Melt for You (Slow Burn #2)(99)

You already know, dummy.

Thank God one of my inner voices has sense.

“Portia, you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got to go home and pack.”

She rises, looking confused. “Pack? What are you talking about? Where are you going?”

I turn and run from the room, hollering over my shoulder, “Scotland!”





THIRTY-FIVE

By the time the taxi drops me off in front of my apartment building, I’ve nearly wet myself in panic.

The flight leaves in an hour. One hour. A span of sixty minutes to throw a suitcase together, get Mr. Bingley in his carrier with all his stuff, and get to the airport before boarding ends and no more passengers are allowed on the plane. Which is usually about fifteen minutes before the flight leaves, so I’ve really got only about forty-five minutes.

Which means I’m going to be forced into one of those terrible, cliché romance movie endings where the hero finally realizes his love for the heroine and rushes to the airport in a car with all his friends, fighting crawling traffic and unnecessary street construction, until he arrives at the very last second before the plane takes off and declares his love, and all the friends cheer and get weepy, and then there’s a nice montage of romantic reunions in airports while the credits roll.

Except instead of a carload of my friends it’ll just be Mr. Bingley.

The elevator ride takes a thousand years. When it reaches my floor, I burst out of it and run smack into Mrs. Dinwiddle. We collide with an audible “Oof!” and go spinning in opposite directions. Even at eightysomething, in heels, she has better coordination than me. She winds up leaning glamorously against the hallway wall, while I end up on my ass on the carpet.

I leap to my feet, shouting, “Mrs. Dinwiddle I’m so sorry I hope you’re not hurt I have to go pack I’m leaving right now for Scotland I’m not letting Cam get away!”

I turn around and tear down the hallway without waiting for a response. My hands are so sweaty and shaky it takes about ten tries before I fit the key in the lock, but then the door swings open and I lurch inside, cursing like a drunken sailor.

I sprint to the bedroom, drag the one suitcase I own out of the closet, toss it onto the bed, then start ripping clothes off hangers and hurling them into the suitcase with no regard for what they are or if anything matches. The ugly green coat my mother gave me when I moved to New York goes in, but then I throw it out because I really hate that thing.

Mr. Bingley dozes peacefully between the pillows, unaware of the tornado occurring right in front of his face.

From the open front door, Mrs. Dinwiddle calls, “Ducky? Yoo-hoo!”

“I can’t talk right now Mrs. Dinwiddle I’m having a mental breakdown and I have to be at the airport in like ten seconds Cam’s flight is leaving can you please pick up my mail for me while I’m gone?”

Everything comes out in one breathless rush as I storm back and forth from the closet to the bathroom to the suitcase, scooping up tampons and toothpaste and shoes and underwear and throwing it all onto the growing mass on the bed. Mrs. Dinwiddle appears at my bedroom door, looking amused.

“So he finally convinced you, did he?”

Something in her expression or her tone makes me stop and look at her. “Convinced me to do what?”

“Fall in love with him.”

When I stare at her blankly, she rolls her eyes. “What on earth did you think he was doing all this time, Ducky? Going around without shirts and offering to teach you how to kiss and having you make him dinner so he had an excuse to spend time with you?”

I make an unattractive honking sound, my eyes bugging out of my head.

“Oh yes, I know all about it,” she says, very smug. “He was smitten with you from the first. It was so romantic, I just had to help him, my dear!”

“Help?” I repeat, my voice strangled.

“Well,” she says regretfully, “you really are quite hopeless with men, Ducky.”

I decide I’ll keel over dead later. Right now, I’ve got to get my hopeless ass to the airport. I start the packing rampage again.

“Oh! Before I forget.” Mrs. Dinwiddle removes a small box from the pocket of her lounging robe and places it right on top of the mountain of clothes.

I stare at it like it might be full of anthrax. “What is that?”

“Your Christmas gift.”

“Oh, that’s so sweet, Mrs. Dinwiddle. You shouldn’t have.”

“I didn’t, my dear.”

When I blink at her, she sighs, a great gusting sigh that manages to sound affectionate and disgusted and theatrical all at once. “It’s from Cameron. He gave it to me before he left to give to you.”

I put a hand over my heart, because in addition to pounding it’s now painfully twisting, like a rabid squirrel caught inside my ribs. With shaking hands, I open the box.

It’s a pair of exquisite emerald earrings, glittering up at me from a bed of black velvet.

“The exact color of your eyes, he said they were.” Mrs. Dinwiddle is gazing at the earrings, misty eyed. “He bought them the same day you bought your party dress.”

“The manager,” I whisper, my eyes swimming with water. “He asked to speak to the manager. I thought he was going to complain about the paparazzi who took our picture, but he . . . bought . . . these . . .”