I wanted this moment to last forever.
“Wait here for a moment, okay?”
I nodded, letting my arms fall from his neck. He paused before turning and disappearing from the room.
That hadn’t quite gone as I’d expected.
“Here.” Jordan walked back in, a white, rectangular envelope in one hand, and sheets of paper in the other. He held the envelope up and glanced at it before presenting it to me.
My name was scrawled on the top.
I froze. “Is that…”
“Your letter?” He nodded. “You’re the only one who ever earned it on her own. It should have been yours from the start.”
My lips parted, and I took a shaky breath. My eyes dropped to the envelope, and with a trembling hand, I closed my finger and my thumb around a corner of it. He let it go instantly and took a step back.
“What’s that?” I focused on the sheets remaining in his hand.
“The agreement.” He held it so I could see the front page.
Memories of that day came rushing back to the forefront of my mind and how very different that first kiss had been compared to the one we’d just shared.
I gasped as he tore it straight down the middle. “What are—what?”
He dropped the torn pieces on the coffee table. “I’d said before I told you everything—this is it, sweet thing. You have your letter. You can go.”
I traced his face with my eyes. His short, dark hair, electric-blue eyes framed with long lashes… Soft pink lips surrounded by rough whiskers. My grip on the envelope tightened, creasing the paper.
It was over.
Everything I’d tried to do for the past weeks… It’d accumulated in this. The very thing I’d wanted since the moment he’d told me that he knew what I did for a living.
#p#分页标题#e#
Except… I didn’t want it anymore.
It didn’t matter to me how this had started. It didn’t matter that it was now over.
I didn’t want it to be over. I didn’t want to leave him.
“What if I don’t want to go?”
Slowly, Jordan turned back to me. “Then don’t,” he said simply.
I threw my letter on top of the torn contract on the table. “I don’t want to go,” I whispered. I walked toward him and stopped within touching distance. “Don’t… Please don’t make me go.”
As he stared down into her indigo eyes, he knew he couldn’t. How could he make her leave when it went against every desire in his body? When all he wanted to do was scoop her up and explore her body the way it should be explored?
When all he wanted for her to stay right there with him?
“So stay.” The words were said gruffly, but he meant them both.
Darcy took a step closer to him and placed her hand on his chest. He closed his eyes as he felt his heart beating against the palm of her hand.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For telling me those things.”
“If anyone deserved to know, it was you.” He rested his hand against the side of her face and tenderly brushed his thumb across her cheek.
She turned her face into his palm and covered his hand with hers. “I have one more question.”
“Ask away.”
“Why did you close yourself off after Amanda died?”
His stomach tightened. “To protect myself. I was also terrified of replacing her.” He knew that it sounded stupid, but it was the only thing that made sense. “It was easier to be alone than to risk someone taking her place.”
“You know nobody can ever do that, right?” Darcy spoke quietly. “No one can ever be Amanda.”
“Yes, I do now. It just took a little time.” His lips pulled into a small smile, and he slid his hand around the back of her head. “Took a little time to find someone so not like her that there wouldn’t be a chance of it.”
“I think that’s a compliment.” Laughter tainted her words, and the sound made him smile wider. “So…thank you.”
In fact, he did more than a smile. He laughed. “Come here.” He pulled her closer to him and took her mouth with his. “How long are you staying?”
Her hands crept beneath his shirt and flattened against his back. “How long do I need to?”
Now, he grinned. “All night.”
Dear Professor, surprise… Xoxo, Darcy.
I managed to sneak in and out of Dalton House without being seen on Saturday afternoon. It was a damn miracle… Because I now had everything I wanted and one thing I didn’t know I did. Not that being with Jordan—for real this time—came without its own set of problems.
Namely that we were looking at potentially hiding our relationship for a long longer than another three weeks. We realized as we were together over the weekend that we were looking at hiding it long past graduation, and I wasn’t sure how viable that idea was. Neither was he.