The explanation threatens to dull my anger. I get what he’s saying. That’s what made flirting with him different. I initiated things playfully because of where we were. It limited the risk on my end, and if he didn’t reciprocate, I could tell myself it was all part of the show. And maybe it was at the time—but now?

“The fact remains that in your club, a woman in her underwear”—he gestures to me before dropping his hand back where it was before, painfully close—“is simply a woman in a costume. Putting on a show. No matter how badly I want her.”

No matter how badly I want her.

The words snag on my awareness like a ragged fingernail on tights. I stare at him. Color blooms in his cheeks, though his expression is plain. He didn’t misspeak.

“Bennet?” He says my name softly, like a question.

I stretch my fingers forward, grazing his—

The phone beside us buzzes and I recoil. “You should get that,” I choke out. “Charles is in a state.”

Darcy’s eyes drop to the phone. When he looks back, his face is hard. “You—”

“ ‘I’m getting weak,’ ” I quote. “ ‘I need you to keep me from caving. I miss him . . . ’ ” I purse my lips. “ ‘I know what you said . . . ’ ”

Lights. Out. The shift is staggering. It makes the grim conclusion all the easier to accept.

“You’re why Charles chucked Jane,” I snap.

“Yes.”

My chest squeezes at the cool admission, forcing a short breath. No hesitation, no regret. The confirmation stings like a slap in the face. “Why?” The word sounds so meek. “Why would you do that?” I point to the phone. “Charles obviously has feelings for him. Jane adored him. They were happy.”

He hesitates, searching my face. Something like worry crosses his. “I thought it was a performance.”

“A performance?”

“I assumed Andrea put him up to it,” he says, back on the defensive. “She didn’t exactly hide her comments about Jane’s ‘sugar daddy.’ ”

Oh, God. I didn’t even think about Darcy’s getting wind of that. “You took that seriously?”

“I know perfectly well how tactless that woman can be, Bennet. But you can’t pretend she didn’t think Jane and Charles’s being together would work to her advantage.”

I hate that I can’t argue the point. I could kick myself for not telling Andrea to lay off that talk. “None of us even knew she was trying to buy Meryton until that first evening you came in,” I say, though the excuse sounds feeble even to me. “And Jane had no idea about Charles’s involvement until after he and Charles had already spent the night together.”

“And what did Andrea say about that?” he asks, like I’m on my way to proving his point.