She hung up on a sigh. “He didn’t want an interview; he hired you. You start on Monday.”
Excitement struck Darcy first, but then she sobered. If Lucien had loved her the way she believed he had, after what she’d done, he had to hate her. Maybe this was her penance. Lord knew she deserved it. Maybe she could make amends and right the wrong she had done him. Losing him as a lover had been hard, but losing him as a friend had been devastating.
On her first day of work, Darcy took an extra hour getting ready. Silly, probably, but the last time she’d seen Lucien, aside from her disastrous display from the other day, she’d been sixteen and a bit awkward in her own skin. It was vanity, yes, but she wanted him to see her looking her best.
She showered, moisturized, plucked, tweezed, applied enough makeup to enhance, but not distract, and pulled her black hair up into a twist. She then stood for a half an hour in just her bra and panties, looking in her closet.
She settled on her formfitting but conservative black wrap dress. She slipped on her pumps before grabbing her purse and bag. The day had gotten hot by the time she stepped out of her apartment building and started walking toward the corner.
He had looked incredible. The few minutes she’d seen him, it was clear that he was even more beautiful than he had been as a kid, but there was a hardness about his features that he hadn’t had at seventeen: the slant of his brow, the line between his eyes, the down tilt of his mouth, and the coldness in those eyes that were still as beautiful. She remembered when those eyes had looked at her with passion, desire, even love. It was her own fault that they no longer did. Even with the passing of time, her regret was just as great now as it had been then.
She hailed a cab because it was just too hot and she didn’t want to deal with the subway. After the cab dropped her off, she stood at the doors of the bar for a minute, catching her breath. Allegro looked sort of sad in the daylight. It wasn’t a remarkable building: simple brick with a portico for cabs to pull up out of the elements, and glass doors with the name etched into them. Inside was just as bleak during the day, looking almost like a fighter who binds up his wounds so he can fight another day. Melancholy . . . she was feeling entirely too melancholy.
She didn’t want this meeting to go as calamitously as the last. Whatever he thought of her, he’d hired her, so maybe he wasn’t holding a grudge. Maybe he really had put what was between them in the past and it was only she who was still harboring feelings about what they shared.
She pulled her shoulders back and lifted her chin, but butterflies were going berserk in her belly. The hall to the office was dark, so she searched for the switch and turned on the lights. By the time she was halfway down the hallway, she knew that he wasn’t in yet. She was grateful for that; she could get herself settled and then be calmer when he did arrive to show her the ropes.
Twenty minutes later, she heard footsteps down the hall, and her stomach squeezed with nerves as she stood to greet Lucien. But it wasn’t him. Instead it was the woman from the other day, Tara.
“Hi. You’re Darcy, right?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry, I must have been in the back when you arrived. I’m Tara. Lucien asked me to give you the quick rundown. Your desk is that one.” She pointed to the receptionist’s desk that sat in a small alcove. “There are files on the desk that will bring you up to speed. If you have any questions, I’ll be setting up in the bar area.”
Darcy was confused as to why Lucien wasn’t here doing the introduction himself. He was the boss.
“Is Lucien coming in later, then?”
Tara had already started down the hall, and she answered from over her shoulder.
“No, he took the day off.”
That shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. Darcy walked to her desk and settled in before pulling open a file. It was Lucien’s calendar. The other file was a supply list for the office and contact numbers for the printer and computer guys. Darcy immediately buried