Chapter Twenty-Five
The ominous ticking of her inner clock marched on, growing louder in Darcy’s ears since the moment they’d left Falcon Bay in the rear view mirror and crossed the city limits. It was about then Micah fell silent, and his hands had begun strangling the steering wheel. She knew this moment was coming all week, yet she couldn’t talk herself out of the dark mood draping her mind.
Her grip on the door handle tightened as Micah pulled the car into the same card-access underground garage in Toronto where she’d met his driver, Manny, last Saturday. It seemed a lifetime ago for the amount her perceptions and feelings had changed. A world that had been stable and solid before was now an upheaval of uncertainty, unfamiliar and cold.
The entire agonizing trip in gridlock traffic had been punctuated by the vibrating of her cell phone. Sol, demanding her presence in his office this afternoon because he was holding a spot in Monday’s paper for her article.
Front page.
National recognition.
Free reign to pursue the stories that mattered.
A dream come true.
If her dreams hadn’t suffered a continental shift during the last week, she might have been more excited. Across the car sat the dream she’d had as a child. The man she could see forever with. White picket fences—or log cabins as it were—the patter of tiny feet and children’s laughter filling the air. Past experience had left her with her own scars, though, and, like him, she was too terrified to reach across that seemingly bottomless chasm and grab on to that dream. Not that it seemed he wanted that, anyway.
“The future of the foundation is in your hands,” he said, finally breaking the awkward silence. “It’s all I have left.”
Snapping herself out of her relationship doldrums, she tore her gaze from the window and put it on Micah, committing his troubled face to memory. “I’d never hurt you. I know my saying so isn’t enough, so wait until the article comes out and decide then if my word means anything.” She fidgeted with the seat belt, afraid to ask what she most wanted to know. “Will I ever see you again?”
His head whipped around. “Do you want that?”
“You really are thick sometimes. Yes, I want that, in whatever form it takes—friends chatting over coffee, or two people enjoying some physical delicacies now and then. No promises, no pressure, and no hard feelings if this is it.” The last was a lie. The sickness filling her stomach was only the beginning of the emotions she’d suffer during her transition back to a celibate life.
For a long time, he studied her face, dark thoughts flitting across his features. “I should say something insulting to make you go away right now before I hurt you—because it’s inevitable—but I’m a selfish prick, and I don’t want to.”
“I think you know it wouldn’t work, anyway.”
He nodded, the tension visibly leaving his body. “In that case, how about I take you out for pie on your birthday?”
Relief washed over her, as soothing on her body as the rain had been. “Sounds fantastic. Why don’t you call me when you’re done at the foundation Monday to sort out the details?”
“And afterward?”
A smile took her lips, and she brushed his hair back. “It depends on how good the pie is, I suppose. Then we can decide whether we can contain ourselves all the way to your place, or whether we christen my double bed.”
He kissed her slowly, deeply, lingering with his lips brushing hers long after a little smacking sound marked their parting. “I’m glad this isn’t good-bye.”
Except that it was. She could feel it in the space between them. In the words he wasn’t saying. In the twinge of sadness behind his eyes.
“Me, too.” By some miracle, her voice didn’t break. “Hopefully soon your paparazzi problem will be history, and we can actually go out without having to sneak around in cars with dark windows and meet in secret parking lots.”
Would he ever think of her? Would she ever be able to stop thinking of him?
“Go, then, and do your magic, lucerito. Whether it works or not, the pleasure was in the trying. And my offer still stands. It could be you and me against the world if you get bored of that top-shelf office of yours.”
One last kiss turned her to liquid, and it was almost enough for her to believe his pretty lies and say yes to such a bold move. But she didn’t do change well. Even though Gran’s philosophy told her she should go for it and give her life a proper shake-up, putting her professional and personal eggs in one basket was too big of a risk. Besides, he didn’t really mean it.
“Until then,” she said, carefully avoiding any sense of finality her heart was sure this was, and got out of the car.
Micah got out and retrieved her duffle and knapsack, helping her shoulder them. “Be careful out there.”
She hugged him hard, and afterward, watched as he leaned his backside against the closed door and crossed his arms, the action hilling his biceps beneath his T-shirt. Trying to entice her back, but she couldn’t.
Darcy felt the warmth of his gaze as she walked away from him.
“I still can’t help staring at your ass,” he said, his grin apparent in his tone. “The sway of your hips is mesmerizing.”
Laughing, she stopped inside the elevator and glanced back.
