Hiring Mr. Darcy - Valerie Bowman Page 0,2
Lacey at the wheel, Harrison beside her, and me sitting in the middle of the backseat staring between their shoulders because I get car sick when I can’t see the road.
Harrison had offered to let me sit in the front, but I’d stupidly declined. We exchanged awkward, stilted conversation for the nearly thirty-minute drive. I told them about the sniffer. They dutifully laughed. I wished for another donut.
I kept glancing back and forth between them, wondering if they’d slept together or even kissed. I trusted Harrison, but seeing them together gave me a flashback to high school, riding the bus to a football game with my boyfriend, John, while he sat with Mary, the cheerleader who would be his future girlfriend. Doom throbbed in my chest. I asked Harrison for his handkerchief again and rubbed halfheartedly at the jelly stain on my shirt.
“So, I was reading more about Bath on the way home,” I finally said. Our trip to the Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England was less than three weeks away. Harrison and I had been planning it for a year. We were partners in the multiple days of Austen-themed competition. He would attend as Mr. Darcy. I, of course, would be Lizzy Bennet. We were sure to win. “We can take the train there from London and—”
“Yes, well, we can talk about that later.” Harrison cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“I hear Bath is nice in September,” Lacey offered in a jelly-donut-sweet voice.
“Mmm-hmm.” My Bath discussion thwarted, I stared out the windshield at the leafy greenness of the trees as we approached the college campus. Minutes later, we pulled up in front of my little brick townhouse on the outskirts of campus, and Harrison helped me pull my small, black roller bag out of Lacey’s trunk. He walked me to the steps that led up to my front door. The purr of the engine behind us combined with the imagined burn of Lacey’s scrutiny made me nervous. Plus, I could feel my granny panties inching up my back. Why wasn’t Lacey driving away? I did a sort of half-dance hop move, hopeful that the panties would somehow fall back into place while I glanced at Harrison, who, to my utter surprise, had retreated a couple of steps toward the curb where the starlet and her Audi were still idling suspiciously.
“Aren’t you coming in? I thought we were having dinner tonight.” I pushed the bottom of my black ballet flat against the side of the first step.
Harrison sighed and lifted his chin. “Look, Meg, we need to talk.”
That was when time stopped—stood still—and I felt like I was Elinor, and Harrison was Willoughby, and Colonel Brandon had just told me about him. Sounds and colors slowly moved past my head, but none of it registered. Nothing after, “We need to talk.” Let’s face it. Nothing good ever comes after the words “we need to talk.” A catastrophe is sure to ensue.
The truth was I’d been expecting a marriage proposal from Harrison. Not like soon. Like literally tonight. He said he’d made reservations at this cool new hipster restaurant called Orsay. We never made reservations. Or went to cool hipster restaurants. In an effort to look cute, I’d worn a frickin’ pencil skirt instead of the pajama jeans that my brother bought me for Christmas after I emailed him the link. A pencil skirt was serious in my world. I’d prepared myself for proposaldom.
Sure, there was the slight complication of how I would manage to divest myself of the granny panties without Harrison seeing them before we made love, but that was a minor consideration and one that could be solved with a well-timed trip to the bathroom. But I’d bothered with the pencil skirt, and then the incident with the accursed donut had happened—it wasn’t my proudest moment, I agree—and then the starlet and the Audi, and now this. The entire evening had descended into chaos. Not at all how it was written in my day planner.
Harrison’s brows were lowered, a guilty frown tugged at his mouth. He leaned down and whispered, “I’m sorry. I promised Lacey we’d work tonight. She’s paying me extra.”
“Okaaay,” I said slowly, the jealousy pounding its bitchy fists against my precarious composure. When would this new and poisonous emotion go away? Probably not until Lacey left town.
“There’s something else I have to tell you.” Harrison took a deep breath and folded his hands together in front of him. “She wants to