Page 21 of First Impressions (Passion and Perseverance #1)
Chapter Fifteen
When Beth woke up the next morning it was almost nine o’clock and she still felt like she had been hit by a truck. She looked down to see scars of last night’s mascara on her pillow. Pulling the sheets over her head, she turned her face into her pillow and groaned.
Don’t stay in bed and wallow. You’re better than that.
Throwing the covers off her head, she decided what she needed was a good long run.
Throwing on her running leggings, sports bra, and lightweight tank, she walked out of her room determined to sweat Mr. Darcy out of her system.
Realizing that she should probably let Jane know where she was going, she turned around and, hearing that the shower was running, knocked on the bathroom door.
“Jane! I’m going for a run. I’ll be back. I have my phone.”
“Ok! Wait, Beth, we have to be at Saks at noon! Don’t forget!”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back.”
She grabbed her water bottle and iPod and headed out the door.
Thankfully, at least the weather gods had taken pity on her.
Even though the sun was shining, it was still slightly cool out, probably in the high sixties - the perfect temperature for running.
She headed down Warren Street towards Broadway, hooking a right towards Battery Park.
Every fall of her Brooks sneakers on the sidewalk slowly released the stress that had built up inside her.
The first thing that she accepted was that what happened last night was not her mom’s fault.
There’s no way she could have known the struggle of power and desire that had been going on between her and Darcy.
Hell, Beth hardly knew what was going on between them and she was a principal player.
She was still irritated how her mother had offered her up, portraying her as an unwanted wallflower, but her mom would have asked that exact same question to any man sitting in Darcy’s seat.
As much as Irene valued her social status, she was sometimes quite incognizant of how tactless and presumptuously unpolished her comments were.
And then there was the fact that she was her mother and would have to put up with her for the rest of her life, which would be exponentially more difficult if Beth didn’t forgive her.
She reached Battery Park and decided to turn right and loop up by the Jewish Heritage Museum first. Coming to terms with her exasperation with her mother, her thoughts drifted to the crux of her emotional turmoil: Mr. William Darcy.
Her first mistake was getting her hopes up after what Jane had told her; again, something she blamed herself for.
She knew him and she should have known better.
She should have gone to her parent’s last night with her original plan in mind - to meet Darcy with apathetic indifference, submitting to their physical attraction but leaving him to initiate any emotional connection.
This is what happens when you let your feelings become too attached.
Instead, the moment he had touched her, all her inhibitions had melted away, leaving her bare and vulnerable.
Instead of forcing him to make the next move she had put herself out there, she had reached for him, reached for answers, for a deeper connection; she reached and he recoiled, crushing her hope and her heart again.
By allowing her hope for something more to grasp onto Jane’s words as she spoke of his admiration for her, Beth had completely let her guard down, leaving her defenseless for his attack of callous neglect.
At first, she had clung to him, excited that maybe this meant he was remorseful or embarrassed for his previous actions and leaving without explanation; that his desire for her was a gateway to verbal expression of his regret for how he treated her.
That ridiculous hope was efficiently extinguished when all he was apparently trying to express was his desire that she leave him alone.
The icing on the cake had been when he drove the message home at dinner, claiming that he didn’t make mistakes; he was too smart and careful for that.
So, leading her on, hurting her, and ignoring her, must all be on purpose .
She kept thinking of him as though he were acting like a child.
She wanted to tell him that this wasn’t first grade; you aren’t supposed to be mean to the person that you have a crush on.
Except, that was ridiculous of her too because he was a grown, capable, successful man; he probably didn’t act like a child even when he was one.
Maybe, he didn’t know how to handle his attraction for her, so he was trying to push her away? Now she knew she was going crazy when her reasoning sounded like it was coming from the ever-optimistic Jane. Stop hoping.
As she exited the park back onto Broadway, she recognized that without taking his subsequent admissions into account, she could surmise all day as to why he had treated her the way he had.
Her only concrete explanation for his actions, or lack thereof, came from his statement later in the meal of his character flaws; once you lost Darcy’s good opinion, it was impossible to regain it.
Somehow between their kitchen encounter and dinner last night, she must have lost his respect, and therefore, lost his attraction.
It was the only logical conclusion she could accept.
Sure, she could put her hopes in explanations that Jane would be proud of, hopes that he was just so overcome, so enthralled with her that it scared him to the point where he completely recoiled from any contact with her; but that train of thought only left her vulnerable to being hurt, and she’d hurt enough over him.
Her music stopped, jarring her from her thoughts, as her phone began to ring with a call from Jane.
“Hello?”
“Beth, where are you? Are you ok? It’s eleven-thirty, we need to leave to head up to Saks now to meet mom.”
“I’m fine. Sorry, I didn’t even notice the time. I’m almost half-way there so I’m just going to run and meet you, is that ok?”
“Yes, of course. I just didn’t hear from you and it’s been over an hour. I was just starting to worry.”
“Yeah, sorry. Just running thoughts out of my head. I’ll see you soon. Can’t wait to see mom’s face when she sees I’m in gym clothes!” She heard Jane chuckle as she hung up her phone and her music, and thoughts, restarted .
Why would he insinuate that I misjudge people?
He was one to talk about being judge-y, number one.
Number two, he was an open book when it came to how he treated others.
She was pretty sure she thought of him just like everyone else did, and that it was what he wanted everyone to think.
He couldn’t act so aloof and disengaged and NOT expect everyone to consider him proud and full of himself; he was so prejudiced against everyone he met that it was pretty much impossible not to judge him for it.
What could he possibly have meant? Maybe she had misjudged his attraction.
Considering how his mouth had ravished hers, how he implied he wanted to spank and then fuck her, how his hands had explored her ass and breasts; she didn’t feel it was too much of a stretch to assume that he was attracted to her.
But maybe that’s just how he reacted sexually to women, not just her, and that she had misread too much into the encounter.
The fact is she didn’t know very much for certain.
What she did know was that he clearly had no emotional attachment to her and was not shy about letting her know it.
Beth decided that maybe option one was a better idea.
It would be hard for the next few weeks until the transition of the firm was complete, but really, after the announcement at the Charity Ball, he would basically be out of her life and she could forget these few weeks of her lapse in judgment.
She knew this was the way it had to be; for some reason, when it came to Darcy, she was completely consumed by him and she didn’t know how she would handle another rejection.
It was time to put Mr. Intolerable out of her mind for good and get back to focusing on herself.
With that concluding thought, she ran the last few blocks past Bryant Park to Saks, her mind blissfully blank.
She made it a few minutes before noon, just enough time to catch her breath before her mom and sisters arrived.
She was surprisingly grateful that her mom and younger sisters were the first to show up because, for what might be the first time, she didn’t feel like talking to Jane about what she was going through .
Once the whole party was assembled, they walked into Saks with their mission in mind.
Beth was not a big shopper, especially in the stores; she preferred to just order things online to make her life easier.
She quietly trailed along, trying to ignore Jane’s concerned and inquisitive stares by pretending to be interested in whatever purse or scarf or jewelry that Lydia tried to show her.
As they got sidetracked in the jewelry section of the store, two young men approached Lydia and began to chat with her. It was clear that she knew at least one of them, as she hugged him and then shook the hand of the better-looking gentleman.
“Beth, do you know who that is?” her mother asked.
“No, probably just someone from school.” She watched as her mother intently stared at the pair, critiquing them from head to toe. Before she could ask more questions that Beth didn’t know the answer to, Lydia turned and motioned for the gentlemen to follow her.
“Mom, this is Ben Cole, we are in marketing class together, and his friend George Wickham.”