“Is Luke here?” Darcy asked. She realized suddenly that Charlotte might be here with him and cursed herself for her own impulsivity. She hadn’t planned this at all, and she was scared, but she knew what Edward had said would haunt her if she didn’t do something.
“Yeah,” said Jim. “He’s just in his room, I’ll go get him.”
“Thank you,” Darcy panted, both relieved and nervous.
“Great, wait right here,” said Jim, hurrying up the stairs.
Minutes later, Luke came down the stairs with a furrowed, confused brow. He raised an eyebrow at Darcy.
“Darcy…?” He looked her up and down, trying to understand what was going on. “Is everything all right? You look like a wet sewer rat who’s just seen a ghost.”
“Thank you? Everything’s fine,” she assured him hurriedly, worried that Jim might come back downstairs at any moment. “Look, it’s just … Hi.” She smiled awkwardly.
“Hi,” he said back. “You’re freaking me out.”
“Okay, so here’s the thing. I’m just going to say it.” She took a deep breath. “On paper, you are totally wrong for me—you have no ambition and we don’t even have anything in common—and yet … and yet I find I love you.”
Her heart beat frantically. She could feel it banging up against the inside of her neck like a frantic and frenzied bird against a glass window. Luke’s eyes widened and he took a small step back.
“I’m engaged,” he said.
“I know, I know, and I am too.” She lifted up her hand to show him the ring. “Carl proposed, and I said yes. But the thing is, Luke—”
“Oh my God,” he said, a look of disgust spreading across his face. “You’re even worse than I thought.”
“What?” She felt the blood drain from her face. The warmth she normally saw deep in his eyes was gone and he was completely shut off from her, like a steel door.
“You’re so incredibly self-centered and selfish. You don’t know what love is, Darcy. If you knew what love was, you wouldn’t barge in here and try to tear up my relationship. You’re not thinking of me, or of Charlotte, and definitely not of Carl. All you’re thinking about is yourself.”
“But I—” Darcy stammered and froze. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She thought, at worst, he would kindly brush off her declaration of love. She hadn’t imagined anything like this. This was brutal.
“You’re so obsessed with yourself,” he went on. “You think you can do and say whatever you want because you’re so much better than everyone. You look down on everyone and everything. Your pride is off the charts, and it’s just too much for me to take. You’re a snobby New Yorker, and you should go back to the city and leave me alone.”
“Oh.” Darcy put her hand to her cheek as if she had been slapped in the face. “Well then, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”
She took a deep breath and put every ounce of energy she had into giving Luke a polite, composed smile. Then she turned away, avoiding eye contact with Jim, who had reappeared at the bottom of the staircase. She walked slowly, in a daze, back to the town car. Once inside, with the door closed behind her, she rested her head against the window and tried not to cry.
15
Back in her New York loft-style apartment, Darcy hid in bed, deep under luxurious, Egyptian-cotton linens and a three-thousand-dollar European goose down comforter. The phone by her side kept lighting up with texts from Bingley and Carl and her brothers, and even one from Jim, but she ignored them all. Especially the ones from Carl. Of course, Carl didn’t know that she had gone to Luke’s house to make a total fool of herself, but she was so ashamed of herself that she worried that talking to him now would push her over the edge into officially hating herself.
This feeling was a completely new one for Darcy. It’s not that Darcy had always been an upbeat kind of girl, but she had always, always thought highly of herself. Even in her darkest hours she never blamed herself or worried that she was the problem. Sure, people at work or people she didn’t know at all had called her a snob and other horrible things, but nobody whose opinion she cared about, and definitely nobody she loved. Until now, names she’d been called had always been water off a duck’s back, but Luke’s words were sticking. He was right, she was self-centered and egotistical, and it was true, aside from a select few, she really did only care about herself.
