Page 49 of All For You

I grinned. “All night?”

“Until three a.m. I wanted to finish it, but I wouldn’t let myself because I knew I would feel totally shite in the morning. As it is, I feel like one of the rotten logs Max drags from our lake.” He narrowed his eyes flirtatiously. “Even when I made myself switch off the screen, the pads of my fingers were itching to get back to my obsessive page-turning. So back to my question—why did I do that when I knew the ending?”

I felt my lips twitch with amusement, my chest swell with satisfaction. “I think that’s called good writing. You were compelled to keep turning the page. A point of reference. Do you watch action movies?”

“Yes, when I get a chance.”

“You know at the beginning of the movie the hero is going to win.”

He cocked his head. “I suppose so. I haven’t thought of it like that. And another thing—the book was quite…steamy. I think that’s the word readers use in Romancelandia?”

I smiled. “You’ve done some Googling of our terms. That’s a new one for the zeitgeist-averse you.” He probably shouldn’t have admitted during the dance that he didn’t remember popular cultural terms.

He smiled at our sort-of in-joke. “Yes, another departure for me. Anyway, I never imagined people in that era having sex like that. I assumed it was all enjoying each other’s ankles, because that was all you could see.”

When he’d said “sex,” the word reverberated through me with a thrum. Though, he’d ignored me last night at dinner, and that still rankled. Was this sudden interest in my writing even real? Had he checked his behavior, worried about decorum orsomething? I couldn’t get a handle on this man and my defenses were still up, but I’d go with the flow for now.

I laughed a little. “I’m pleased I have broadened your horizons and opened your mind to new experiences.”

I was waiting for him to ask,Is that based on your experience? But that question did not come.

“Thank you for not asking me if I’ve done any of that,” I said.

“People ask you that?” He clenched his jaw. “How appalling of them.”

“And as some of us romance authors say, would you ask a thriller writer if they’ve murdered anyone?”

“Good point,” he said with a smile.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Knightley starting to round up the dogs and others for the animal training.

I only had a few more seconds with Darcy, sort-of alone.

“Maybe you should write a romantic scene, and I will promise not to ask if any of it is firsthand experience,” I suggested with a challenging look in my eye.

“Maybe I will.” He gave a crooked smile.

“Okay, then.”

“All right.”

“People,” boomed a voice. Knightley’s head filled the doorway, hair sticking up all over the place. “Let the animal training begin!”

CHAPTER 24

Darcy

Before heading outside for the dog training session, I ran upstairs to Wills in the bedroom. “Wills, let’s talk again about Jane.” I set his coffee on his bedside table, as he’d slept through breakfast. “Are you feeling calmer this morning?”

He sat up and stretched. “We don’t have to talk anymore, Darcy. I feel a lot more peaceful.”

“When you say peaceful?—”

A trumpeting noise rent the air. Colin Vicar blowing his own trumpet flashed into my mind. But he’d left.

“Dog training!” I recognized Knightley’s voice calling through our open bedroom window.

“You go. I’ll be down in a sec,” Wills said. I searched his face, but I couldn’t quite discern his expression. He didn’t seem angry at me or consumed with desperate longing for Jane. Maybe he’d decided to take it easy with her and that decision sat well with him.