22. Chapter 22 #2
Devourable, a few strands of dark hair falling toward her strapless black dress.
She’s standing near the seller, Eduardo, laughing at something he's said.
Until she looks up and finds me staring at her from the terrace.
And I watch the color drain from her gorgeous face.
She knows.
She can see it on my face.
She knows that I know.
And she runs.
She doesn't bolt for the door.
She's too smart for that.
She excuses herself from Eduardo with a smile, sets her champagne on a passing tray, and moves—carefully, purposefully—toward the other terrace doors on the far side of the room. Away from me.
I follow automatically, stalking through the ballroom, out onto the separate terrace, and down the steps to the hotel's private beach access.
By the time I hit the sand, she's thirty feet ahead, heels in her hand, bare feet skimming the wet, packed sand at the water's edge.
"Darcy."
She doesn't stop.
"Darcy."
She walks faster.
"Darcella."
She halts.
The ocean is loud here—waves breaking, the full moon throwing silver across the water. The gala noise recedes, muffled by the Atlantic.
She doesn't turn.
"How long have you known?" I ask.
Her shoulders rise, fall. "Since Sunday morning," she says quietly. "After Tulum. When I got access to the partnership files."
"Two weeks ago."
"Yes."
"You've known for two weeks?"
"Yes."
The word drops between us, heavy and jagged. I close the distance until I'm directly behind her, and still she doesn't turn.
"So you didn't know when you took the job?" I demand.
"No."
"Did you know when we got married?"
"No. I didn't know anything until those files."
"But you knew when we got back from Tulum the second time."
"Yes."
"You knew when I told you I loved you."
"Yes."
The waves hurry to the shore and back like punctuation.
"Turn around," I say.
She does. Her mascara has run, and tears have clearly been falling long before she left the ballroom.
"I was going to tell you," she says. "A thousand times. I wanted to. And then you said—" Her voice shatters. "You said you loved me and I just—I couldn't."
"You couldn't tell me that your father is the man who destroyed mine."
"I know how it looks—"
"He killed my father, Darcy. He built a friendship with him, a business with him. He was best man at his wedding. Then he waited for the perfect moment to take everything." The words taste like acid. "And his goddamned daughter walked into my company and into my bed and into my life—"
"I didn't know." She sobs harder. "I swear I didn't know when I took the job.
I only found the full history when I read the files—about them being friends, about everything my father did.
" She wipes her face with the back of her hand.
"I've spent the last year of my life running from him.
Changing my name. Trying to be someone other than his daughter. "
My jaw clenches.
“And those men?”
Her face shifts instantly.
“Sent by my father.”
“Why?”
“To use me, probably.” Her voice shakes. “To get inside information about your company.”
Something cold settles in my chest.
“Did he?”
Her head jerks up.
“No.”
The word comes fast.
Immediate.
“I would never do that to you.”
The ocean crashes nearby.
I study her face.
Wet lashes.
Shaking hands.
The woman I know.
The woman I suddenly realize I don’t know nearly enough about.
“And how exactly am I supposed to know that?”
Her breath catches.
“Because it’s true—”
“Darcy…” I drag a hand over my jaw. “you’ve been very short on what’s true since we met.”
Her face crumples.
“Worse. You put yourself in harm’s way.”
The words come raw.
“And didn’t even think to tell me what the hell was happening?”
“I was trying to handle it.”
“Alone.”
The word lands hard between us.
“Is there anything else?” I ask.
She flinches. There is.
"Darcy."
"I'm pregnant."
At first the words don't register. Then the world tilts and it's not the night that's spinning—it's me.
"Come again?"
"I'm pregnant." Her chin trembles but her voice steadies. "Eight weeks. It must have happened at the wedding, the first night in Tulum."
"You're pregnant."
"Yes."
"And you've known—"
"For just as long."
I turn away, staring at the moonlit water as if the dark, bottomless ocean will steady me.
"I know I should have—"
"You should have told me."
"I know."
"You should have fucking told me all of it."
"I know, Declan. I know." Each word is a rasp.
"I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to. I was terrified that when you found out who I was you would hate me, and I couldn't. I couldn't be the person who destroyed what you've been building for twenty-four years.
But I also couldn't leave. I kept thinking I'd tell you and then I'd look at you and I just—" She presses her hand to her mouth. "I'm so sorry."
I keep looking out at the waves, the glimmer on the water, the tide's endless pulse. My limbs feel heavy; salt stings my eyes when I finally turn.
Without thinking, I reach for Darcy and pull her into my arms.