Page 61 of Third Time is the Charm
“I do. It’s very different than before. Most things are on a much smaller scale but I feel like I’m making a bigger difference, if that makes any sense.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed with a nod. “It’s one of the reasons Fitz Corp has kept so many of its smaller companies, like the one Lydia works for, separate. Consolidation makes things easier in some ways, but there is so much more that is lost.”
“How hard was it not to fire George?” The mention of Lydia had her wondering just how well he’d been able to control his anger and the ease with which he could have exacted revenge.
“It wasn’t too bad.” Beth raised her eyebrows. “Alright, alright, it was fucking hard, but not as hard as it would have been a few months earlier.”What does that mean?“I will admit, as much as it pains me, that he’s actually not doing too terrible of a job,” he mumbled gruffly.
“But what he’s doing to Lydia…”
“I don’t think he realized what he was getting himself into when he agreed to marry her for this job. I think he’s starting to realize how much responsibility a wife and family are and he doesn’t know how to handle it. Lydia didn’t leave him because he’s terrible to her, she left because she felt like she was a burden to him and she didn’t want her child to feel like that as well.”
“Do you think he’ll ever change?” she asked softly, taking another sip of her wine.
“I never thought he could change, but then again, I never thought I could either. Love can work miracles,” he said, the molten chocolate of his eyes deepening as it met hers. “Especially when it’s love for a child – or so I’ve heard.”
“I don’t know,” she replied, still skeptical even though she hadn’t seen Wickham since they moved; Darcy, on the other hand, would have had more frequent contact with him since then.
“We’ll see,” he echoed her sentiment.
“So, how have you been?” she asked, the wine starting to encourage a deeper line of questioning.
“Ok,” he answered initially, his lips thinning. Beth thought that would be the end of it; Darcy never wanted to talk about or elaborate on his feelings. And then he shocked her by continuing, “I was devastated at first.” Her eyes shot up to his.
“I didn’t know about the whole Caroline thing, well, about you seeing her there. Charles and I came back to find her there like I told you, but that only made me angry. Then we got to Jane’s and no one was there. It was when we arrived at your parent’s house that I found out.” He swallowed hard, pouring more wine into both of their glasses. “I was in shock. I wasn’t expecting it, obviously. I expected the anger, the hurt, the pain, the guilt – they were all things that I’d talked to Charles about and prepared myself to handle. But, for you to have left already… Nothing could have prepared me for that.”
“I couldn’t stay…” she whispered, taking another sip of her wine, hoping that he would continue to share with her and reveal this side of Darcy that she’d rarely seen.
“I felt like all the air had been pulled from my lungs when your father said that you were gone. Honestly, I don’t know what I would have done if he hadn’t talked to me. I knew what I had said to you was horrible and in no way was justified by what had happened, but I just couldn’t believe that you had left.”
She swallowed hard. “What did he say?” Beth asked even though she knew the answer; she craved to hear it from Darcy’s perspective; she craved to hear more of this vulnerable side and how what she’d done had had an effect on him.
“He just talked to me about you – not specifically why you left or where you had gone because he didn’t know. But he told me about you and your personality and the things that shaped you. Some of it I knew, but some of it I listened to and realized how what I had said could have pushed you to leave. It wasn’t an answer, but he shed some light on the path that had gotten us here.”
“I came over to talk to you that morning, to try to fix things, in spite of how I felt and how much what you said had hurt me; I knew that once I told you what had really happened you would understand,” she admitted. “But when I saw Caro there, all of the doubts that I had over what you said became real. All of the doubts that I had about myself, that Jane had convinced me weren’t the truth, exploded inside of me and consumed me.”
“I didn’t know,” he said softly. “I would have come sooner if I had.” He paused, swirling the last sip of wine in his glass, thinking deeply for a moment before admitting. “I know how hard you tried with me… to fix me. I couldn’t see it, or maybe didn’t want to see it, at the time. But after you were gone, I hated myself for what I put you through and I deserve every fucking tear I cried for hurting you. Because the truth is, I would have left me, too. I wasn’t who you needed me to be; I wasn’t who I wanted to be.”
“And is that who you are now?” she murmured, setting her empty glass down hesitantly as though it were the last protective barrier standing between them.
“It’s certainly who I’m fucking trying to be, but I’m not really the one who can answer that question, only you can.” He drank the last bit of wine from his glass. “At least, you’re the only one whose answer matters.”
“What do you want from me?” she whispered, watching as he picked up her glass and put both of theirs into the sink, then picking up the multiple, opened cartons and tossing them in the garbage. His forehead was furrowed, his jaw flexing as he searched for the right words to say.
He walked around the countertop, stopping in front of her, a breath away from her body. She could feel the electric heat sparking in the air around them; even though she knew it had the power to decimate her, there was a comfort in the familiarly potent charge that arced between them.
Ever so slowly, she watched as his eyes fell from hers down to her hand resting in her lap as his moved to take it. Tenderly, he brought her fingers up to his mouth, placing a sweet yet seductive open-mouthed kiss onto her palm before intertwining her hand with his. She expected him to kiss her, to take her, and to not meet any resistance on her end. Instead, he kissed her hand and gently pulled away from her, taking her – leading her into her tiny living room to sit on the loveseat.
Who was this Darcy, so similar yet so different? Was he finally what she needed?
“I just want you,” he rasped, his brown eyes deepening with a need that went beyond the lust that burned through his body. She stared at him for a moment, her senses overwhelmed, not remembering what she had asked. “I don’t want anything from you, Beth,” he clarified. “I just fucking want you.”
“And what does that even mean now? We just go back to the way things were between us? I don’t know if I can do that again. I know you say that you’ve changed, but I’m scared to believe it; I’m scared because of how much Iwantto believe it.” She bit her lip, blinking rapidly as she felt her emotions rising to the point of bubbling over with tears.
“No,” he interjected quickly and firmly. “No, not like before. I can’t fucking bear the thought of losing you again and that means I can’t fucking be theintolerableasshole that I was before; I don’t think I’m that asshole that I was before and I just want a chance to prove it to you.”
Beth swallowed over the lump in her throat, his words making her heart race and butterflies of hope bloom in her stomach.Could this be real? Or was she just going to wake up in a few weeks and realize that it had been a nightmare?
“I know that my words, my assurances, don’t mean much – how could they when at the slightest test, I threw everything you believed about me back in your face.” He sighed, roughly running his hand through his hair. “I can’t ask you to believe my words, I’m asking you to take a chance on my actions.”
