I'm Not Charlotte Lucas(44)

Or would Liam have challenged him in Fresco’s?

I shook my head. Where was that thought even coming from? I obviously had a crush on the guy, but he didn’t reciprocate. He couldn’t. I had the texts he’d meant to send to his real girlfriend to prove it. I’d watched them kiss on the porch, and he’d said himself the bowling double-date was just as friends.

The doorbell rang downstairs, and I paused before returning my attention to the TV. Mariah was spending the night at her friend’s house, and my parents had gone to Calistoga for a weekend getaway, so the house was mine, and I wasn’t expecting anyone.

I sighed happily. Why was Colin Firth so dreamy in a cravat?

The doorbell rang again, this time accompanied with knocking. Maybe I should check to make sure it wasn’t the neighbor kids across the fence hoping to get their stray ball from the backyard or something. I paused my movie and went downstairs. I opened the door and froze.

Would it be totally impolite to slam the door in Andy’s face? Oh, what did I care? I shoved it away from me, but he stopped it with his foot and dipped his head remorsefully.

“Can we talk?”

“No,” I said, proud of my steady tone.

“I just—”

“If it wasn’t obvious earlier, I can spell it out for you. We are done.”

He rubbed a hand through his hair, irritation flashing in his eyes, and I felt a small fissure of fear. He’d been forceful in the parking lot after bowling, and I was here alone. “You haven’t given me a chance to explain.”

Well, that was kind of true. I tightened my hold on the doorknob. “I feel like your guilt was evidence enough. You could have stopped me at Fresco’s.”

He pressed against the door, and I held the knob tighter, fear balling in my stomach.

“It’s not working between us,” I said. “I can’t stay with you when I don’t have feelings for you.”

He watched me, and I could actually see the calculation in his eyes. What a slimy, gross man. I started to shove the door closed again, but he stepped inside, and every warning bell my body naturally possessed went off like a hundred sirens.

“You need to leave,” I said.

“I just want to talk—”

I held his gaze. “You don’t have to be in my house to talk to me.”

He stared at me, seeming to calculate more. His eyes bore into me, and anger pooled in my stomach, rising steadily the longer Andy stood, framed in the doorway.

I shook my head. Wow, I was such an idiot. “You know, I was willing to give us another shot. We tried. There’s no chemistry, and that’s fine. Now you only have to worry about one girlfriend.”

Andy’s blond eyebrows pulled together in confusion, and I wanted to shake some sense into him.

He reached for my hand. “I really wondered, when I saw you in the parking lot, if it was some sort of sign. We were good together.”

I ripped my hand from his grasp, my skin crawling where he’d touched me. “You were out tonight with someone else.”

His shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Well, how was I supposed to choose between you? I just needed a little more time.”

I scoffed. Was he serious? “You need to leave. Now.”

My tone of voice seemed to give him pause, or maybe it was the crazed look in my eyes. Andy stepped back, hands raised in surrender, and cool relief slid through my body.

I watched him take the porch steps down to the sidewalk, and disgust rippled through me. Gross. I thought my boss was a pig. At least Todd had the decency to try to date one woman at a time.

“Please don’t come back,” I called.

Andy turned, giving me a look that showed precisely how stupid I just sounded. I slammed the door shut and locked the deadbolt. My chest heaved, and I turned back for my attic apartment and my Austen escape.

Wow, I really was a catch.

Shaking my head, I returned to my attic but paused at the top of the stairs just inside my little living room. The short hallway directly facing me boasted three doors in something of a semicircle that led to my bedroom, my bathroom, and the studio. The last of which remained firmly closed, taunting me.

I hadn’t been in my studio since long before moving back in with my parents, and Mom had assured me time and again that the builders didn’t touch it while they’d renovated. But I’d told her it was fine, she could empty it out for all I cared. What use did I have for a painting studio when I no longer painted?

Dropping back on my cozy couch, I pushed all of my worries to the side and allowed Elizabeth Bennet to convince me that the Regency era really was superior to the modern world.

I was twenty-six years old, I lived in my parents’ house, and the only thing I wanted to snuggle was my oversized Minky blanket. I was hopeless. I was Charlotte Lucas in the flesh, and my wretched namesake was cursing me with her unfortunate life.

If the doorbell rang and Mr. Collins showed up, I was packing up my stuff and moving out of California. Somewhere far, far away. Maybe I could contact Teaching United and join their ranks in Africa.

The doorbell sounded again downstairs, and I sat up immediately. But despite my initial shock, it couldn’t actually be Mr. Collins . . . Could Andy be back? Well, so what if he was? He could hang out on the front porch and ring that doorbell all he wanted. I was so done with him forever.

The doorbell went off again, and part of me hated sitting on the couch, ignoring him—the part that felt uncomfortable making a man wait for me. He was not a man though. He was a spineless idiot.