Chapter
Fifty-nine
The
Real Truth About Darcy Donovan
After driving Paige home in silence, Darcy
was just trying to cover for the whole evening. He was mortified. He’d never
have taken Paige there if he’d known everyone was home. Blair was lovely but
beyond that, his extended family were an embarrassment to an outsider.
A joke.
That
night in her room, lying in her bubble bath exasperated - apart from anything
else there was no shower in the bathroom - Paige tried to distract herself from
reading over her debate notes.
Suddenly, the topics weren’t so important
anymore.
Paige
stopped hoping, stopped wondering that Darcy might even be the one. He was not
relationship material, he never had been, Paige told herself. Her feelings were
an illusion. She had no idea why they’d spent so many days together. The
evening had been a disaster. Besides, they’d never even kissed. How could she have
possibly imagined he liked her? How could he expect her to like him after all
those family insults? Paige was reading over her closing argument notes, when
the knock at her door came.
Paige
pulled on her robe and opened the door slightly.
Darcy Donovan was standing outside, bottle
of champagne in one hand bunch of pink flowers in the other.
“Hey, Paige.”
“Hi
Darcy.”
“I
wanted to apologize for my extended family. My Aussie family are slightly less…
pompous. My sister and I… we’re really, nothing like them. Do you forgive me…
again?”
Paige paused, surprised.
“Forgiven not forgotten… I suppose it was all
quite funny in the end.”
Darcy smiled.
“I thought you might like to join me in a
college tradition.”
Paige paused for a moment, not understanding
why she was so happy. Then she smiled, “Just a minute… I gotta… get dressed.”
Darcy waited outside.
He wore his favorite jeans and had a long,
dark cashmere overcoat because the weather, even in summer, was chilly at midnight.
They’d been teamed up against each other. For once he didn’t want to win if it
meant Paige would lose. He told himself to snap out of it. That maybe this is
what love is. If the winning prize was a trip to Sydney next year, he wanted
her to be the one to win it.
He didn’t know what would happen tomorrow,
but he was going to make an attempt to celebrate tonight. He’d waited so long
to impress Paige and although he didn’t expect anything from her, he needed to
know… everything. He thought of all the
ways Paige had influenced him as he stood there in the landing. Well, she
hadn’t exactly changed him, but her attitudes about certain things had rubbed
off on him.
For example, he stopped and talked with and
bought lunch for, a homeless person when he was shopping in Chelsea recently.
He may not have thought about doing that before he met Paige. He may not have
even noticed the homeless person was a human being. He remembered Paige saying
in debate class, “we are all a reflection of the way we treat society’s weakest
and most vulnerable.” Deluded members of his own family had taught him that the
weakest and most vulnerable had probably done something wrong to deserve their
situation but Darcy knew this attitude was wrong. All human beings were just
one step away from misfortune… or fortune. It was just a trick of his birth
that he’d been born with so much money and he had an obligation to do the right
thing. He’d found his conscience because of Paige.
When he was interning at his uncle’s law
firm, he had more compassion for the disadvantaged people he met and even
advised his uncle that they should take more pro bono cases and his uncle
agreed.
So, Paige could never know how much he
meant to her, how much she had changed him – unless he told her. But, he didn’t
want to be rejected, he didn’t’ know what he’d do if that happened. He’d have
to wait until the right moment. He couldn’t believe he was even contemplating…
and he knew they were both young, but he didn’t care. He loved Paige. They’d
hardly touched but he knew how he felt. He just hoped she hadn’t taken what his
grandfather said to heart. There was no way he ever wanted to marry for money.
He felt the hotness; the appeal of a girl
who didn’t even know she was the one. And for once, he knew the hotness wasn’t
all about him – it was mostly about her. That’s why he’d arranged, long ago for
her little sisters youtube footage to be extinguished, for Rys to keep his
distance and bad influence from them. Why he’d also arranged for Ryan (who was mysteriously
missing in action) to have left England yesterday on a plane, bound for LA, to
meet up with Shiloh at the restaurant… right about now and declare his true
love.
