CHAPTER FIVE

THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR?

7 December 2021

Why did I choose to wear new, untested underwear? They kept riding up and chafing the most uncomfortable places. I hadn't even made it to the restaurant but I was done. Done. Dodging the streams of people coming out of stores, weighed down with bags and their bank accounts sufficiently drained, I quickened my pace to make it to the restaurant on time.

Checking maps for the third time in as many minutes, the mint green lace that had looked excellent on the mannequin rode up higher until they had turned into a G-string rather than the cute boy shorts they were meant to be. I knew I should have gone a size higher but I had refused to acknowledge my recent weight gain and stubbornly bought a size I knew was wrong.

No amount of tugging on the black and floral dress had dislodged the mother of all wedgies, nor had awkwardly shimmying while I walked. It was a good thing I had chosen to wear headphones, I'm sure the native Londoner's just thought I was dancing along to whatever was playing. At least, I hoped they did.

I had run into the disgusting bathrooms of a McDonald's, stuck my hand up my skirt, and found some sweet relief. Only for them to ride back up as soon as I stepped out of the restaurant. I should have taken this as a sign that tonight was going to be a disaster. Hours of discomfort for what?

All because I had made the ill-advised choice of trying something new. Something grown up. Something to prove I was more than a dabbing Santa t shirt wearing woman who talked too much. Not that I expected anyone to see them. They were, as far as I was concerned, for my eyes only. But I knew they were there. Uncomfortable but there.

Real grown up underwear that was lace instead of utilitarian cotton.

If Darcy could see me now. Well, maybe not right now. Not when my fingers were itching to slide up my skirt and dig the infernal underwear out of my butt crack. It wasn't just the presence of Darcy at the dinner Jane practically strong- armed me into that had driven me to Peak a Boo, the local lingerie store. Salem, the little black kitten that had somehow found its way into the house, had quickly formed an attachment to socks, bras, and underwear. I'm not entirely sure where he hid them, only that he had the mother of all stashes somewhere in the house.

Mum had tried to convince me to drop him in at the local shelter. Even as she fed him by hand and he'd curled up in her lap for a sleep, she was adamant he wasn't staying. After a quick trip to the vet we established that he had no owner and we had the choice to surrender him or take him home. Salem, in a very smart move, turned his big green eyes on mum and meowed. It was the most pathetic sound in the known universe. It worked.

Now we had a thieving little kitten bounding through the house.

Ducking into an alleyway, I picked the wedgie free behind a dumpster and continued on to the restaurant. Stopping in front of the restaurant, one of those classy places that definitely didn't put prices on the menu, I breathed deep.

I could do this.

I could be nice to the man who had ungraciously insulted me for no reason. I'd promised Jane after all. Why did I do that again? The wound had barely begun to heal over. It was still smarting when I looked in the mirror when I was getting ready and was wondering if the dress I had stolen from Lydia's closet was adult enough. I hated that he made me feel that way.

Reaching for the handle, I tugged and the door barely moved. There was a crowd of people inside, so obviously the door had to work. This place was for the uber rich after all, maybe there was a password I needed to utter, "Open sesame" or the like. A code that you only received when your bank account comfortably held six figures and you only flew first class.

Tugging again, the door still only opened a fraction. Damn it.

A big hand with neatly trimmed nails grasped the door handle above me. Glancing over my shoulder my stomach sank.

Darcy.

He was even more unfairly handsome than I remembered. Looming over me, the buttons on his white shirt strained just a fraction. My eyes dipped down. He wore perfectly tailored navy dress pants and brown Oxfords. Dragging my eyes back up to his face, those eyes, the ones I had spent painting into the small hours of the morning, were narrowed, guarded.

"Push," Darcy said, his accent thick.

I released my grip on the handle as he pushed it open with no resistance. My cheeks prickled with heat despite the frigid air. Of course, it was a push door. Why wouldn't it be? It was as if destiny wanted me to make a total fool of myself in front of this man.

"Thanks," I said, stepping through the doorway. He followed closely behind, the door gliding closed behind him with little more than a whisper. "Anyone could have made that mistake." Right? "Especially when they don't put up a sign."

Darcy looked at her as if she had grown a second head. "Sure," he replied tightly.

I see he was still an absolutely stimulating conversationalist. He brushed past me and went to speak to the hostess for a moment. She battered her eyes at him and I wanted to be sick. He came back, unimpressed by whatever he was told judging by the deep frown on his face.

"The table isn't ready yet. We'll have to wait at the bar." Great. Brilliant. Fantastic. I could do the bar. I quickly scanned the room for any sign of Jane and Charlie. "They're running late." Darcy informed me.

Placing a warm hand on my lower back he guided me over to the bar, the whole time I tried to ignore those little sparks of energy that seemed to be causing me a serious case of the butterflies. Why the Hell was I nervous? It wasn't like I liked the man. In fact, I would have been quite content to have never seen him again.

Guiding me to a seat he asked me what I was having. In a panic I ordered the first thing that came to mind - Gin and Tonic. I perched on the barstool as he ordered a whiskey for himself and my gin and tonic. I didn't even like gin and tonic that much. We were silent as the bartender made our drinks. The bartender handed me over my drink with a smile. Taking a sip, I felt myself relax. This wasn't so bad. Except the wedgie was back.

