Page 73 of Inventing Mr Darcy

He doesn’t know I’m quoting a movie, of course, since it no longer exists. But that doesn’t make the words any less true.

“It’s just—I have a job offer from GC,” I explain in a rush, dabbing at my eyes with my sleeve. “They’re pushing Pedersen out because of … well, you know. But he convinced them to hire me in a new research and administrative position in charge of the database. I haven’t accepted it, yet. I’ve been sitting on the news, because you were … and I didn’t know …”

He nods his understanding, his expression suddenly somber. “Will it make you happy, Elle?”

“So happy,” I say, and launch myself into his embrace again.

“If they offered you a job over it,” Fisher says, when I let him catch his breath enough to speak, “that book you found really must be a big deal.”

“Yeah,” I agree with a laugh. “It really is.”

“So, what’s it about, anyway?”

“Oh, it’s the story of a rich guy and a spunky girl—she thinks he’s a jerk, he works hard to improve himself to be worthy of her, and she realizes she has some growing to do too. They figure it out, together.”

“Spoiler,” he says, with a chiding look.

“As if you were planning on reading it.”

He pauses to consider. “Actually, now that you mention it, I think I’d like to.”

Surprise streaks across my face before I can check it. “Oh, OK. Sure. I can … hold on.” I rummage in my bag and retrieve one of the last conference swag items, a bookmark printed with a code for a temporary gift login to OWEN-C. “You can access it with that.”

“Thanks.” He tucks the bookmark into the inner breast pocket of his coat, where I’m sure it will be forgotten, then glances toward the enormous digital clock at the entrance to the sprawling security checkpoint. “I know it’s late. But before you go, I have a little something for you, too.” He fishes in the pocket of his jeans and then drops into my hand a keyring containing a single old-fashioned key.

“Did you want me to check on your house while you’re gone?”

“Actually …” He squeezes my hand, just enough to press the metal into my palm; it’s warm from the heat of his body. “I was hoping you’d move in with me. I won’t be there all the time right now, obviously, but I can fly out on the weekends, if you want. And then, in a couple of months …”

He’s cute when he rambles.

I giggle through fresh tears. “Yes! Oh my God, yes. I love your house so much. I mean—” Now I’m the ridiculous one.

His answering laugh is adorably cocky. “I know what you mean.” Then he dips his head and whispers against my ear: “I love you too.”

Cassie meets me outside the MSP baggage claim, as I’d asked her to. And it’s probably just my imagination, but she seems … different, somehow. More like the Cassie of old.

I toss my suitcase into the trunk of her Corolla and slide into the passenger seat. “I really appreciate this, Cass,” I begin.

She shakes her head, making her exuberant curls bounce. “That’s Dr. Lewis to you.”

“You finished? You defended your dissertation? Why didn’t you tell me?” I demand.

“I figured you had enough going on these last few weeks.”

“You’re not wrong.” I’m tempted to lay it all out, the bad as well as the very, very good. In the end, though, I’m too curious about what’s going on with her. “But hey, congratulations! That’s amazing. So what’s next?”

“Well,” she says, stretching the word as she steers us out of the parking garage and toward the highway, “I’ve got about three dozen job applications out, so mostly, I wait.”

Three dozen? In the tight academic job market, that’s got all the earmarks of a national—maybe even global—search. “How’d you get Bill on board for that?”

“Oh, he’s not,” she answers. “We talked it over, I explained my situation; he said I’d just have to choose, and so I did.” She tosses her head again and turns up the music—hip-hop, an artist I don’t immediately recognize, but the beat is fierce. “I chose me.”

I can’t help it. I squeal. “Good for you, Cass—I mean, Dr. Lewis. Good for you!”

We jabber at one another for the next twenty minutes as she ticks off a list of her various prospects and preferences, and I finally tell her I’ve got a job too, at GC.

“So you’ll keep the apartment, then?” she asks. Our lease is up at the end of the spring semester.