AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Darcy swallowed hard. “I don’t like that explanation at all. Is that how you see the course of love too, as beginning with promise, but doomed to a tragic end?”
Griffin responded by playing a series of minor chords. “It doesn’t matter how deeply a couple might love each other. Eventually one of them will die and leave the other alone to grieve. Unless, of course, they’re both killed in some senseless accident, which is scarcely a happy ending.”
“If that’s all you believe life has in store for us,” Darcy warned, “you ought not to write lyrics. Just play the music and let the listener lose herself in her own dreams.”
Griffin turned to face her. “There are only two things worth writing about, love and death. It’s the juxtaposition of joy and sorrow that give that piece its resonance. Now let’s see if the pizza is ready. I’m so hungry I may not make it back to the kitchen.”
His dark comments reminded her of their very first conversation when she’d thought him so serious she’d wondered if he had a melancholy bent. Perhaps all creative artists did. Whatever his present mood, however, his opinion was deeply disturbing.
“I’m not really hungry,” she told him. “I think I’ll just go on home.”
Griffin left the piano bench to take her hand. “Don’t run off. Even if you’re not hungry, we could discuss the meaning of life all night.”
“You mean argue, which you constantly refuse to do, so there doesn’t appear to be much hope for a lively conversation. Besides, I have an early job. The man is my most important client, and I want to be at my best.”
“If he’s so important, he ought not to have to eat alone.”
“Probably not, but I’m really just too tired to be good company, and I want to go home.”
“You could sleep here,” Griffin insisted.
Darcy stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “Thank you, but I’d not get any rest. Don’t let your pizza burn. I’ll get dressed, then tell you good-night before I leave.”
Griffin didn’t look pleased. “I’d really hoped the day would end better than it began.”
Darcy raised her hand to caress his cheek. “It did,” she swore convincingly, but she left with the same haste with which she’d arrived.
By the time she reached home, she’d come to the damning realization that while she might see the differences between them as too great to be successfully bridged, he must have always believed their affair would end badly. That was the real tragedy, in her view, but the only way she could prove him wrong was to remain with him forever, and that would require far more courage than she possessed.
Chapter Nine
Monday morning, Christy Joy caught Darcy before she left the nursery. “The way you dashed out of here last night, I was afraid something was wrong.” She paused and smiled knowingly. “Or perhaps something is very right, and you were simply anxious to see Griffin again. If so, I hope you’ll soon change his mind about our lease.”
Darcy shuffled the orders on her desk and tried to find some innocuous way to admit everything had gone wrong without giving away a single hint as to why. She sank in her chair and managed a wobbly smile.
“Griffin is the most fascinating man I’ve ever met, or ever will. But I don’t want to give up my dreams to live his, and yet, when I’m with him, it’s difficult to believe anything else matters.”
Christy Joy’s brows dipped in concern. “It’s not like you to get so deeply involved with someone this fast.”
“No, it certainly isn’t, but I should finish his landscaping job today, and that will give me some distance. I’m sorry I’ve no hope to offer about the building. Griffin is determined to put a recording studio here, and I’m afraid once he settles on something, he doesn’t equivocate. He did offer to help us find a new location, though.”
Now clearly disgusted, Christy Joy began to back away. “Try a little harder, Darcy. It’s possible he’s as fascinated with you as you are with him. Don’t waste that advantage. I refuse to think about leaving here during the day, but after I’ve put Twink to bed, I end up in tears.”
Darcy got up to hug her friend. Christy Joy was always so bubbly and sweet that it was easy to forget she could have problems too. Nothing compared to murder, however, and Darcy wasn’t about to terrify her with that news.
Christy Joy returned the sympathetic hug with a quick squeeze. “I have to open the shop, but let’s talk later. I realize your situation with Griffin is complicated, but I made the mistake of diving right into J. Lyle’s life rather than building one with him, and I’m still paying for it. I’d hate to see you fall into the same abyss when it’s so awfully hard to escape.”
“I appreciate your advice,” Darcy responded warmly, but she doubted she would have much more to confide later. She’d wanted Griffin, there was no doubt about it; but there was also no way to enjoy the spectacular beauty of a hurricane without being blown away.
The Range Rover wasn’t parked in Griffin’s driveway. While there were a great many places he could be that morning, Darcy had expected him to be there to watch them work, and his absence just didn’t feel right.
She pulled his key from her overalls and entered the house through the back door. He’d wrapped the leftover pizza in foil and placed it in the refrigerator, but there wasn’t so much as a glass or cup in the sink to indicate he’d been there that morning. The kitchen was too neat, and the house not merely quiet, but deathly still.
She ran up the stairs, throwing open the doors as she went. Griffin had made his bed and put away his luggage. There was a book currently on the bestseller lists by his bedside, but with no personal items to reveal the uniqueness of his personality, the room could just as easily have been a furniture showroom. Fresh black towels hung in the bathroom, and the window was open to draw in the sea breeze, but there were no toiletries in view.
While Griffin was away, she’d come inside to use the bathroom off the kitchen, but she hadn’t prowled the house as she did today. Maybe it was always this immaculate, but again, she felt as though she were moving through a stage set rather than a man’s home.
She paused at the door of the computer room. The computers emitted a soft whirring sound, and the printer was spitting out letters at regular intervals, but without the slightest inclination to read the correspondence, she hurried back downstairs.