As for thinking she was better than everybody else, was that really so wrong? She played this one over and over again in her mind. Didn’t everybody think they were better than everybody else? If life is a competition, then you are your own team, and if you want to win—i.e., survive—you have to believe that your team—i.e., you—is the best. Right?
She burrowed deeper beneath the blankets, wondering what she was missing. Was she actually supposed to believe that everybody was created equally? To Darcy, there was evidence running rampant that this was simply not the case.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself. It doesn’t matter what Luke thinks of you. You’re getting married to Carl, and he thinks you’re perfect just the way you are. She picked up the phone she’d been shamefully avoiding and read the text from Carl.
When is your appointment to look at the Plaza? it read.
Today at 5, she replied.
Amazing, he wrote. I’m flying in today at noon, I’ll get to see it with you!
Hooray! she typed, then searched for the right emoji. Her thumb hovered over the skull for a second, but she ended up going with an unrealistic amount of heart-eyed faces, then let her phone drop listlessly onto the mattress.
The good thing about her anxiety about marrying Carl was that it distracted her from the epic devastation of Luke not only rejecting her but also tearing apart her character and entire sense of self-worth. There was one other thing that could distract her: work. She picked her phone back up and called Millie.
“Darcy!” she answered cheerily. “We haven’t heard from you in so long!”
“I know,” said Darcy. “Sorry about that.” There was a moment of silence from Millie’s end. Darcy wondered if it was caused by the shock of hearing her say sorry for the first time.
“That’s okay. You’re the boss!” Millie assured her. “You can do whatever you want.”
“Thanks, Millie,” said Darcy. She’d never been able to tell if Millie was a genuinely sweet girl or if she was just an expert at acting like one. “Listen, I’m back in New York and will come by today, in an hour.”
“Really? You know, it’s Christmas Eve. Barely anyone is here. Of course, feel free to come in—you’re the boss, like I said—but there’s really not much going on here.”
“That’s okay.” Darcy began to fantasize about having the office all to herself. “I’ll just catch up on some phone calls.”
“Whatever you say!”
“See you soon, Millie.”
Darcy hung up the phone and had an idea. Luke said she was self-obsessed? Well, would a self-obsessed person think to buy her assistant a very expensive Christmas present?
“I think not,” she said out loud, to nobody.
* * *
On her way into the office, Darcy stopped at Tiffany’s. She hurried awkwardly past the wedding ring collection and on to the necklaces, where she browsed quickly, looking for the most beautiful, elegant one. She settled on the diamond solitaire pendant, fourteen karat white gold.
“That one, please!” She pointed to it so the attendant wearing all beige—lipstick included—could see it. Darcy delighted in watching the attendant pluck the necklace from the white velvet display shelf and slip it into the Tiffany-blue suede pouch, which was then slipped into a Tiffany-blue box and tied with a white silk bow. As adults, nobody talked much about their favorite color, and Darcy couldn’t think of the last time anybody had asked about hers, but if they did, she’d no doubt tell them Tiffany blue.
* * *
“Wow,” Darcy said, walking in through the heavy glass door and into her corner office at Montrose Montrose and Fitzwilliam.
“You weren’t kidding. It really is dead around here.” Millie was sitting on Darcy’s couch with her laptop open, typing furiously. When she saw Darcy come in, she stopped midtype to look up. Millie was a nice-looking girl, charmingly naive, with thin-rimmed glasses, dark brown hair that she kept in a bun, and a penchant for cardigans, which she seemed to own in every shade of every color.
“Darcy!” She shot up from her seat. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks, Millie. It’s good to be back.”
“Here are your messages,” Millie said, scurrying to produce a stack of papers from beneath a different stack of papers. “And I can brief you on the clients whenever you’re ready.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Darcy smiled.
“What?” Millie tilted her head to the side, taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“We can do all that later. It’s Christmas Eve. We don’t need to do any work right now.”
“But then … why did you come in?”
“I have a present for you.”
“For me?” Millie stared. She looked as if Darcy had just told her she’d been selected at random to have dinner with the president.