He stared intensely before saying, “There it is. That smile could change the world, Darcy.”
Too soon, the mirrored doors closed him off from her sight, his last small wave grabbing her square in the heart. Pressing her palms to the doors, she rested her head down on them, fighting tears. Despite all he’d said, and how perfect their parting moments had been, it still felt like good-bye. His walls would go back up. He’d soon give her a lame excuse. She’d spend her birthday alone.
She forced herself upright and blinked away the wetness from her lashes. It would be all right, no matter how things turned out. If nothing else, spending a week with him had shown her sides of herself she hadn’t been aware of, some good and some bad.
No regrets.
None.
Now that she could breathe well enough to listen to those crazy whispers in the back of her mind, the enormity of the week’s fallout hit her hard.
What she’d felt for her ex hadn’t been like this. All consuming. Terrifyingly deep, with no bottom in sight while she was freefalling. Yes, the potential for love was there, but she knew deep down Micah would never let it happen.
It didn’t matter, and life would go on.
The subway took her to the Toronto Today building, and the instant she went topside, her cell phone pinged again. The text read: Where R U?
“Dammit, Sol, I’m coming already.” Pocketing the infernal device, she hurried through the smaller-than-usual crowds to the front doors of the building. It was late Saturday afternoon, after all, and most sane people were home spending time with their families. Or their lovers.
She should have been spending it curled around Micah, watching a movie. Or watching him watch her with that contented smile. Or sliding against his…stop it! Why was she torturing herself with something that may never happen?
Another elevator ride took her to the twelfth floor. The top shelf, where she may or may not be residing in the very near future where she’d take on the hard topics. Sol spied her instantly because he’d been standing in his doorway. “Delacorte, it’s about goddamn time. You better have the gold for me.” He rubbed his hands together, his smile anything but pleasant. The guy was walking greed. Everything she didn’t want to be.
Ignoring the creeping sensation along her spine, she marched up to Sol and thrust the thumb drive at him that contained the story, including a few pictures of foundation events Micah had emailed from his phone.
Her boss wasted no time snatching it from her and flopping down in his chair, fumbling to get the drive into the USB port like a junkie trying to find a vein. Fighting her fraying nerves, she set her bags down on the edge of his desk and went to the window, her mind slipping back to the incredible week she’d had. The best one to date. She hadn’t told him that. In fact, she hadn’t even thanked him for giving her life a proper scouring, no matter what happened next week.
The creaking of Sol’s chair drew her attention back to him. “This is all you got? An entire fucking week with this guy, and all you give me is a feel-good prick-turned-hero story? Where’s the controversy? A guy like that has to have some major skeletons in his closet.”
“Well, he doesn’t.” Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she turned back to the window. “And even if he did, this is what we’re authorized to print. What’s in that piece includes the important parts to his story, take it or leave it. You know people will eat it up, and if I’m lucky, the damn media will leave him alone so he can stop being a prisoner in his own city.”
“You fucked him, didn’t you?”
Mouth agape, she turned back to find his ass perched on the corner of his desk, her bags shoved aside. “That’s none of your business.”
“So you did, because if you didn’t, you’d have said so. It’d be a shame if word got around that you trade flesh for facts.” His nasty grin said he’d rat her out in a heartbeat. “Then what would your blog groupies think of their wholesome crusader?”
Goddammit, why couldn’t she have just bold-face lied to him? “Are you really trying to blackmail me for dirt on Micah Laine? Because I’d never do what you’re suggesting I did, and if you push this, I’ll ask Mr. Laine for the use of one of his lawyers. I know he’d love to send you and everyone like you up the river without a boat.” Why did it surprise her that Sol would stoop so low to get a story? No, not just a story. Micah Laine, the mystery of the year that could raise the paper to the next level of public notice.
Sol got up and swaggered closer, shrugging. “I’ll have this story, one way or another. Take the night to think about it. Give me what I asked for, and that office down the hall is yours. Say no, and…” He shrugged again, leaving open any number of ways he could destroy the reputation she’d worked for years to develop.
If he really put his mind to it, she might never work in the industry again. She wasn’t sure what scared her more, standing by as her career went into the toilet, or watching Micah walk away from her again and again in her mind, as she wondered if she’d find pictures of him with his new girlfriend in the next day’s paper.
No, he wasn’t that guy anymore.
Without sparing Sol another glance, she collected her bags and strode out of his office, fighting a desperate urge to put her fist through one of the glass walls along the corridor full of offices. One of which could be hers. All she had to do was sell out Micah.