Darcy in Hollywood

by Victoria Kincaid

  I wonder if Elizabeth feels that way about practicing medicine. From that perspective, her decision was easier to understand. Huh, he’d never realized they had that in common. Not that it mattered now. He’d probably never see her again.

  After the waiter took their orders, they chatted about Darcy’s film, his parents, and Ricky’s next project.

  On the other side of the restaurant a woman laughed, a sound eerily similar to Elizabeth’s. Darcy nearly dropped his wineglass. Upon peering in that direction, however, he found that the table was inhabited by large middle-aged women.

  Ricky took a sip from his drink. “Is there something going on, Cuz? You seem jumpy.”

  Darcy grabbed a roll from the bread basket. “No. Nothing.” Ricky nodded amiably. “Everything’s just fine,” Darcy insisted.

  Ricky was staring at Darcy’s hands. Only then did he realize that he had been shredding the roll into tiny pieces. Damn. He hastily dropped it onto his bread plate.

  “All right, so I’m a little…stressed.” He swept the crumbs off the table into his hand and deposited them on his plate. “Women trouble.” Every guy goes through it…except the gay guys, I guess… He knew nothing about his cousin’s sexuality.

  Ricky took a sip of wine. “Would you like to talk about it? I’ve had women troubles of my own—and I used to be a woman. I’m uniquely qualified.”

  Darcy toyed with the stem of his wineglass. He didn’t usually confide the details of his love life to others. But Ricky had a good point, plus he knew Elizabeth. More importantly, remaining silent on the subject was beginning to drive Darcy crazy.

  He stared down at the crumb-pocked tablecloth. “It’s Elizabeth,” he mumbled.

  “Pardon?” Ricky leaned forward.

  “It’s Elizabeth Bennet,” Darcy said more distinctly. “She’s the woman I’m having…trouble with.”

  “Really?” Ricky’s head jerked in surprise.

  A horrible thought struck Darcy. “Is there anything going on between you?” The words rushed out. Ricky was different from Darcy in just about every possible way; was he the kind of guy Elizabeth wanted?

  Ricky chuckled. “No. Totally not my type.”

  Whew.

  “I wouldn’t think she was your type either. I would have expected you to go for someone like Caroline Bingley.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Caroline thinks, too,” Darcy said sourly.

  Ricky chuckled. “I don’t think Elizabeth is seeing anyone at the moment,” he said, stroking his chin. “You should ask her out.”

  Darcy gave a rueful laugh. As if I hadn’t thought of that. “I did, and it didn’t go well.” Understatement of the century.

  His cousin goggled. “She rejected you?” Darcy nodded. “That must have been a shock to the system.”

  You have no idea.

  “I mean, the rest of us peons get rejected regularly, but William Darcy… When was the last time a woman turned you down?” Ricky’s sympathetic smile took the sting out of his words.

  Darcy rubbed his jaw. “I haven’t been rejected since…I don’t know if I’ve ever been rejected.”

  “I’m trying hard not to hate you at this moment.” Ricky grinned. “Did Elizabeth say why she turned you down?”

  Darcy grabbed a roll and buttered it with unnecessary vigor. “She doesn’t like me.”

  Ricky gave a low whistle. “That’s harsh.”

  “The problem is that I can’t…get past it. I keep thinking of her. I’m fixated. This has never happened before.”

  “There are plenty of women who’d be happy to date you.”

  “That’s not the point. I don’t want them. I want… She’s so smart, you know? And funny. And she calls me on my bullshit. And I can’t stop thinking about her or staring at her picture on my phone. I wonder what she’s doing at that moment. And who she’s doing it with. And, my God, why won’t she at least agree to one date? Maybe I should ask again, but what would make her change her mind? And—”

  Ricky held up his hands. He chuckled. “Okay, I get the picture. You’re in love with her.”

  Huh? “No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m just obsessed.”

  Ricky spread his hands wide. “Sounds like love to me.”

  Darcy mentally reviewed his word vomit to Ricky.