"We got a cat, well, a kitten really," I said to fill the silence that had fallen between us. "I found him in the basement. We've had him two days and he's already taken down the Christmas tree and sleeps cuddled up to my favourite bra."

I was secretly proud of the Christmas tree thing. The little black shadow had somehow launched himself off the dining table right into the tree. He looked shocked for a moment, then proud as the tree toppled over. I had scolded him but made sure to give him a treat when mum wasn't looking.

After an excruciating moment of silence, Darcy took a sip of his drink and offered me the barest hint of a smile. "What's his name?"

"Salem," he looked at me blankly. "You know after the talking cat in Sabrina the Teenage Witch? We mainly just call him Kitty though."

"My sister found a cat when we were camping last summer." Darcy's entire face lightened when speaking of her. "Half feral we think, and likes to bite unprotected ankles. Georgie calls him Baby." Those were the most words he had ever strung together in my presence. Who knew weird cats were a good social lubrication?

"Does he take down Christmas trees?" I twiddled my thumbs, wondering if it would be rude to reach into my bag and pull out my phone to see where Jane was.

"No." That quickly extinguished the conversation.

We sat in silence, sipping our drinks, and Darcy pulled out his phone. I followed his lead and took out my own. Quickly messaging Jane asking for an update, I scrolled through Facebook and Instagram and when I grew bored of all the baby announcements, I finished off my drink. No response from Jane yet. Where were they? They were now over twenty minutes late.

The hostess came over to speak to Darcy, completely ignoring me as if I were invisible. Lovely. Darcy gestured to me with his head and we tracked through the busy dining room to a table with a street view. She handed us a menu each and told us a server would be over shortly.

I opened the menu and my poor bank account wept in protest.

"Another drink?" Darcy asked, flagging a waiter down with the flick of his wrist.

I set the menu down and reached for the drinks menu. If I thought the food prices were exorbitant, the drinks were enough to bankrupt the Queen.

"Macallan on the rocks." Darcy ordered from the waiter who seemingly popped UP out of nowhere.

Macallan…. I bought the menu closer to my face, my jaw dropping. The price of a single glass of scotch was more than I made in a week. Surely that couldn't be right. I checked and checked again. Yep, for the price of a glass of whiskey a family could eat for a week.

"Right away Sir," the waiter said obligingly. "And for you, Miss?"

"Um." I flicked through the menu trying to show how broke I really was. God, did I really just drink a forty pound gin and tonic? I really should have checked the menu before ordering. What if everyone wants to split the bill? "The rosé, thank you."

The waiter nodded, noting that I failed the attempt to rattle off the pretentious French name, and disappeared just as quickly as he popped up. The rosé, at twenty pounds a glass, was the cheapest on the menu by far. For the same twenty pounds I could buy five bottles from Aldi and have change.

Speak. Say anything! Something that I never seemed to have trouble with in the past, except, all words seemed to catch in my throat when Darcy stared at me. He seemed to do that a lot. Stare.

His gaze dropped to his phone, the light bouncing off OF his thick eyelashes. The kind of lashes that I could only dream about when I accidentally glue my eyes shut with eyelash glue.

"Do you think they're far away?" I blurted to break the silence looming between us. "It's not like Jane to be so late. Even when we were kids we had to be on time for everything to the exact minute, she would accept nothing less."

Darcy locked his phone and placeD it on the table beside his cutlery. "Charlie said they were only running ten minutes late."

"It's been nearly half an hour. You don't think they set us up, do you?"

Those thick, slashing brows furrowed. At this point I was fairly certain they were his natural state. "Set us up?"

"You know," I dropped my voice in a low whisper, "on a date."

He looked vaguely horrified at the notion. "God, I hope not."

Ouch. That stung.

A mocking retort danced on the tip of my tongue, but I refused to stoop to his level. Instead, I settled for an unruffled smirk and pretended to fix my hair. Darcy was back to staring across the table, his gaze as unreadable as ever; yet, I had the sense that he was tracking my every movement with those watchful eyes.

I'd only had the grossly overpriced gin and tonic and I was beginning to feel dizzy. Though that might have been because my lungs refused to cooperate, and boy was it getting hot in there. Maybe this was the sort of place that they gave you five shots in one to account for the crazy prices? My reaction had absolutely freaking nothing to do with Darcy.

I was about to find my voice when the waiter returned, silver tray in hand. First, he placed the glass of scotch in front of Darcy, a perfectly spherical piece of ice clinking against the side of the glass. I couldn't tell you what was so special about the blend, only that the price of a bottle was probably the same as the GDP of a small nation.

The waiter poured a splash of pink wine into my glass. Stepping back, he waited expectantly. Darcy looked at the glass and back up to me, silently telling me to sample it. I thought that was something they only did in movies. Was I supposed to sip it and give the waiter a run down on flavour profiles? I did not have a refined palette. It was impossible when you earned minimum wage and drank whatever was on special. On a special occasion, I was known to splash out on a fifteen pound bottle. Sometimes you just have to treat yourself.

