It Had to Be You by Georgia Clark (iphone ebook reader .TXT) 📕

Darlene did always look incredible when they were out in public or onstage.

“But, you’re not always trying around me. I seem to recall some pretty ripe T-shirts and very baggy sweats at rehearsal.”

She laughed, relaxing into the passenger seat. “Okay—maybe I’m not always trying around you.”

“I like that,” he said. “I like I can see all sides of you.”

“Most sides,” she corrected.

“With a view to working my way to all,” he replied, unable to resist wiggling his eyebrows at her until she laughed and punched his arm.

They chatted easily as they drove. Not having to look into her sizzling dark eyes helped. They always had plenty to talk about, but their banter was slightly different than usual. Usually, Darlene was annoyed with him about something he no doubt deserved—she was in the right, and he was in the wrong. But tonight, she was gentler with him. Laughing at his jokes and even paying him a few offhand compliments. He had to admit, it was pretty damn lovely. By the time they pulled up to his parents’ driveway, he was sad the two-and-a-half-hour car ride was over. And more than a little anxious that the reality of his family’s wealth, a reality he chose not to underline, was now on full, gaudy display. Darlene took in the size of the estate, bemused.

“Okay. You didn’t mention your parents lived in a palace.”

“Damn, I should’ve warned you.” They parked in the circular drive and ascended the sweeping front steps. “I’m such an—”

But his next word—idiot—was cut short by Darlene’s lips pressing firmly on his. When she pulled back, he blinked, stunned.

“—incredibly fortunate person. What was that for?”

Darlene blushed and ran her tongue over her bottom lip.

“Come on in, lovebirds,” Imogene called from the front door. Behind her, his mother was peering at them, intrigued.

“For the ruse,” Darlene said, taking his hand.

Of course: Darlene’s kisses were for the money. Dinner with his family was in their newly signed contract, after all. And even though the whole lunatic scheme was his idea, Zach was surprised by how much that hurt.

38

Darlene accepted a warm hug from Imogene and a Don’t wrinkle my outfit air-hug from his mother, Catherine. She shook hands with Zach’s father, Mark, and was introduced to their house manager, Debra, a brisk, friendly woman in her forties, who looked Indian or Caribbean. They exchanged a smile and small nod of recognition. Darlene was relieved not to be the only nonwhite person in a fifty-mile radius, even though Debra, despite working on a laptop and not serving drinks, was still technically staff. It was hard not to think of Get Out. When Debra disappeared into a study to work from one of the comfortable leather chairs, Darlene stopped herself cracking a joke about the Sunken Place.

“I thought we’d start with a little tipple on the patio,” Catherine said, resplendent in a red silk wrap dress and fresh round of Botox. “Just something casual.”

It was neither little nor casual. The patio was the size of a ship, looking out over a spangled Olympic-size pool and acres of immaculately landscaped green. Catherine handed Darlene a rum-based cocktail she needed two hands to wrangle.

Zach requested a seltzer. His mother looked shocked. “Zach, you’re not drinking?” She said this in the same way one might exclaim, Zach, you can fly?!

Zach explained he was driving, laying a hand on Darlene’s knee. The sensation zipped up her spine with such hot, unexpected electricity, she twitched. Reading this as reproach, Zach removed his hand.

“Why didn’t you get a driver?” Mark asked. Casually, Zach’s dad was in a three-piece suit, and shoes a crocodile had casually sacrificed its life for. “Don’t you usually get a driver?”

“Don’t you get it?” Imogene sipped her cocktail, her blue eyes flashing. “They wanted to be alone.”

“Oh,” Zach’s parents said. They exchanged a slightly mystified look. Unclear whether it was because of Zach’s sobriety, or that Darlene would want to be alone with their son.

The conversation moved on to Imogene and Mina’s upcoming wedding, an event Darlene was expected to attend with the family. On one hand, she felt guilty. The Livingstones were investing in her emotionally, and she was lying to them. But another, less noble part of herself was looking forward to it. Not just because she’d be attending a wedding with Zach that they wouldn’t have to work at. Because she’d be attending a wedding with Zach.

It was odd witnessing Zach at home with his family. Darlene was used to him being the life of the party, which was sometimes fun and sometimes annoying, but here Zach was muted. Perhaps he saw entertaining people as work. He wasn’t working now. He and Imogene seemed like partners in surviving two dramatic narcissists, in a place where expectations were so impossibly high he wasn’t even bothering to please them with a performance. And the irony was Zach’s parents still treated him like a clown.

Zach-as-annoying-idiot was a role he’d written for himself and played with aplomb ever since Darlene met him. But it had become less circumstantial, based on fact, and more institutional, based on assumption. Zach put himself down a lot, and often set up everyone around him to do the same. The heir and the spare. He wasn’t the spare. He wasn’t inferior. He was thoughtful and sensitive and flustered by her in a way that really was very cute. Darlene had realized that if she gave Zach the benefit of the doubt, she liked him more than she expected.

She scooted her chair closer and took his hand. An almost shy smile quirked his lips in a way she found absolutely adorable. Their hands settled between the two chairs, connected.

Imogene watched with a curious tilt of her head.

After they were all well on their way to getting drunk, it was time to head into dinner. Darlene excused herself to use the restroom. Gold-plated taps and instead of a hand towel, a pyramid of tiny rolled towels the size of handkerchiefs. On