Paige was the best, most amazing, most
wonderful girl he’d ever met. There was nothing he would not do for her or to
please her.
Moments later, Paige appeared.
She was wearing her summer coat and
carried a blue college scarf.
“Okay, so where are we going?”
“To
the rooftop. I have some plans for us, c’mon.”
Paige
followed Darcy in the dark. He’d placed tea lights in a trail, flickering like
presents in the night air.
She
realized there were few, if any, people she’d follow anywhere. She placed her
trust in Darcy, and she’d only spent a few days getting to know him as an
adult, but he was so changed from the arrogant teenager he’d been. Paige would
almost describe him as humble. Hot, but humble.
He reached out and grabbed her hand as they
walked up the stairs and Paige felt thrilled. This was the one, she was sure of
it. He was so cool, so Aussie, so hot.
“This way…”
Up
they climbed to the rooftop.
Darcy took Paige up a hidden staircase,
higher and higher, they wound faster and faster up until they reached the roof
of the college.
“Look,
You can see the world from here.”
“Wow,
it’s amazing. It really looks like a fairy tale.”
Darcy laughed.
“It’s
different, it’s nothing like where I really come from.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sun in Australia is so strong, it makes
an incredible sunset. I’d… I’d like to show it to you one day... because I love
you.”
“I’d like to see it,” Paige said, hardly
believing what she heard. Paige smiled. She loved him too. It was so obvious,
from the start, wasn’t it?
Darcy brushed her hair away from her face
and leant in towards her.
They kissed and it was perfect; they made
out and it was even better.
And then…
Honey: Do you think they did it?
Wednesday: I don’t know, Paige never
told me… the scene just ‘faded to the stars’ and all of that…. But perhaps
we’ll find out and write about it in Popular… and then again, maybe we won’t
because when Popular starts (a few years later) I’m filming my television
series and there is so much happening in your life, Honey, that we get caught
up in the drama and forget about the hotness and when we first met Darcy Donovan and Paige Bennet…
Honey: But didn’t you… I mean, in
another sequel… in the final part of the Sunrise trilogy, didn’t you get to meet Darcy at UCLA Where he’s
studying film directing as a graduate student and you are an acting major? And
don’tcha think that maybe, at the end of the day, they were too young to make a
commitment, so then maybe Darcy was available a few years later and you and he… when you’re
older… get a chance to be together?
Wednesday: In his dreams. Are you
joking? Oh, please. I have so many suitors by the time I’m a famous actress that
I barely gave him a second thought beyond freshman year, but… Well, of course,
don’t tell our readers all of that stuff yet…
Honey: Sure, well, the truth is I
have no real proof either way of whether they did it that night… but let’s
leave them together in one of the most picturesque places in the world…
Wednesday: Of course, our readers
would never forgive us for not giving them their happiness. So, Paige and Darcy were macking all over one
another…
Honey: Like… ‘Atonement’ without the tragedy.
Wednesday: So true. True love . Real
love. Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet type love or Edward Cullen and Bella Swan
type love or…
Honey: Or Sookie Stackhouse and her hundred plus
year old soldier boy love… But, let me just say, before they dated a while, before Ryan married Shiloh and Darcy married
Paige (even though Paige won her final debate ), before they live happily ever
after, I happen to know they sealed the deal.
Wednesday: Are you sure?
Honey: Of course I’m sure. I saw the
film didn’t I? You know, Darcy’s graduate film which was all about two
opposites meeting at high school and then finding romance at Oxford… At least
that’s what I heard Paige telling Shiloh who told Coco who told Melody who told
Mackenzie who told me.
Honey: So in the end, which was just
the beginning…
Wednesday: of their story…
Honey & Wednesday: (which became
our story)
Honey: They found true love.
Wednesday: The end… now go read
Popular (it’s even better than Pride & Princesses).
Until then...
