by Jane Graves
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
She nodded.
“Get out of here, Bridges,” John said. “Nobody needs you here.”
“Shut up, Stark. I’m talking to Darcy.” He turned to her. “What you’ve lost tonight wasn’t worth having. It’s meaningless. Of no consequence at all. Do you understand?”
“Darcy,” John said. “Let’s go.”
Jeremy turned on John. “Where? To that pitiful hovel you call home? Is that where you’re taking her?”
“You don’t know a damned thing about where I live.”
“Forty-four seventeen Caldwell Street. You think I haven’t been keeping tabs on her?” He turned back to Darcy. “It’s time to stop this. Time to get out of this low-class life and back to the one you know. Look around you. If you stay with him, you’ll never have anything more than this. Is that what you want?”
Her eyes filled with tears. No. God, no, it wasn’t. She wanted things the way they used to be. She wanted to wake up in the morning and worry about where she was going to have lunch with her friends, or what to wear to the club that night, not about whether she’d be able to make it to her next paycheck.
“We’ll go to my house tonight,” Jeremy said, his voice low and mesmerizing. “Tomorrow I’ll take you shopping. Then we can get out of town. Where would you like to go? New York? London? Paris? By this time tomorrow, we can be in a five-star hotel in any city in the world.”
John inched forward. “Darcy, don’t listen to him.”
“I can take you away from all this,” Jeremy said. “In no time, this life will be nothing but a bad memory.”
“Bridges—”
“You know it’s what you want. What you’ve wanted ever since Warren took your life away from you. Come with me, and you’ll have it.”
“Back off, Bridges.”
“All you have to do is say the word.”
“I said back off!”
Jeremy met John’s angry gaze with a coldly indifferent one, and for several seconds, neither man moved. Finally Jeremy backed away.
“I’ll be in the car. But you’d better make a decision quickly. I won’t sit there all night.”
He walked back to the limo and got inside, disappearing behind the darkly tinted glass.
“Listen to me, Darcy,” John said. “He’s an opportunistic son of a bitch. Do you see what he’s doing? He knows how you must be feeling right now, and he’s trying to take advantage of you.”
“Take advantage? A man offers me a mansion to live in, clothes on my back, money in my pocket, a private jet at my disposal, and he’s taking advantage of me?”
“Yes, and you’ll know exactly when it kicks in. When you get the bill. And it won’t be in the form of dollars and cents. You’ll pay, Darcy. One way or the other.”
“I don’t care!”
John drew back. “What do you mean, you don’t care?”
“He’s right. I haven’t lost anything here, because I had nothing to lose. I want more than this!”
“You can have more. You can have anything you want. You just have to be willing to work for it. You’ve been doing a good job at the office. Better than I ever thought you would. You deserve a raise, and I’ll give you one.”
“Great. Now instead of making minimum wage, I’ll be making barely above minimum wage.”
“It’s the best I can do for now. Maybe in a few months—”
“Don’t you see, John? It doesn’t matter. No amount of work I’m capable of could ever get me the kind of life I want!”
John’s gaze grew hard. “It isn’t as if you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. It wouldn’t kill you to spend a few years struggling.”
“I wasn’t cut out to struggle!”
She was shocked to hear Jeremy’s words coming out of her mouth, but suddenly they rang so true that she shook with the frustration of it. Hot tears streaked down her cheeks, and she swiped them away with her fingertips.
“I just can’t do this anymore, John. I can’t be the person you think I should be. One who hits rock bottom and claws her way back up again. I just can’t.”
“You’re stronger than you think.”
“No. I’m not strong at all.”
“Will you stop selling yourself short?”
“Will you stop trying to make me into something I’m not?”
John started to respond, only to look away with a sigh of frustration. Darcy glanced at the fire and smoke in the distance, imagining her meager possessions as nothing but piles of ashes. She scanned the clusters of people around her, half of whom were criminals or deadbeats. Then she looked over her shoulder at the shiny black limousine. There was only one thing she had to do to shut out all this ugliness.
Climb inside.
When her gaze lingered on the limousine, John took her by the arm and forced her to face him. “Darcy, tell me you’re not seriously considering leaving here with that man.”
When she didn’t respond, his gaze narrowed fiercely. “I never meant anything to you, did I? You were just biding your time with me until you got a solid hook into Bridges.”
“No. That’s not the way it was.”
“It sure as hell looks that way to me now.”
Maybe John was right. Maybe she’d just been deluding herself into thinking she could be happy with nothing. Maybe he really had been just a stopgap, someone she could bide her time with until she could find another man with money, because without it, nothing in her life would ever be right again. What had ever made her think she could support herself? No job she was capable of doing would ever give her the kind of security she needed.
She thought about John’s house. It was old and small and cramped, with twenty-year-old furniture and a dishwasher on the blink. His business was up and down, with no certainty of how healthy it would be a year from now. She’d seen him paying his bills once with a worried frown that said he was probably juggling money from one month to the next. Even if he let her become a repossession agent, she would never have more than he had.
And suddenly that just wasn’t enough.