  Oh God. I am in love. I’m in so much trouble.

  “Great.” He dropped his head into his hands. “What should I do?” He could hear the desperation in his voice.

  “Hmm.” Ricky rested his chin on his hand as he regarded Darcy. “Well, you have two options. A: suck it up and move on. Eventually you’ll forget her and find someone else. Or B: try to change her opinion of you.”

  Darcy winced at his cousin’s stark assessment, but he wasn’t wrong. “I’ve tried moving on and forgetting, but I’m more obsessed every day. I thought it would get better when I didn’t constantly see her on the set, but it’s just gotten worse.”

  “Sounds like Option B, then.”

  Darcy shrugged miserably. “I don’t think I have a choice, but how do I do it?”

  The waiter deposited salads in front of them. Ricky speared some lettuce onto his fork. “I’d be happy to help, but not liking you…that’s a pretty big obstacle to overcome.”

  Darcy glared at his salad as if it were personally responsible for his plight.

  After a moment Ricky continued. “I mean, it’s not something easy to fix, like calling her ‘Babe’ or making fun of her hair.”

  “I’d never do that,” Darcy said fiercely.

  “Good. Well, we’ve identified two things we don’t need to fix. That’s progress.”

  Darcy growled at his cousin, recognizing when he was being teased.

  “Did she mention what she doesn’t like about you?”

  “She didn’t give me a bulleted list or anything.”

  “But she probably had reasons for turning you down. What were they?”

  Now Darcy was forced into thinking about that horrible conversation in his trailer—the last thing he wanted to remember. “She believed lies Wickham had told her, but I fixed that.”

  “Good. What else?”

  “She thought I didn’t like her.”

  Ricky’s eyebrows shot upward. “So she’s having trouble understanding how you feel about her. Why would that be?”

  Darcy would rather have a root canal without anesthesia. “She overheard me telling Charlie that I didn’t think she was pretty or smart.”

  Ricky sucked in a breath. “Wow. Okay, she thinks you’re a dick. What else?”

  “She seemed upset at the thought it would only be one date.”

  Ricky’s eyes widened. “You asked her for a one-night stand?”

  Darcy threw his hands in the air. “It wasn’t like that! We were going to dinner and a film premiere first. I just didn’t want her to get her hopes up that I wanted a lifetime of love and commitment.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ricky regarded him skeptically.

  “It’s worked with other women,” Darcy said, aware that his voice sounded sulky.

  “Just out of curiosity, how many of these women were already coming onto you?”

  Darcy considered. “Most…no, all of them.” Okay…I guess I see the problem. “No wonder she flipped over the idea of an NDA.”

  His cousin set his fork down and leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “It sounds like you really want to date Elizabeth. Why did you tell her that you only wanted one night?”

  Wasn’t it obvious? “My agent and manager are all over me about being seen with the right people. You know, up-and-coming starlets, models, beautiful people.”

  “And you don’t think Elizabeth is pretty enough for a long-term relationship?”

  “Exactly!” Finally, his cousin got it. “I wish it weren’t that way, but in Hollywood, appearances count for everything.”

  Ricky had his head in his hands. “You didn’t tell her…Who am I kidding? Of course you did.” He took a deep breath. “+-Just tell me the
rest.”

  This was excruciating. “I guess I was rather confident that she’d accept the date. And it showed.”

  Ricky nodded. “You were arrogant. What else?”

  “I wasn’t arrogant! She had a crush on me. I had every right to think she’d be thrilled.”

  “She had a crush on you,” Ricky repeated in a flat tone. “How could you tell?”

  Darcy shrugged. “I just could. You know, the way she talked to me and looked at me—especially after she stopped being my personal assistant—”

  Ricky was banging his head on the table. “You’ve never had a crush, have you?”

  “I guess not.” Until now.

  “When you have a crush, you want to spend more time with the object of your crush—not less!”

  “She didn’t have a crush on me?” Darcy was simultaneously relieved and alarmed. “That explains a lot, actually.”

