Page 74 of One Golden Ring
I feel another pang of guilt on top of the truckload that’s already weighing heavy on my chest. I did say that to her, the night I told her that her great-grandfather wasn’t well and didn’t want to have the surgery that could save him.
“You’re right,” he tells her. “He thought he was tricking us. But you have to remember, he wasn’treallylying to us. He was only lying tohimself.”
That brings me up short.
Grandpa Michael looks up, capturing me in his knowing blue gaze, and I know in that moment that he’s seen right through me all along.
“You knew,” Darcy breathes. “You knew all along it wasn’t real, didn’t you?”
“Well, I knew you were playing a game,” Michael tells her with a half-smile.
J.B. straightens up and wipes the tears from her cheeks, her eyes going from Darcy to her great-grandpa. I guess she’s interested in seeing us get our comeuppance.
“A game,” I echo.
“I had my suspicions about what the game might be,” he goes on, turning to me. “But I knew that everythingyou were telling meshouldbe true. I could tell that much the first time I saw the way you two look at each other.”
Darcy lets out a tiny sound that’s almost like a sob, and when I glance over, her eyes are misty.
He didn’t say it was the way I look at her—he said the way we look at each other.
Is he right?
“So I’m theonly onewho didn’t know what was going on?” J.B. wails. “This is worse than that time you told me if I swallowed a watermelon seed I’d grow a watermelon in my belly, Dad.”
But she’s smiling through her tears now, and I feel the knot around my heart loosen a little.
“Actually,” I tell her. “It sounds likeI’mthe only one who didn’t know.”
Suddenly everyone’s eyes are on me, and I know this is the moment of truth.
I’ve done things that people might call brave before. But right now all my business and career risks feel completely insignificant—the consequences of getting them wrong pale in comparison to what I’m about to do.
“Darcy,” I say, my voice breaking a little on her name.
Her beautiful brown eyes meet mine and I know I have to do this, even if it blows up in my face, because I’m burning alive without her.
“I think I’ve known it since the first time you walked into my office,” I tell her slowly. “Not just because you’re beautiful, or because you make me laugh, but because all my broken pieces seem to fit together when you’re around.”
I hear J.B. suck in a breath, like it’s the most romanticthing she ever heard, and I hope like anything that Darcy feels the same way.
“The world looks at me and only sees a powerful man,” I say, feeling a little ashamed to voice those words in case she thinks I’m bragging. “But you’ve drawn back the curtain and seen the imperfect human being inside. And you’ve never pulled away, not even when I was at my worst.”
Her eyes are on mine, luminous in the lantern light. The quiet of the barn is soft around us, and the faces of the people I love most give me the courage to go on.
“I’m sorry I didn’t handle my feelings better,” I tell her, meaning it with everything in me. “I’ve raged and made demands. I’ve denied what was between us, even to myself. And I’ve even asked you to lie, when I know that it’s not in your nature to be anything but truthful.”
She swallows, holding back some emotion and my heart aches.
“But if you can find it in your heart to give me the chance,” I tell her softly. “I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to be the kind of man you make me want to be—the kind of man you deserve.”
“Oh, Derek,” she murmurs.
And then I’m moving to embrace her as she opens her arms to me, her chin tilted up like she’ll never look anywhere but my eyes again.
I cup her cheek in my hand for just a moment, soaking in this feeling that she’s really mine before I bend to kiss her.
Her lips are so soft and I’m surrounded by the lightvanilla scent of her that makes me feel dizzy and demanding all at once.
