Page 47 of Third Time is the Charm (Passion and Perseverance #3)

Friday.

She’d woken up with her stomach in knots of excitement and anxiety; excitement because Darcy was coming back today and anxiety because she had to break the news to Col.

She hadn’t heard from either of the two men in her life hardly at all over the past two days, which had really given her the space that she needed to focus completely on her feelings without being preoccupied by external distractions, good or bad.

Darcy texted her once or twice a day – nothing major, just checking on her; Beth had a feeling that he wished he could have left her respectfully and completely alone, but didn’t have that much restraint, not now after she’d told him that she was his.

Col she’d heard even less from which was even more strange.

Maybe not texting, but she hadn’t seen him in the office at all since Monday.

She’d stopped to grab her own coffee this morning since Col had been absent the past few days.

Beth couldn’t decide whether that was a good or a bad thing.

Part of her was relieved because she was struggling to decide on the best words to let him down easily without risking their friendship.

The other part of her wished that he would just show up and force her hand – try to kiss her or something where she’d just have to suck it up and tell him what had happened; they maybe even dinner on Friday night wouldn’t be necessary.

Good or bad – at this point, it didn’t matter; she would see him later tonight.

Honestly, what had her more concerned about his absence was whether or not everything was ok for the Contest. The entire team had put in a ton of hours over the past few weeks to make sure that everything was ready to eliminate any last-minute scrambling; which mean that even though they would be super busy through next weekend, it shouldn’t be to the point where Col was missing for days.

He’d texted her yesterday confirming that they were still on for dinner tonight, to which she’d responded ‘yes,’ but then never heard back from him. Her head jerked up at the knock on her office door, expecting it to be Col, but instead it was Hannah, his personal assistant.

“Hey, Hannah. What’s up?” Beth asked with a smile on her face.

“Hi, Beth. I just wanted to let you know that the dinner tasting is at six tonight. Please tell me that Mr. Dempsey already talked to you about it.” Like Beth, Hannah knew of Col’s penchant for springing events on people on a relatively last-minute basis.

“Yes, he did,” Beth reassured her.

“Oh, good.” The woman smiled and turned to leave when Beth called out to her.

“Is everything ok? With Colin?” she asked. “I just haven’t seen or heard from him since Monday.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s been running around like crazy – something having to do with the permits for the street closing for the event. I’m not sure; he barely was able to tell me that before he had to run.”

“Oh. Ok,” Beth replied. “Thanks.”

At that, Hannah left and Beth wrinkled her brow wondering what had happened. She thought he’d gotten the permits sorted out last week.

Pulling out her laptop, she opened it up to check her email; the most recent unread message catching her eye. It was from Anne.

Or, at least, she thought it was from Anne.

The email address was from: [email protected].

Beth stared at it for a minute in shock.

She hadn’t talked to Anne since she’d left New York months ago and she felt so guilty about it.

They’d become friends and then Beth had just left with no word or no explanation to her, even after her emotions had calmed down.

She’d tried to shut out everyone and every possible complication from her life, and then by the time she’d starting letting those closest to her back in – like Jane and her father – she felt like it was too late to contact Anne.

Which was dumb, it was never too late.

She just felt so guilty for leaving her in the dark and then came the thoughts about the position that she would be putting Anne in since Anne was friends with Darcy.

To have to explain to her why she left… she felt like she would be taking away from Darcy someone who he actually cared about and who cared about him, and in spite of what she thought he’d done, he didn’t have many of those people in his life and Beth couldn’t think to take one of them away

But now, Anne was emailing her.

Her email address was another thing that set Beth’s wheels turning. She thought Anne worked with her mom at DeBourgh Diamonds, except this address was clearly under Fitz Corp. Unless Darcy had another Anne that worked there.

Beth bit her lip as she clicked on the message. Time to find out.

Hi Beth,

I know we haven’t talked in a long time, so I hope you aren’t upset that I’m emailing you now.