  Ricky’s face held growing horror. “Darce, did you tell Elizabeth you thought she had a crush on you?”

  “I might have mentioned it…” Darcy spread his hands wide. “I didn’t understand why she was behaving that way—”

  Ricky gaped at him. “How are you such a good actor when apparently you were raised by wolves?”

  His cousin’s jabs were fraying Darcy’s patience. “Fine, what do you suggest?”

  Ricky stared fixedly at the salt shaker. “I don’t know if I can help you.”

  “I can’t be that hopeless!” Darcy hadn’t taken a bite of salad, but he wasn’t hungry. “I’ll agree to a long-term relationship if necessary. There’s got to be something I can do.”

  There was a long silence. Finally, Ricky leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you considered apologizing?”

  “Apologizing?” The word felt foreign in his mouth.

  “Telling her you’re sorry for the insulting things you said.”

  “I can’t do that.” Darcy could hear his father’s voice in his head: Never admit you were wrong, never accept blame, and never apologize. People will think you’re weak.

  He’d lived by that motto, but really, where had that approach gotten his father? Yes, his parents were still technically married. But when they were at home, Darcy’s mother occupied one wing of the house while his father had another. When they were abroad, one of his parents would visit Eastern Europe, and the other would get Western Europe.

  “It’s your call. Do you think that ‘stubborn’ is on the list of things she’s seeking in a boyfriend?”

  Darcy bristled. “I’m not stubborn, I’m just…” He sought the right word.

  “Stiff? Unyielding? Proud? Set in your ways?” Ricky suggested with a grin. “Do you really want to add those to the list of adjectives she already has in her head?”

  Oh God, that’s how a refusal to apologize would appear in her eyes, isn’t it?

  Ricky regarded him closely. “Are you sorry for some of the things you said?”

  “Yeah. I…yeah. I was stupid and insensitive.”

  “Then you owe her an apology,” Ricky said simply. “Regardless of any other question, you owe her an apology.”

  “If I apologize, do you think she will—?”

  “No,” Ricky interrupted. “You owe her an apology because it’s the right thing to do, not because it’ll get you something in exchange.”

  Okay, fair enough. “But how do I get her to like me?”

  Ricky gave him a long, hard look. “Why do you want that?”

  What kind of a stupid question was that? Because he was attracted to her. Because he liked her.

  Ricky took a sip of wine. “Let me put it a different way. Can you be good for her? Can your presence be a positive thing in her life?”

  Boy, his cousin really had a way of getting to the heart of a matter, didn’t he? “I-I don’t know.”

  “Then do you really have any business crashing your way back into her life? I like Elizabeth; I don’t want her to get hurt.”

  Yeah, wasn’t that Elizabeth’s reason for rejecting Darcy, too? Damn. Darcy ran both hands through his hair. Was it possible for him to convince her that he was a better person than she thought he was? Was it possible that he could be that better person?

  Right now that seemed about as simple as climbing Mount Everest.

  But he did know how he needed to start: with an apology.

  Chapter Twelve

  One of the good things to come out of In the Shadows was Elizabeth and Jane’s friendship with Ricky. He made dinner for the kids at the True Colors shelter once a month and the women had volunteered to join him this month. Jane had made salad, and Elizabeth had cooked spaghetti and meatballs, which was about the limit of her culinary skills. Ricky had contributed bread and green beans.

  They had piled everything into Jane’s Prius, which she pulled to a stop in front the shelter, a simple, rather shabby, red-brick two-story building. From the outside it resembled the school it had been in a former life.

  Elizabeth and Ricky unloaded the food while Jane drove off in search of parking. Not having seen Ricky since the wrap party, Elizabeth was happy for a chance to catch up. “What’s happened since you revealed your identity to your family? Did your parents rush over to beg your forgiveness?” She hoisted a tub of spaghetti and lugged it toward the shelter door.

  Ricky grimaced. “I had dinner with Darcy’s family, but I don’t even know if they told my parents. It’s fine, though. I don’t need them.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t know how you manage it. I would be a mess without the support of my family.”