“I want to have nice things again,” she said. “I want to sleep in a place where I don’t keep pepper spray under my pillow. I want to stop worrying every second of every day about where my next meal is coming from. I want to feel secure again!”
“He can’t make you feel secure. Not in the way you really need.”
“Yeah? You should see his house. Tell me I won’t feel secure in a place like that.”
“So that’s what you intend to do? Go through life with no dignity at all?”
“Would you mind telling me what’s so dignified about starving? About driving a car that’s a piece of crap? About living in a slum? What’s so dignified about that?”
“So it’s more dignified to be tossed expensive toys by a guy like him? You’re worse than Pepé begging for a dog biscuit.”
Anger swelled inside her. “You’re so damned self-righteous. You think there’s only one way to live life, and that’s your way.”
“At least I have some self-respect. You’re losing more of yours every time you open your mouth.”
Furious, Darcy turned around and started toward the limousine, but John grabbed her arm and pulled her back. “I’m warning you, Darcy. If you go with him tonight, don’t think you’re ever coming back to me!”
Looking at John now, he seemed like a stranger. A tall, handsome, furious stranger who didn’t have a clue who she really was.
“With all he has to offer,” she said, “why would I?”
She pulled her arm from John’s grip, tucked Pepé against her chest, and headed for the limousine.
John called after her, his voice thick with rage. “Fine, then! Go! Get the hell out of here! You and that bastard deserve each other!”
His words pounded her with every step she took, but there was no going back, because it was just as she’d suspected in the beginning. She and John were oil and water. Fi
re and ice. Night and day. Immovable object and irresistible force. Two vastly different people who would only end up making each other miserable. Now she knew for sure the life she was destined to live, and it wasn’t this one. She’d been a fool to think, even for a moment, that it was.
Jeremy got out of the limo, held open the door, and she stepped inside. When he got back in and closed the door behind them, the silence was overwhelming. Bernie sat in the front seat, staring dead ahead. She never once acknowledged that Darcy had even gotten in the car, and Darcy sensed disapproval radiating from her like heat off a summer sidewalk.
Jeremy tapped the Plexiglas. “Home.”
As the limousine pulled away, Darcy hugged her shivering dog, refusing to look back at John. She’d never expected Jeremy to finally offer her luxury beyond her wildest dreams, and now that he had, it was an opportunity she wasn’t going to pass up.
Jeremy didn’t say a word to Darcy all the way back to his house. Once they were inside, Bernie went into the kitchen, and Jeremy told Darcy he’d send someone out to get dog food for Pepé. Then he handed her off to his housekeeper, who he said would show her to a guest room upstairs where she could take a shower and relax. Then he disappeared into the back of the house.
She didn’t know how she’d expected Jeremy to behave, but that hadn’t been it. She was thankful for it, though. She just wanted to go to bed and pretend this day had never happened, then wake up tomorrow morning without a care in the world.
A sense of calm settled over her. Relief that she wouldn’t have to fight anymore. There were worse things in this world than being pampered by an extraordinarily wealthy man, and Darcy refused to feel as if she was doing anything wrong. Jeremy was unconventional but not unattractive, and she could learn to like him enough to make life worthwhile.
She followed the housekeeper up the curved staircase and into a stunning guest suite complete with floor-to-ceiling windows, a beautiful walnut sleigh bed, and a fireplace. Pepé wandered around nervously before landing on the rug in front of the fireplace and collapsing with a little doggy sigh, looking even more tired than Darcy felt.
Darcy went into the adjoining bathroom to find it as dazzling as the bedroom, with walnut cabinetry, recessed lighting, a double whirlpool tub, and bath towels so thick and fluffy she could lose herself in one. Then the housekeeper showed her a closet that contained a dozen nightgowns, a few pairs of slippers, and a drawer full of lingerie.
Jeremy had clearly entertained overnight guests before.
Darcy took a long, luxurious bath, and when she came out, her clothes were gone, clearly snapped up by the housekeeper to be cleaned and returned to her closet by morning. As much domestic help as she’d had when she was with Warren, it hadn’t included a luxury like that.
Darcy slipped into an elegant emerald-green gown. She had a fleeting thought about an ugly-as-sin hot-pink nightie with a feathered hem, but she squeezed her eyes closed and systematically put it out of her mind.
Sleep. That was all she wanted. Just to sleep.
Just as she was pulling back the covers on the bed, though, she heard a knock. She cracked the door and peered into the hall to find the housekeeper standing there.
“Yes?”
“Mr. Bridges would like to see you.”
Her heart skipped. “Now? What does he want?”
“You’ll have to speak to him.”
She thought about the gown she was wearing. It was beautiful. Elegant. And it left nothing to the imagination.
“You don’t happen to have a spare robe lying around somewhere, do you?” Darcy asked.
“No, ma’am.”
Darcy’s heart started to pound. Maybe he just wanted to make sure she was settled and comfortable.
That was what she told herself, anyway.
She followed the housekeeper out of the room. The woman nodded to the tall double doors at the end of the hall, then turned and disappeared down the stairs. Darcy stared at the doors, knowing what lay beyond them.