“Yes, for you. Is that really so crazy?”
“No, no … I mean … uh … It’s just you’ve never gotten me a present before.”
“I know,” said Darcy. “You’ve been working for me for three years and I’ve never even gotten you a birthday present. It’s completely unforgivable.”
“Well, now, no, that’s not true,” Millie offered generously. “You wrote me a card two years ago on my birthday.”
“That’s pathetic.” Darcy rolled her eyes at herself. “I’m the absolute worst. I’ve been so self-centered, and I gotta change that. Something has to change. So here. I hope this is a good step in the right direction.”
Darcy slipped the blue box out of her Chanel bag and held her arm out to Millie.
“Oh my God, Darcy,” Millie laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? You got me something from Tiffany’s?”
“Open it! Well, wait, it has a card. Read that first.”
Millie opened the white card attached to the box and read it out loud.
“‘Happy Holidays to the perfect assistant. Sincerely, the Darcycuda.’” Millie turned bright red.
“I…” she stammered, embarrassed. “I didn’t think you, uh … I didn’t think you knew about that nickname. And we mean it as a compliment.”
“We?” Darcy raised an eyebrow, amused. “I thought it was just you.”
This made Millie redden even more.
“Oh, no, well, I mean, it’s not like—”
“Millie, relax.” Darcy rested her hand on Millie’s shoulder. “I’m not mad and I’m not going to make you tell me who else calls me that. I take it as a compliment. In fact, you can keep calling me that.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, it’s sweet. I guess I like that you know me well enough to come up with a nickname. And one that actually fits.”
“Oh.” Millie shrugged, relaxing slightly. “Okay.”
The two eyed each other uneasily, each unsure how to read the other, then broke out laughing.
“And I’ll come up with one for you, but I’ll need some time to think. So now open your present!”
Millie pulled on the white ribbon and it slid effortlessly off the box. She took the top off and looked inside. Her eyes widened to the size of Christmas ornaments.
“You’re crazy,” she balked. “You didn’t.”
“I did! Do you like it?”
“Do I like it? It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Here,” said Darcy. “I’ll help you put it on.” She plucked the necklace out of the cotton padding inside the box and unclasped it, then hung it around Millie’s neck so that it fell perfectly over her collarbones. Then she directed Millie by the shoulders to the nearest mirror, so she could see the diamond glittering from the center of her chest.
“It looks incredible on you!”
“It would look incredible on anyone. It’s a frickin’ diamond.”
“Well, it’s perfect for you, and it’s yours, so enjoy!”
“I got you something too,” Millie confessed. “Of course, it isn’t a diamond, and probably costs one-twentieth of what you got me.” She went to the bookshelf and brought back a lumpy object wrapped in gold wrapping paper.
“Oh, please,” joked Darcy. “I have enough diamonds. And it’s the thought that counts anyway, right?”
“Sure,” Millie agreed bashfully. “Here. I hope you like it.”
“I know I will,” Darcy said, tearing into the paper with her acrylic nails. Inside was a scarf, beautifully and elaborately hand-knitted in gradational shades of purple.
“Millie! I love it,” Darcy said, genuinely, and wrapped it around her neck. “Where’s it from?”
“I made it.”
“Stop!” Darcy gasped, eyeing her reflection in the mirror. “You are so amazingly talented. How long have you been knitting?”
“Oh…” Millie thought. “About fifteen years. Actually I … I’ve knitted something for you every Christmas that I’ve worked here.”
“You have?” Darcy searched her crowded memory but came up with nothing. “Why haven’t I received them?” For a moment she thought to call her assistant and yell at her for not making sure she got the presents each year, but then remembered that Millie was her assistant, and this definitely wasn’t her fault.
“I think they normally just get lost in the pile of stuff clients send you. It’s not a big deal, though. They’re just scarves.”
“Well, it’s a big deal to me,” said Darcy. “It’s an honor to be wearing something made by somebody so important to me.”