  “I was for a while,” Ricky admitted as he shouldered open the door. “It was really tough at first, but I was able to build a new family—a family of my own choosing.”

  “A family by choice.” Elizabeth echoed. “I like that idea.”

  “Although it appears that some of my biological family will come through for me as well.” His smile was so genuine that Elizabeth was happy for Will’s presence in his life. Not every guy would be so welcoming of a long-lost transgender cousin. She had to give Will credit.

  Speaking of… “Have you seen Will recently?” She strove to keep her tone casual, otherwise he might guess that she’d been haunting the internet for information on the guy.

  Ricky regarded her with a raised eyebrow before transferring another container of spaghetti from one hand to the other so he could pull open the kitchen door. “Yeah, I had dinner with him last night. He’s been great, really welcoming me to the family.” He set the container on the stainless-steel counter, a smile quirked around his lips. What was that all about?

  Elizabeth dropped her burden on the counter with a thump. “Did his parents apologize?”

  “No. Apparently Darcy’s father doesn’t believe in apologizing, although just having me in their house was an apology of a kind. They seemed embarrassed that they didn’t help me before. They kept asking if there was anything I needed.”

  They headed toward the front entrance to grab more food. “How was Will when you saw him?” That sounded casual, right?

  “Good. He’s going abroad soon.” Elizabeth nodded. Variety had reported that he’d be in Vietnam to shoot a new movie. “But he promised to keep in touch.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “I didn’t know what to expect. His parents are…well, they’re not the most empathetic people. I’m sure they give money to charity and stuff, but they’ve lived in such a rarified environment all their lives that they often don’t get what it’s like for people who’ve had to struggle.”

  Elizabeth pushed open the door. “I actually think that’s a good description of Will.”

  “Really? Huh.”

  “Empathy isn’t his strong suit.”

  “It’s hard to shed a lifetime of habits, particularly when you’ve been raised with specific ways of thinking. But Will is really trying.”

  She could see that. At times the newer Darcy seemed to be fighting the impulses and traditio
ns of the old Darcy.

  Ricky added, “He genuinely wants me to be part of his life. I get the feeling he doesn’t have many close friends.”

  Damn. Darcy could put her off balance even when he wasn’t in the room. Now that she thought about it, he did seem rather isolated. Was he lonely? He was an international super-star and a billionaire; it had never occurred to her to ask that simple question. Maybe his invitation to her was less random and more sincere than she had originally thought.

  Ricky continued to speak, oblivious to Elizabeth’s internal monologue. “I hadn’t seen Georgiana since she was pretty young. She seems to be doing well, although I get the feeling she needed some help from Will.”

  Elizabeth would have said it was hard to imagine Will taking care of anyone, but now she could picture him as a doting, protective older brother.

  With a container of spaghetti sauce on her hip, Jane was waiting outside with the remainder of the food. Elizabeth grabbed the last container of spaghetti, and Ricky took the green beans, balancing the bread on top.

  “I’m so glad you guys could join me,” Ricky said to Jane as they lugged everything into the shelter. Viewing him through her lashes, Elizabeth’s sister gave him one of her shy Jane smiles. Huh. I don’t notice Jane getting shy very often; it usually only happens when she likes… Oh. As she followed the others into the shelter, Elizabeth observed their body language in a whole new light.

  Lynn, the director of the shelter, was waiting for them in the lobby. Ricky gave her a quick one-armed hug. “The kids will be so happy to see you!” she told him. “Even the ones who weren’t mentored can’t stop talking about visiting the In the Shadows set.”

  The words filled Elizabeth with warmth. She’d gotten to know many of the mentees and was excited to see them again. “Is Jeannie here?”

  “Yes. I made her finish her homework, but she’ll be down for dinner. And Maya has been asking about you and Jane all day.”

  “What about Garrett?” She didn’t know Will’s mentee as well as she knew some of the others, but he seemed like a nice guy.