Dating Mr. Darcy - Kate O'Keeffe Page 0,78
been practicing my balance skills since then, and anyway, no dress headpiece this time. See?” I hold my ponytail in my hand as proof.
“You are improving,” he replies with a glint in his eye.
I climb down from my spot on the tree and land a couple of feet from him.
“You’re also a gymnast.” He loops his arms around my waist and kisses me, full on the mouth. “So many hidden talents, Brady.”
“Oh, you have no idea, Mr. Darcy.”
“Sorry, I’m all sweaty.”
“Don’t be. I like it,” I murmur against his mouth.
“That bodes well for me,” he says between kisses as he holds me close against him.
“Ahem.” Someone clears their throat behind us and we immediately stop what we’re doing.
Fear twists inside me. “Uh-oh. We’ve been busted.” With trepidation, I stand on my tippy-toes to peer over Sebastian’s shoulder to see a woman I’ve never laid eyes on before. She’s dressed in a pair of shorts and a singlet top, her hands on her hips, and she’s staring at us with a look of delight on her pretty face.
“Aren’t you meant to be saving that for the cameras?” she asks. Her accent is just like Sebastian’s. She’s so cute, I bet she has guys falling over themselves to be with her.
Sebastian hooks his arm around my shoulders and turns to face her. “Zara, that’s the last thing I would want to do, and you know it.”
She grins at us. “You must be Emma, and if you’re not, I’m going to have some serious words with Sebastian.”
I look in confusion from the woman to Sebastian and back again. “I am Emma,” I reply. “Have I missed something?”
Sebastian chuckles. “You weren’t meant to meet like this, but as it’s happened, Emma, this is my sister, Zara.”
“Your sister?” I exclaim in surprise.
“Hello there,” she says. “It’s lovely to finally meet you, despite all the kissing. As a side note, Seb, no sister should ever have to witness that.”
I tilt my head and eyeball him. “Seb, huh?”
He has the good grace to look bashful. “I was messing with you. All my friends and family call me Seb.”
“Is that so?”
“To be fair, you were very prickly at the time.”
“Fair call.” I unhook myself from him and go to shake Zara’s hand. Instead, she pulls me in for a quick hug and says, “Seb’s told me all about you.”
He has?
I glance back at him. He’s still looking bashful, but in a very manly and sexy way, of course.
“He’s told me about you, too,” I reply. “Although he didn’t tell me you look like that gorgeous British actress. You know, the one in that Bond movie?”
“Gemma Arterton,” Sebastian says.
“That’s right. It makes sense Mr. Darcy would have a Bond-girl for a sister. You know, in some parallel universe somewhere.”
Zara rolls her eyes as she laughs. “I get that all the time,” she says in her posh rounded English vowels, looking and sounding exactly like Gemma Arterton.
“And that’s a bad thing?” I ask.
“It’s fine,” she replies as though I haven’t told her she looks like a totally beautiful actress. “We’ve been out for a run. Seb makes me do it whenever I’m home.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “Does he now?”
“Oh, yes. He says my life in London is far too unhealthy and I need to get some fresh Martinston air in my lungs. Since I’ve been summoned home for a family get together this afternoon, he’s roped me into this.”
Sebastian places his hand on Zara’s shoulder. “My sister is a single girl about town in London.”
“That sounds fun to me.”
He raises his brows at me. “You want to be single?”
As I look up into his eyes, my chest expands. “No.”
He gazes back at me and replies, “Good.”
We share a smile.
“Oh, my God you two!” Zara exclaims. “First the kissing and now longing gazes? Could you get any cuter? And when I say cuter, I mean vomit-inducing, of course.”
Sebastian nudges her on the arm. “Sisters,” he says to me.
I shrug. “I wouldn’t know about those. I’m an only child.”
“Lucky you, not having to put up with a bossy, overbearing older brother who makes you run through forests when all you want to do is catch up on Netflix, drink wine, and eat cake.”
“Which is precisely why you need to go for a run, little sister,” he responds.
I watch them as they verbally spar with one another like they’re pre-pubescent teens in the back of their parents’ car. Which, now that I think about it, is probably a Rolls Royce or