I lifted the glass and swirled it around a touch. That was what I was meant to do, right? That's what they do on TV anyway. Taking a sip, I nodded, pretending I was dissecting the flavours in my mind. I'd had better drops from the clean skin section.

"Ah, that will do nicely." I smiled broadly at the waiter making my dimples pop. The waiter filled the rest of my glass with wine.

"Someone will be out to take your order shortly."

"Actually," Darcy said. "We're waiting on a few others, no need to return before they arrive."

The waiter nodded and left. The service was nothing if not efficient.

"Busy day at work?"

Darcy took a sip of his whiskey and dipped his head. "I was in surgery from eight to four today."

"That sounds… intense."

Darcy hummed and nodded. "It was." I took a sip of my wine and winced. It was not good. "Don't you like it?"

"It's fine," I brushed it off with a smile and another sip. I held back the wince this time. "What was the case you had today?"

"Do you really want to know?"

No.

"Sure."

"It was an eight-year-old born with a spinal deformity. We had to fuse her spine in six places and put a rod in to help strengthen it." That sounded complicated and risky. Shrugging, he set the glass on the table. "I enjoy it. It's just like doing a puzzle."

A really complex, life altering puzzle.

He had a really nice voice. Deep, rich, with that accent that made ME want to demand he call me "Sassenach" while kilted. I could listen to him talk about the intricacies of surgery all night, even if he used big medical terms I didn't know the meaning of. I may have disliked the man, but I could admit that he was damn fine.

"That's the dream, isn't it?" I took another sip of that damn wine. "Loving what you do so it doesn't feel like work anymore."

"And do you enjoy your job?" Darcy raised his eyebrow in askance.

I shrugged. "I don't hate it."

That was the truth. Mostly. While I didn't particularly enjoy dressing up as an elf and handsy father's who liked to cop a feel while their wives are wrangling the little ones, I did enjoy the interactive aspect of it. And the people watching was an event all of its own.

Darcy snorted. A sardonic little puff of air I didn't care for. "What about the art? You said you were an artist right?"

He remembered. That was unexpected.

"I love it," I said, my gaze catching his. "When I pick up a pencil or brush it feelS right. Like it's exactly what I'm meant to be doing. Everything else is secondary."

"But it's not a real job, is it?" Darcy dropped his eyes, his brows furrowing. Nice to see he shared the same sentiments as my mother.

I frowned. "I would rather be poor and living each day doing what I love than work like a dog for a crap boss doing something I hate."

Darcy looked back up. "Bit of a cliché isn't it? The classic starving artist mentality."

Except I wasn't a starving artist. Not even close. My bank account might be dangerously low but there was no way I was going to live in an artists commune barely getting by. I might live and breathe art but there was no way I was ever going to put myself in that position.

Finishing my wine in one large gulp, I set the empty glass to the side. "I think I'm going to call Jane. See what's holding them up." Shoving the chair back, legs scrapping loudly against the polished wooden floors, I stood up. "Excuse me."

Heading out of the restaurant, I felt the eyes of the patrons on me as I tracked across the dining room. Pulling the door open (I wasn't about to make that mistake again) I stepped out into the cool air. Standing to the side beneath an overhang, snow flurries began to fall, dusting the ground with specks of white.

Pulling out my phone, I quickly found Jane's number and called her. It rang and rang some more until I reached voicemail. "Hi, you've reached Jane Bennet. I'm unavailable to take your call right now so please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as I can."

A knot of worry formed in my stomach.

Jane was practically glued to her phone, she very rarely let it go to voicemail. I breathed out slowly and tried her again. Once more it went to voicemail. I checked the time. They were almost and an hour late. Something had to have happened.

The door to the restaurant opened and Darcy stepped out, his eyes searching for me. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he stepped towards me and told me the last thing I ever wanted to hear.

"There's been an accident," he said gravely. "We have to go to the hospital."

My heart leaped into my throat, my eyes prickling with tears. Thoughts came thick and fast, scenario after scenario flashing in my brain. Mangled cars, head injuries from slipping on the ice, run over by reindeer. The last one was, admittedly, unrealistic, but I could barely form a real thought.

I followed Darcy numbly to his car and took my seat in the passenger seat. Catching a glimpse of myself in the side mirror, my face was pale and my hands wouldn't stop trembling.

Cranking up the heat, Darcy pulled out onto the busy street. His calm, matter of fact manner helped allay my anxiety. Reaching over, he put a hand over my trembling hands twisting into the skirt of my dress. I had expected his hands to be cold, not a reassuring warmth.

"Wh-what happened?" My voice broke.

"Charlie said they were T-boned. Someone had run a red light."

"Is Jane okay?" I looked up to his face, his eyes fixed on the road.

"I'm not going to lie to you," Darcy said. "The hit was on her side of the car and it was bad."

My stomach dropped.

What if she was dead? What if she was in a coma? What if…

Questions raced through my brain at alarming speeds. So fast that they barely registered as a thought until they were already gone. Everything in me hoped and prayed that she was alright. That she would be alright.