I wanted to respect your privacy, but there’s something that you might want to know.

I don’t have your number otherwise I would have called.

If you could give me a call when you have a free minute, I think that would be best.

Hope all is well,

Anne

She read the message three times, letting the words sink in.

Well, it was definitely Anne and she definitely needed to call her.

Beth’s hands shook slightly as she dug in her bag for her cell phone, pulling up Anne’s contact in her computer and dialing her number.

Her breathing became shallow as the phone rang, waiting for Anne to answer.

“Hello?” Came Anne’s familiar, sedate voice on the other end of the line.

“Hey, Anne. It’s Beth. I, um, just got your email.”

“Oh my gosh, Beth! Thank you for calling me,” Anne replied, the relief in her voice flowed over the line.

“How have you been? I’m so sorry to have to email you like that and intrude.

I know you left for a reason and I didn’t mean to invade your space.

” Beth’s stomach clenched with regret for making her friend feel this way.

“No, Anne. I’m so sorry. I’ve been meaning to call you,” she began, the words sounding lame even to her ears.

“No, that’s not quite true. I didn’t know if I should call you after what had happened.

” Beth sighed as her worries tumbled out.

“At first, I did just need to be alone; I was hurt and in shock. But, I should have reached out to you to at least let you know that I was ok. I wasn’t thinking clearly then, but once I began to contact some of my family, I didn’t know if I should call you.

I felt like you were Darcy’s friend first – I mean, almost like family to him for how long you’ve known each other; in spite of everything he did, or I thought he did at the time, I didn’t want to call you only to tear him down.

” She stopped here to catch her breath, only slightly embarrassed by her rambling.

“Oh, no, please. Don’t worry about it. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I knew that it was something bad, especially if it caused you to leave.

I mean, even though I’m Darcy’s friend, I wouldn’t have held it against you or him if you had reached out; I just want you to know.

You are both my friends; I would have been there for both of you, especially since I’ve seen how much you both love…

or loved… each other and I don’t see how you couldn’t make it through anything. ”

Beth smiled teary against the phone.

“Thank you,” she said. “I’m such a jerk though for keeping you out of the loop. I just… so many things were wrong. I was afraid that anything I did would make them worse.”

“I understand, trust me, I do,” Anne replied with a weight to her voice that Beth could only appreciate as sincere solidarity with her sentiment.

“For the record, Darcy told me what he said to you. When I found out that you left, I made him tell me I was so upset with him. I laid into him for what he did, even though by the time he told me I think he’d punished himself far worse than my words ever could. ”

Beth chuckled softly, grateful for forgiveness and good friends.

“I don’t know what else he told you,” Beth continued, the distraction of talking with such a caring and close friend causing her to completely forget the whole reason that she’d called Anne in the first place.

“But, I went to his apartment the following morning, I guess before he got there, but not before Caroline did.”

“Oh no!” Anne gasped in shock.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “So, that’s why – partially – I left in such a hurry. I was just in complete shock to see her there after everything that Darcy had said to me the night before, that it didn’t even dawn on me that I didn’t actually see him there with her; I was so upset and I just assumed.”

“Oh Beth, how could you have known or had enough capacity to really think about that after seeing Caroline there? You can’t beat yourself up over it; I just can’t believe that all this time, you thought he was back with her…”

“I know,” she agreed. “So, when I was home for Jane’s wedding she encouraged me to talk to him and then after hearing what he did for my younger sister, I had to confront him about it; let’s face it – after five months of it weighing on me, there was no way I couldn’t say anything to him.

And that’s when he told me the truth about what had happened. ”

“He told me that she’d been in his apartment and how he and Charles walked in on her in the nude,” Anne laughed. “She deserves as much. Anyway, he said he got a restraining order after that.”

“Only for him to agree to sort of waive it so that they both could attend Charles’ wedding and support him.”

“I didn’t even think about that! Honestly, after I yelled at him and he told me the whole story, I haven’t really talked to him much more about it.”