* * *
Three hours later, Darcy and Carl walked up Fifth Avenue toward the Plaza Hotel. Snow was falling lightly, and Carl kept rubbing her arms to keep her warm. It’s nice that he cares about my comfort, she thought. That’s a good quality in a husband, no doubt. Although I don’t actually want him to be rubbing my arms, and he can’t intuit that, and an inability to read me is not a good quality in a husband.
They walked up the front steps and were greeted by a woman in a pink wool pantsuit and oversize pearl earrings.
“You must be Carl Donovan and the future Mrs. Carl Donovan,” she said, way too sweetly for Darcy’s taste. “I’m Brindy.”
Of course you are, thought Darcy.
“Hi, Brindy!” Carl extended his hand politely. “I’m Carl and this is my fiancée, Darcy Fitzwilliam.”
Good, thought Darcy, he knows I hated that she called me “the future Mrs. Carl Donovan” and he is working to correct her. He remembers in senior year when I said if I ever got married I would keep my own last name. Good memory, respects my wishes—those are some good points in his favor.
“Hi.” Darcy gave her a weak wave. “Nice to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine, I’m sure.” Brindy clutched a clipboard close to her plump chest. “If you’ll just follow me, I’ll show you around so you can see what a gem this place is. As you know, your father is an old friend of Monty’s, so you could easily book this place for a steal.”
“Money isn’t an object,” Darcy said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, then thinking, It’s things like that that make people think I’m a snob, isn’t it?
“Even so…” Brindy gave her a strained smile. “It’s always nice to have connections.” She led them through a foyer and into the main lobby, which was currently overflowing with tastefully elegant Christmas decorations: white-branched trees wrapped in white lights, a robust tree threatening to go through the ceiling, a Santa’s Village display made of gingerbread and fondant icing, replete with a glazed sugar ice rink on which plastic figurines were skating.
“The Plaza can host two hundred wedding guests, not to mention the convenience of having rooms upstairs for anyone who wants to spend the night,” Brindy recited. “Many couples who have the
ir weddings here also like to open up the Oak Room for drinks during the reception, so the guests can drift in and out casually, as they please.”
“Great,” said Carl. “So what about the—”
“We’ll take it,” Darcy interrupted.
“We will?” Carl was taken aback. “Don’t you want to check out the Boathouse at Central Park? Or at least, don’t you have any questions for Brindy?”
“Nah.” Darcy shrugged. “What’s there to ask? It’s gorgeous and I’ve wanted to get married here for as long as I can remember. I don’t see why we need to drag out the process of choosing a place.” This was a lie. Darcy had never imagined herself getting married, let alone imagined the venue, but she would have said anything to minimize the amount of energy spent on the wedding-to-be. The more attention she gave it, the more real it would become.
“Wow,” said Brindy, impressed. “Most women tend to overthink these things when preparing for their wedding.”
“Yeah, well,” said Darcy, “I’m not most women. And I like making snap decisions. It’s helped me get ahead in life, and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. How much is the deposit?”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that, Darcy,” said Carl. “Your father is taking care of that.”
“Why?” asked Darcy. “I’m independently wealthy and I have my checkbook right here.”
“I’ll just text Monty,” Brindy said, clearly unnerved by Darcy’s determined, agitated energy. Actually, even Darcy herself was disturbed by it. “He can come down from his office and talk numbers.”
“Yes,” said Darcy, feeling her cheeks grow hot with adrenaline. “You do that.”
* * *
“So,” said Carl. They were sitting at the Oak Room bar, drinking martinis. Darcy rushed through the first one so that she could move on to the second.
“So?” asked Darcy.
“You made that decision pretty fast.”
“What decision?”
“On the Plaza.”
“No.” Darcy shook her head and took a sip. “It was a decision made over the course of twenty years. I was nine when I first thought one day I’d have my wedding at the Plaza.”