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“There must be something you can do!” Jane wailed.
How many times have I said that to myself? “I don’t know what, short of visiting every house in America to explain how I really feel.”
“Just talk to him.” Bing reached out a beseeching hand to Elizabeth.
Damn. It was as if he was offering her the forbidden fruit. She wanted it so badly but knew she couldn’t have it.
“Please,” Bing said.
Elizabeth was standing again, her eyes searching the room for her purse. There it was by the door. “I can’t. I just…can’t,” she murmured, stumbling toward the door. Grabbing her purse, she yanked the door open with one hand. She paused on the threshold, not looking back at Bing or Jane. “I’m sorry…I’m so sorry.”
Elizabeth closed the door quickly so she wouldn’t hear their response.
***
For a few seconds after she woke, Elizabeth didn’t know where she was. Then it came back to her. Charlotte’s sofa. After wandering around D.C. in a daze for several hours, Elizabeth had called Charlotte with a pathetically transparent lie about having fought with Jane. Charlotte hadn’t questioned it, merely offering to leave a key at the building’s front desk for her.
Fortunately for Elizabeth, Charlotte had spent the night at Bill’s. Elizabeth wasn’t in the mood to hear moans from Charlotte’s bedroom and cries of “That’s it, Big Boy! Staple me so hard!”
She rubbed the back of her neck, rotating her head slowly. Elizabeth hadn’t had a drop of alcohol, but she still felt hungover. How was that fair?
Leveraging her body into an upright position, she stared out the window as pieces of her conversation with Bing replayed themselves in her mind. His words had pinged through her head like errant pinballs all night, preventing her from falling asleep until the wee hours of the morning.
I’m miserable without him. She had finally admitted the truth to herself at around three a.m. One of the few things that made her self-imposed exile bearable was knowing that it was the best thing for Will. But Bing had suggested that Will was miserable without her. Elizabeth swallowed hard as her eyes burned with unshed tears. You cried over Will last night; how about we try something productive for a change?
At around four a.m., a nascent plan had begun to coalesce in the back of her mind. But seriously contemplating it provoked sweaty palms and a racing heart. What if she was wrong? What if Bing was wrong? What if Will hated her too much to forgive her?
No. She needed more information before she could decide. Elizabeth stared at her cell phone; the number she’d texted Bing for late last night glowed on the screen, demanding her attention. She wrapped one arm around her knees and tapped the number with the other hand. Closing her eyes, she focused on what she was planning to say.
“Hello?” said a female voice.
“Hi, Georgiana.” Elizabeth swallowed past the thickness in her throat. “This is Elizabeth Bennet.”
There was a pause. “What do you want?” The tone was cool but not hostile.
Her pulse pounded in her ears like a smith working a forge. “I need to ask you a question…about Will…”
Chapter Nineteen
As he waited at the bottom of the stairs, Fitz bounced on the balls of his feet with impatience. “We don’t want to be late for Hilliard,” he admonished Darcy when he reached the first step. Darcy scowled at him. He was the president. Everyone else could damn well wait on his schedule.
When Darcy reached the bottom, Fitz tried to set a brisk pace for their walk to the limo. In retaliation, Darcy slowed down, making Fitz grimace in frustration, which gave Darcy a little jolt of satisfaction. It shouldn’t. Instead I should be grateful Fitz has been willing to suffer me these last months. Darcy knew he’d been a bastard, but at this hour of the morning he couldn’t bring himself to care.
Impatience got the best of Fitz. “Darce, we need to—”
“I’m going to be late sometimes,” Darcy snapped. “Stuff happens.”
Fitz arched a brow. “Wow, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”
“It’s seven a.m. for fuck’s sake!” Darcy growled. “Why the hell do I even need to be out of bed at this ungodly hour?”
“You agreed to the interview.”
It was true. Discussing global warming and the need for renewable energy with a ZNN reporter in front of the famous Washington D.C. cherry blossoms had seemed like a no-brainer at the time. But… “That was before I knew it would be at the ass crack of dawn,” Darcy grumbled.
“It’s the only time the Secret Service could manage the traffic,” Fitz reminded him as they walked outside. O’Leary, the head of the morning’s Secret Service detail, was standing by the open door to the presidential limo. They both slid in.
“Hilliard and Bing both think the interview can build support for the bill.” Fitz’s soothing tone irritated Darcy even more.
