that startles even me with its volume and commitment.
"What the—"
I slam backward into the door frame.
Which hurts.
A lot.
"OW—"
"Darcy—"
"Who's there—" I'm fumbling for the light switch with one hand and pressing the other flat against my chest like that will somehow keep my heart inside my body. "I swear to God I will scream so loud the entire fourteenth floor—"
"It's me."
I know that voice.
I find the wall switch, flip it on, and the room floods with warm light.
And there is Declan—sitting on the small couch by the window, jacket off, sleeves rolled to the elbow, ankles crossed, looking for all the world like he was invited here and I'm the one who walked into the wrong room.
He's holding a glass of water, completely unbothered.
"You," I say.
"Me."
"You're in my room."
"I am."
"How are you in my room?"
"The front desk was accommodating."
"You—" I push off the door frame, still holding my chest. "You charmed your way into my hotel room, didn’t you?"
"I prefer 'exercised my rights as the person paying for it.'"
"That is not a right that exists."
"And yet." He sets the water glass down, unruffled. "Here I am."
I point at him. "You scared me half to death."
"I knocked."
"I wasn't here!"
"I'm aware. That's why I let myself in." He tilts his head slightly. "You've been avoiding me all evening."
"I was working."
"You were at a bar on the beach downing sparkling water for two hours."
I stare at him. "How do you know that?"
"Antonio saw you when he went to pick up Wyeth's dry cleaning."
"Antonio needs to mind his own business." I stop and take a breath. "You can't just break into my hotel room, Declan."
"It's not breaking in. Breaking in involves force."
"Those are not as different as you think they are."
The corner of his mouth moves. Not quite a smile. But close.
"You hit your shoulder on the door frame," he says. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine."
"You winced."
"I said I'm fine."
"Come here."
"I'm not coming—"
"Darcy." His voice drops just enough. "Come here."
I cross the room, and he reaches up when I'm close, turns me gently by the shoulder, and examines the spot I hit on the door frame with the same stark-raving calm he brings to everything.
His fingers are warm through the thin fabric of my chiffon blouse.
"It's fine," I say again.
"It'll bruise."
"I bruise easily."
"I know." His hands drop, but he doesn't step back. Which means I'm close enough to smell him—sandalwood and musk and something warm underneath, the faint salt of a long day still on his skin. "Sit down."
"Declan—"
"You've been on your feet since we landed. Sit down."
It's not a request.
It never is with him.
I sit on the edge of the bed, and he pulls the desk chair out, turns it around, and perches in front of me, close enough that our knees almost touch.
He looks at me the way he does sometimes—like he's running a full diagnostic, reading every line of my face.
I hate how seen I feel when he does that.
I also love it.
"You're exhausted," he says.
"I told you. Gala prep—"
"Is not what's exhausting you." His voice is quiet, measured. "You've been carrying something for weeks that you won't tell me. And I've watched it get heavier."
My throat tightens. "I'm okay. Great, even."
"You're not. And I'm not going to push you." He leans forward, elbows on his knees. "But I need you to hear something."
"Okay."
He's quiet—that particular Declan Shaw quiet, which means he chooses each word carefully, weighing it before he releases it. My chest squeezes just watching him.
"I've spent twenty-four years being very good at not wanting things," he says. "At keeping people at a distance. At being the person who holds everything together without letting anything in." He pauses. "It's a very efficient way to live. And a very empty one."
I don't move, don't breathe.
"And then you walked into that Tulum bar," he continues, "wearing that sexy-as-hell dress, arguing with me about punching out the bridal party when you could have been discussing seating charts, and somehow—" He stops, amused at himself. "Somehow you got in."
"Through the side door," I say softly.
"Through every door." His eyes hold mine. "I'm in love with you, Darcy."
The words land in the center of my chest like a stone dropped into still water, rings spreading outward.
"What?" I whisper.
"I'm in love with you," he repeats, steady, certain—as if he's been holding the words a long time and has simply decided to put them down.
"I've been trying not to say it. Trying to be smart about this.
Trying to remember that you work for me and that there's an annulment filing and that our age gap alone should disqualify me from—"
"Declan."
"I'm done trying." He reaches out, taking my hand from my lap and holding it in both of his. "The only thing I want to know is whether you feel the same way. Everything else—every complication, every obstacle you think is a problem, every reason this shouldn't work—can wait."
My eyes burn.
Because I should tell him now.
Right now.
This is the moment—him holding my hand, having just said the most honest thing anyone has ever said to me, looking at me like I'm the answer to a question he's been asking for twenty-four years.
This is when I tell him.
Declan. My real name is Darcella Cole.
My father is Richard Cole.
He's the man who destroyed your family. He's the reason your father is dead. And I've known for weeks and I couldn't find the words and I'm so sorry and I'm pregnant and—
"I'm in love with you too," I whisper instead.
The words come out before the confession can.
Once they're out, I can't take them back, and I certainly don’t want to.
Because they're true.
They're the truest thing I've said in months.
Something moves across his face—relief, maybe. Or heat. Or both.
Along with something fierce and unguarded that I've never seen on Declan Shaw before.
This man who is controlled about everything.
Who holds every room he walks into.
Who has never, in the entire time I've known him, looked anything other than completely in command of himself.
He looks undone.
"Good," he says.
It's such a Declan thing to say—terse and quiet, as if he's filed it away in a place only he intends to keep.
I laugh, unable to hold it back now.
"That's it?" I snort. "Good?"
"What did you want?"
"I don't know. Something more than—"
"I've been holding that in for two months. Give me a moment."
"Two months?"
"Approximately." He stands, pulls me to my feet. "Since the Tulum hotel."
"You fell in love with me in your hotel room in Tulum?"
"I fell in love with you on the terrace at Quinn's wedding," he amends. "The hotel room is when I admitted it to myself."
I stare at him.
"The terrace," I repeat. "Right after we accidentally got married."
"Thought we'd argue about the handsy groomsman or Quinn deserving better than cheap prosecco and instead we had it out about being accidentally married." The corner of his mouth quirks. "You were magnificent. Furious and magnificent."
"That's when you fell in love with me."
"That's when I knew I was going to."
I don't have words for that.
So instead I reach up, taking his face in my hands—his chiseled, stubble-covered jaw under my palms, those green eyes steady on mine—and I kiss him.
He kisses me back, both hands sliding into my hair, tilting my head back, taking over the way he always does—like the moment I initiate anything he simply cannot help himself from making his.
I don't mind.
I never have.
"I've missed you," he says against my mouth.
"I've been right here—"
"You've been right here and a thousand miles away." He pulls back just enough to look at me. "Don't do that again."
"Do what?"
"Disappear while you're standing in front of me."
My chest aches. "I just—"