Page 68 of Ardently Yours

“Huh?” I ask, bad at pretending I’d been paying attention all along.

“I was saying that we’re going to head back to the hospital once we finish breakfast. My mom texted and said that Dad’s awake, so it’s probably a good time for us to head over and see him. But I don’t want you to feel like you have to come and stick around for all of that if you don’t want to.”

Again, it’s the way he says it. Now that I’m finally focused on him, I watch him. And I realize that I know this man a little better than I thought. It’s crazy how you can learn someone in a matter of months and then know when something is off.

It’s in the way he says it. Almost like his defenses are up. Like he’s expecting me to say no. To say that I don’t want to go. Then I’m thinking, when did he change all of a sudden?

One moment he was smiling, making breakfast, and handing me orange juice. Now, he looks upset. Like he wants me to say I’ll stay.

His expression would look unreadable to someone else. But I can tell something is off. That’s one thing about him that I’ve come to learn. He’s witty, annoying and usually in a good mood. But I can also tell when he is not okay. I start to think that it’s all because of me.

How could I have that much of an effect on one man? To make him…

Happy? Sad? What? I’m not even sure.

“I’m going to go get myself together,” Georgiana says, getting up to put her plate and glass in the sink.

She turns back around and says to us before she walks out, “And don’t worry about the dishes. The cleaning company will be here a little after noon, so they’ll be able to wash everything and straighten up.”

She leaves the kitchen and heads up the stairs to her suite. I have the strange sense that she wasn’t leaving just to get ready to visit her dad in the hospital. She was leaving the kitchen so I could be alone with her brother.

“I like your sister,” I say because I can’t think of anything else to say.

And because it’s true. I do like her. I think that after meeting his mom yesterday, having one person in his family not treat me like they didn’t want me to be here was nice. Though maybe his mom was onto something. Maybe I shouldn’t be here because...

Why would a fake girlfriend come to comfort her fake boyfriend during a very real crisis?

“Do you want to talk about my sister right now?” Will asks me, and I notice the edge in his voice as he wipes off the counter and starts gathering the dishes to put them in the sink.

For a moment, I think he’s about to start washing them when I see him turn on the water and rinse them off. I walk over to him with my dishes, setting them down beside him on the counter.

“Georgiana said that we didn’t have to wash the dishes, so what are you doing?” I ask, leaning against the counter next to him.

I want to change the subject and keep things light because maybe it’ll help. At least I hope it will.

“Do you seriously think that I didn’t see how you choked earlier, Lizzie?”

There he is, using my first name again. For some reason, it feels like a slap in the face this time. But then I’m glad he didn’t call me by my actual first name instead of my nickname. Because if he starts calling me Elizabeth, I might actually scream.

“What? Because I choked on my orange juice?”

“Don’t do that.” He dries his hands, turns the water off, and faces me.

Now we’re both leaning against the counter facing each other.

“Don’t do what, Darcy?”

He studies me for a moment before responding. “You’re pushing me away.”

I take a step back. “No, I’m not. Do you really think everything’s all about you?”

“If you’re not pushing me away, then why did you practically stumble over the word love when my sister asked about us?”

I blink at him because I’m really trying to understand how he can be mad about that. I mean, okay, in my defense, I was not expecting her to say that.

I also know that this is a complicated and crazy time for him right now. As much as I definitely feel something for him, I don’t know if I can rush into anything else. I don’t know if I’m capable and that is not his fault.

To him I say, “I wasn’t expecting her to say that. But you act like you don’t know me. You know that if I have something to say, I’ll say it. I was just taken aback and didn’t have a response then.”