Page 56 of One Golden Ring
“But now,” she goes on. “I’ll be in the middle of a pattern and an offer pops up to get me to buy something.”
“Those are discount codes you’re unlocking,” I tell her, frowning. “You earned them.”
“It doesn’t feel like an accomplishment,” she says, shrugging. “It feels like the world elbowing into my little peaceful place.”
“So I guess you don’t like the social component then?” I ask her.
We recently added a feature allowing the app to scan your contacts and put you in touch with people you know that also play. The guys in PR said users would love it.
“I hate it,” Darcy says, clearly emboldened. “Now my friends have to know when I’m playing? And I’m getting notifications from the app a hundred times a day telling me I have to keep up my streak or compete with my friends.”
“Ah,” I say.
“All of that is the opposite of why I loved the game so much,” she tells me. “Hearts & Circles used to be such a cozy little escape. I miss that feeling.”
We both sit with that thought.
“But I also know it has to make a profit,” she says after a moment, shrugging. “Nothing in life is free.”
“The best things in life are free,” I say, automatically quoting my grandfather.
“I can’t believe I’m hearing Derek Lockwood say that,” she laughs.
I should be offended, but she’s only teasing me.
“I know. I seem like I love the suits and the cars and the rock and roll lifestyle,” I tell her. “But I’m honestly happier here, just like this.”
“I’m happy here too,” she says softly.
I know she’s telling the truth. Her beautiful brown eyes are too expressive to hide it. And I never would have guessed before we got here, but Darcy really seems like she was meant for wood fires and town festivals, and for making my daughter laugh and my grandfather feel important.
She seems like she was meant for all of us.
She’s meant for me.
I let the container of ornaments fall from my hands. Shining plastic balls clatter to the floor, reflecting the light in a thousand directions as I drop to my knees at her feet and take her face in my hands.
I’ve wanted to kiss Darcy Keller a thousand times.
I think of all the early mornings when she drags herself in after a late night at the office for an international call. She’ll have faint circles under her eyes, but she’ll also have a pair of coffees for us, and about a hundred ideas on how to find the time to do every single thing that came up in that call bursting from her lips.
I think of the lunch meetings she gets me out of the moment the guest starts asking for favors. She’ll pop her head in the door like she has a sixth sense and tell me I’ve got a very important call that turns out to be someone asking who has our contract for copier servicing. And when I ask her why she put an early stop to my meetingshe’ll just shrug, but her eyes will be dancing and only I know why.
I think of last year’s office holiday party, when one of the new interns, a young man with wide shoulders and a smug smile, asked her to dance. When Darcy saidsure,I wanted to punch him in the face, and when he let his hands wander and she pulled away from him and marched off to the ladies’ room, I wanted to follow her in there, then press her up against the mirror and kiss her into oblivion.
What makes tonight any different?
But I can’t even answer that question for myself because I’m too busy leaning in to feed on her beautiful mouth.
Her eyes are hazy as she waits, her pink lips slightly parted. I loved the way she kept her eyes open until the last second when I kissed her at the lodge. I’ve been telling myself it was because, like me, she wanted to be sure it was real.
She lets out the tiniest sigh as she closes them now, and my lips are a millimeter from hers when the phone rings.
No…
But the spell is broken. Her eyes fly open and she pulls back slightly, which is enough to have me dropping my hands from her face and going into a full retreat.
“S-sorry,” she murmurs, grabbing her phone from the table and sliding her thumb across the screen to pick up. “J.B.?”
