Beautifully Forgotten Read Online Free PDF Page B

heart and squash it under her foot.
    Coming here was a double-edged sword, because as much as he craved the connection to Sister Anne, it was here more than anywhere that his past came back to haunt him.

    Fourteen years earlier . . .
    He checked his watch for the sixth time while he continued to pace, but he was excited because he and Darcy were leaving here together. He didn’t really care where they ended up as long as she was with him.
    He opened his palm to the little silver cross that Sister Anne had left for him, a necklace she was never without. He was going to give it to Darcy. He wanted her to know how he felt about her and this was the only thing of value he had.
    A half hour later, his excitement had started to fade. Darcy was never late. Was she having second thoughts? He looked in the direction of the orphanage, wondering if they had gotten their signals crossed. He was about to walk up the hill to find her when someone came up behind him and wrapped their arms around him. He grinned.
    “I thought you were having second thoughts.” He turned into Darcy to kiss her only to realize it wasn’t Darcy, but Heidi—the creepy girl who followed after his friend Trace like a lost puppy. He didn’t understand why she continued to come around. She had been moved to different housing after she had given birth. Nor did he understand why the nuns were seemingly okay with her hanging around all the time. Before he could push her away, she kissed him. It took him a minute to react, but when he finally did, he pushed her hard enough to knock her to the ground.
    “What the fuck are you doing?”
    Her pale eyes always freaked him out. She tilted her head and smiled like a snake. “I just wanted a taste.”
    He turned from her without a second thought and went in search of Darcy, but when he reached her room, she wasn’t there. Her roommates were sitting on the floor playing cards.
    “Where’s Darcy?”
    The smallest of the girls looked up at him through her smudged glasses. “She left.”
    “What? Where?”
    He noticed that she couldn’t keep eye contact when she said, “She said she was leaving with her mom. Oh, she left you something.” She stood and grabbed a note off the dresser and handed it to him.
    His feet moved him out of the room as he looked blindly down at the note. It took him a while to work up the nerve to read it.
Lucien,
I can’t go with you. I’m sorry. You’ll thank me one day for not tying you down, maybe you already do.
Be happy. I wish only good things for you.
Darcy
    His vision blurred from the tears that filled his eyes at how callously she’d discarded all the plans they had made. He crumpled up the note before pushing it into his pocket, and then he walked away and never looked back.

    Darcy sat across from her headhunter, Michelle, trying desperately to keep from biting her nails. After the pain had subsided from the epic failure that was their reunion, she realized that it wasn’t possible for Lucien not to remember her. If for no other reason than that she was there when Sister Anne died and that woman had meant everything to him.
    If he wanted to pretend he didn’t know her, she was fine with that. Really, she couldn’t blame him, but she needed the job and having a chance to be near him again was just too tempting. She was surprised when Michelle called her and said that Lucien had requested rescheduling the interview. Maybe part of him did want to see her. It was why she was sitting here with her headhunter, who was even now making excuses to the man himself for Darcy’s ridiculous behavior.
    Michelle smiled at her and gave her the thumbs-up.
    “Yes, even without one? That’s wonderful. I’ll pass that along. Yes, eight o’clock Monday morning. Fabulous. Thank you.”
    She hung up on a sigh. “He didn’t want an interview; he hired you. You start on Monday.”
    Excitement struck Darcy first, but then she sobered. If Lucien had loved her the way she believed he had, after