And she would never have known.
She would have popped into Dempsey’s bar with Mel and assumed it was his night off. Might even have silently cheered the bullet she had dodged by not running into him. Only two days later, the idea of a world without him—her world without him—turned her blood to ice.
Tears sprang into her eyes. Goddamn him.
“Darcy, what’s wrong? Am I hurting you?” He made to withdraw, and she clasped his perfect, tight ass to preserve the physical connection as if it could minimize the emotional.
“You’re a good man, Beck Rivera.”
He looked unconvinced. “I’m not. I’m selfish and greedy.”
“No, no.” She kissed the knotted bridge of his nose. “Look at what you do, at what you’ve become. I’m so proud of you.”
He drew back with the expression of a stern angel, and when he spoke it was like he gouged each word from a deep, dark place.
“This won’t be enough for me.”
Thoughts toppled like dominoes, and her heart seized in her chest, not unpleasantly. But her walls had walls, so she said the first thing that popped into her scrambled brain.
“Let’s not complicate it.”
“No, Darcy. Let’s.”
His kiss cut off all argument, making her blood pound, her heart soar, and consuming her utterly and completely whole.
chapter 7
Have I told you lately how sexy you are?” Darcy tiptoed up to kiss him, then moved her lips along the edge of his ear, eliciting a shiver.
“You’re just sayin’ that ’cause it’s true, querida.”
Damn, she looked fine in a long coat and cream scarf, like a pristine present he wanted to unwrap slowly. And the backdrop could not be more perfect. All around them, the twinkling trees and festive atmosphere at Zoo Lights in Lincoln Park painted the scene in the brushstrokes of a fairy tale. Each year, the zoo—and ComEd—draped the trees in colored lights, blasted tunes from the sound system, and scared the shit out of the animals. A most excellent Chicago holiday tradition.
Darcy had said she didn’t want to complicate what was happening between them, but Beck had quickly kiboshed that idea. Knowing that shock-and-awe tactics were needed to break down her barriers, he had planned a romantic date with holiday lights and hot chocolate and frickin’ polar bears, followed by a horse-drawn carriage ride down Michigan Avenue where he’d hoped to cop a feel under a warm tartan blanket. The fact that this magical space was home to their first kiss years ago made it just that much sweeter.
It had all gone terribly wrong.
“I want to see the gorillas next,” an imperious voice rang out from below. The third wheel, on wheels. Darcy’s grandmother had invited herself along when Darcy let slip their plans during a visit to the nursing home.
“Probably looking for a new husband,” Darcy muttered, not unkindly. She pushed her grandmother’s wheelchair along the tarmac path toward the monkey house with ease. The old lady couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds soaking wet.
“I heard that,” Mrs. Cochrane snapped back. “Two of my three husbands had more hair than any of the brutes in the cages here. I like them well covered.”
Darcy shot Beck a sidelong glance, barely suppressing her laughter. The cold brought color to her pale cheeks, making her appear fresh-faced and younger than her twenty-five years. She looked happy, and that brought out his happy.
“How about some hot chocolate, Mrs. C?” Beck asked. “Warm those crabby old bones of yours.”
“Let’s hope you’re hung, young man, because you’re certainly not charming.”
Darcy broke into shocked laughter. “Grams, be nice. Beck didn’t have to bring you,” she said, adding a sly smile for Beck that sent his lungs on hiatus.
“Extra whipped cream,” the old bag muttered.
Beck winked at his girl and hustled off to get the hot drinks, but as he stood in line at the kiosk, his smile melted away. In less than two weeks, she’d be outta here, winging her way to the Lone Star State and this new job she seemed excited about. He could make sacrifices to the gods of Chicago—the Bulls, the Bears, whoever people prayed to on the I-90—but it would be useless. It was like wishing he could hold back the sunrise.
Feeling glum, he delivered the hot chocolates and took over pushing duties so Darcy could have her hands free to drink. After a spin around the monkey house and a pop in to see the giraffes, they watched the light displays choreographed to holiday tunes, followed by the ice sculpting. Or Darcy and her grandmother watched.
Beck watched Darcy.
The lights danced over her delicate features and picked up flecks of gold in her big, expressive eyes. She had traveled all over the world, lived a cosmopolitan life most people could only dream of, and here she was with him, impressed by a crappy light show and a kid with a chain saw. In that instant, all her passion and beauty overwhelmed him.