Jeremy’s master bedroom suite.
John sat on a barstool at McMillan’s, a beer in his hand, hoping to lull himself into oblivion. It was pointless, of course. No matter how much he drank, he wasn’t going to get rid of the god-awful feeling that he’d been played for a fool. That the woman he cared about cared so little for him. That the crazy plans he’d started to make inside his head, the ones that involved him and Darcy together forever, had just blown up in his face.
He finished off that beer and ordered another one, oblivious to the people around him. It was Sunday night, so the crowd was light. In fact, the place would be closing down soon, which meant he’d have to go home alone to a house that was too quiet, with four walls feeling as if they were closing in on him. With as much solitude as he’d had over the past several years, he’d never realized just how wonderful it could be to share his house with somebody else.
Obviously Darcy would never be coming back to the office. Why work for a pittance when a man like Bridges handed her a fistful of credit cards with no limit? She’d just stay at that ostentatious, overpriced mausoleum of his, taking whatever crumbs she could seduce him into throwing her for as long as she could get him to do it. How could she not know how little regard that man had for her? And if she knew, why didn’t it matter?
Relationships for her were about all the crap in life that didn’t mean anything, all the things she thought she’d die if she didn’t have. Even so, for a single crazy moment tonight, John had wanted to grab her and tell her that no matter what she wanted, he’d find a way to get it. That he’d lie, cheat, steal—whatever it took. How deluded had that been?
He remembered the day she’d locked herself in his bathroom and cried her eyes out, right before they spent the rest of the day in bed. For hours on end, she had treated his body like a playground God had created especially for her. He could still feel her hands all over him, her warm lips hovering over his and the gentle sighs and moans that told him what she felt with him was real. It was just as Darcy had said. Everybody had best days of their lives.
That had been one of his.
A blond woman three stools down from him caught his eye. She toyed with her cocktail straw for a moment, then gave him a provocative smile, clearly hoping for one in return. He simply turned away and took another swig of beer. He couldn’t even fathom being with another woman when memories of Darcy still loomed so large in his mind.
But she’s with Bridges now. And you know what they’re doing.
John rubbed his eyes, then let out a heavy sigh, trying his damndest to put that thought from his mind. Darcy had made her choice, loud and clear, so it was time for him to stop wishing things had turned out differently and say good riddance.
Chapter 22
Darcy stood in front of the double doors, her pulse throbbing in her temples and her palms damp. She raised her hand. Paused. Finally she gave the door two soft raps.
She heard Jeremy tell her to come in. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then opened the door.
The room was as opulent as the rest of the house, but nothing in particular about the décor registered in her mind. All she saw was Jeremy sitting on a sofa in front of the fireplace, a glass of wine in his hand. On the wall behind the sofa was a king-sized four-poster bed.
The covers were turned down.
“You look beautiful,” Jeremy said, his voice low and seductive. “But, then, you know that, don’t you? You’ve always known just how beautiful you are.” He nodded toward the door. “Close it.”
“I’m really tired, Jeremy. After everything that’s happened, I think I’d just like to get some sleep.”
“Negotiating already,” he said. “I expected that.” He set down his drink, closed the door himself, then faced her again. “But tonight is nonnegotiable.”
Darcy couldn’t believe it. This man wasted no time at all.
“Drink?” Jeremy said, pulling another wineglass from the bar and reaching for an open bottle.
“This is a Chilean Merlot. Outrageously expensive. I bought six cases as an investment, but in light of everything that’s happened tonight, well . . . what the hell.”
Just the mention of expensive wine used to send Darcy into paroxysms of delight, but now the words seemed to float right past her as if she hadn’t even heard them. It was as if the receptors in her brain for the finer things in life had evaporated.
Or maybe her definition of “finer things” had changed.
“No, thank you,” she said.
Surprise flickered across Jeremy’s face. He set the glass back down on the bar, and as he approached her again, his voice became soft and seductive.
“So what’s it going to be tomorrow morning? Paris? London? It’s your choice.”
Darcy’s heart was pounding so hard she was sure he could hear it, but not because she was imagining how wonderful a stay in a luxury hotel was going to be. It was because of the look on his face right now. She had a feeling it was the same expression his opponents saw when he looked at them across a boardroom table as he evaluated their strengths and zeroed in on their weaknesses.
He moved in closer, touching his palm to the back of her hand. She jumped a little, and when his hand glided up her arm, she closed her eyes, stiffening beneath his touch.
“Relax, Darcy,” he murmured. “I have all kinds of wonderful things in store for you. Tonight is just the beginning.”
Just go with it. Give him what he wants, and you’ll have everything you want.
He moved his hand up her arm to her shoulder, where he hooked his finger around the narrow strap of her nightgown. He teased his finger along it for a moment, then slowly edged it off her shoulder.
Darcy told herself not to move, but she couldn’t help it. The moment the strap fell against her upper arm, she grabbed it, nonchalantly sliding it back up to her shoulder again.
Jeremy frowned. “It’s time to stop playing hard to get. We both know why you’re here.”
