Mr. Darcy's Kiss

“I can understand that,” she replied with a nod. She waved to someone behind me. “Will you excuse me? I see an old friend.”

“Of course,” I told her. “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

“And you. By the way, here he comes with some champagne for you.” Emma smiled and touched my shoulder. “If you do have an epic battle with your mortal enemy, please don’t mess up the lobby floor. Charles worked really hard to make it look nice.”

I raised my hand like I was taking an oath. “I will not destroy the hotel,” I promised her with a chuckle.

She grinned and picked her drink up off the tall table. She nodded a polite to hello to Mr. Darcy as she went to greet her friend. I wished Emma or Jane would come back and save me from having to talk to Mr. Darcy by myself.

“I didn’t know what you preferred, so I brought my favorite,” he said, handing me my drink.

I attempted a smile as I took a sip. At least it tasted good.

“It’s good,” I told him. “Thank you.”

Silence fell between us, and I could hear a million other conversations in the lobby that sounded better than ours. I looked around for an escape, but there wasn’t one. I was stuck having a drink. I thought about throwing the champagne in his face, but I didn’t want to ruin Charles’ party. I needed to play nice since I promised Jane I would.

“I’m afraid I’m not very discerning in my champagne tastes,” I said after a moment. I needed to fill the silence, or I was going just to end up stewing and then reacting poorly. “This is good, though.”

“It’s Dom Perignon.”

“It’s very nice.” I took another sip. I was going to need more if this was how the evening was going to go.

Mr. Darcy took another sip of his drink and nodded, leaving the silence between us to grow again.

“It’s your turn to say something,” I said after a moment. “That’s how conversations work. I said something about the drink. You should say something about how the lobby is decorated or how well Charles did with this place. You should say something. Anything.”

He looked at me with those mesmerizing blue eyes.

“Of course,” he replied, lowering his glass. “What would you like to discuss?”

“You know, I’m not really sure,” I said. I could hear the lyrics to a love song playing over the lobby sound system. “I guess we could just stand here in awkward silence. That seems to be working just fine.”

Mr. Darcy took a sip of his drink, apparently unperturbed by my remarks. “Do you prefer the silence?” he asked. “Or I suppose we could talk politics?”

The idea of talking politics with Mr. Darcy made me wince. “I have a feeling that talking politics would leave us screaming obscenities at one another.”

“I think we’re probably more alike than you think,” he replied, a knowing smirk crossing his face. I did my best to ignore the impulse to knock it off his smug head.

“What about your business?” I offered. “That seems to be the only thing that interests you.”

A hint of irritation crossed his features. “Why do you say that?”

“It’s all you seem to do,” I replied, feeling self-satisfied in my small victory against him. I’d gotten under his skin with that comment. “You’re always on the phone. It seems like you never stop working.”

He took a slow sip of champagne. I watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. He smiled at me.

“How are your patients in the CICU?” he asked. He was obviously avoiding talking about business just to prove me wrong.

I was not expecting that, but it was a nice deflection. Fine. I could play that game.

“They’re doing well,” I replied.

“I actually just discharged one yesterday. He had a triple bypass and was a wonderful man with a kind family.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Mr. Darcy said, almost managing to sound sincere.

I decided it was time to play hardball. I set my drink down on the high table.