Casual

by Different Thoughts

  He blew out a breath, his eyes wide. “Are you sure? I mean…” He trailed off, clearly not sure how to ask me for confirmation.

  “I started bleeding, Jane took me to the ER.” I shrugged. “They said it’s pretty normal to… lose the first one. A lot of women don’t even realize they were pregnant.”

  “Why didn’t you call me when you want to the ER?” His tone was clearly wounded.

  “I did. You were in the meeting with the people from Grover’s Street,” I reminded him. He had been preparing for this meeting for months; if it had gone well, DT would be absorbing the company that was a big rival for our contracts.

  “I would have come anyway,” he told me with feeling.

  “I know,” I murmured with no doubt in my voice.

  I knew if I told his secretary that I needed him, he would have walked out of that meeting without a look back. That’s just who Darcy was.

  “But I knew how important the meeting was, how long you’ve been preparing for it. I was going to wait until I heard what the doctor said, and then when he told me… Well, I figured it could wait until I saw you in person.”

  He frowned like he wanted to argue the fact, so to distract him I decided to put words to this feeling I’d had since I found out I was no longer going to have a child.

  “It’s kind of weird,” I said.

  “Weird?” he furrowed his brow.

  “Well, I really wasn’t ready to have a baby, but, now that I’m not I feel…” I trailed off, trying to think of the best way to describe how I was feeling.

  “Disappointed?” He prompted.

  “Maybe a little,” I said softly. He pulled me into a hug. “I know you weren’t as adverse to the idea of Baby Darcy-Bennet as I was,” I said into his shoulder.

  “No,” he agreed, his tone soft, but heavy with feeling. “It wouldn’t have been ideal, but I think I already loved him.”

  Of course, that broke my heart a little. I squeezed him, a few tears slipping out.

  “He would have been an adorable baby,” I said once I’d calmed down a bit, trying to lighten the mood.

  “With me as his father, of course he would have.” I heard the contrived arrogance in his voice and couldn’t help but huff in feigned annoyance, hiding a smile. I reached up to pull his face down closer to mine and kissed him on the cheek, almost on the corner of his mouth.

  “Come on Adonis, let me bask in your beauty while you cook me dinner,” I teased, stepping back.

  He grinned his self-satisfied grin, not completely insincere, and agreed.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Christmas

  After I found out I wasn’t pregnant anymore, it took a while for us to become intimate again. Darcy was patient with me, but we had never really dated or had much of a relationship before the sex and when it was taken out of the equation, I don’t think either of us knew what to do.

  I know he was waiting for me to initiate things, which was also out of my comfort zone. So far, the ball had always been in his court. I could have always said no, but he was the one who brought the subject up, sort to speak. The rules we were hooking up under were loose in that we never really sat down and said what was off the table, but for whatever reason, I had yet to approach him.

  It was about a year after Jane and I started working for DT, which put Darcy and my affair at just under six months.

  Apparently, it was time for the annual holiday party at Pemberley Estate, Darcy’s ancestral home. It was huge, of course, and in the middle of the country. There was snow everywhere because we were so far north, but there were also honest-to-God horse-drawn carriage rides for anyone who wanted a tour of the property, complete with heated blankets and hot chocolate.

  There would be, according to Charlotte, a big fancy ballroom with a professional band, gourmet food, and an open bar. It was kind of outrageous. I knew Darcy was crazy rich, of course, but seeing Pemberley really made it hard to ignore.

  Darcy encouraged husbands, wives, and dates. Charlotte and I went stag. Jane, of course, arrived with Charlie. It was a fancy affair, so we had all gone dress shopping the week before. I had my hair carefully pulled back from my face and my curls were actually cooperating for once.

  I kept it simple with my dress; a black number that flared at my waist and a few colorful accessories to liven it up. Charlotte went a little more daring with a short, strapless red dress that clung to her. I think she was hoping to make it home, finally, with Richard Fitzwilliam.

  Will and his younger sister, the only two surviving Darcys, greeted everyone at the door. Richard was there as well, eyeing Charlotte appreciatively. I had high hopes for her.

  “Your house is beautiful.” Charlotte shook the boss’s hand.

  “Thank you,” he said seriously. “And thank you for coming. I hope you enjoy yourself.” She moved on to greet Georgiana and Richard.

  “Hey,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand, as I had just seen the last four people do. He took my hand in his but didn’t shake it; instead, he ran a thumb along the soft wedge of skin where my thumb and forefinger met.

  “It’s good to see you,” he murmured. His sister and cousin were still distracted by Charlotte, which I guess is why he had the bravado to add, “You look beautiful.”

  I shifted a little uncomfortably, but then decided to reward him with a smile. “Thank you,” I said demurely. “You look good, too. Very handsome,” He actually grinned, clearly pleased. Generally, I felt his ego was inflated enough without anyone adding to it. Still, it was Christmas after all, and once a year couldn’t hurt.

  “You must be Elizabeth.” Georgiana had finally turned back to us. Darcy dropped my hand. “It’s so good to finally meet you,” she added.

  “It’s good to finally meet you too,” I said, not bothering to ask her how she heard of me. “Your brother only manages to smile when he’s talking about you; I’ve been looking forward to meeting the person who’s able to make him seem downright approachable.”

  “From what I hear, you were never particularly intimidated.” Georgie grinned back at me.

  “Well, I am a brilliant software engineer who’s brought prestige and acclaim to his company,” I teased, glancing at him momentarily before returning my gaze to his sister. “It’s not like he would fire me just because I let him know when he’s being rude.”

  “No, you have never been shy about that,” he agreed with a bit of a self-deprecating smile. “Although I think the word you like to use is asshole.”

  “Either you’ve mellowed out, or he hasn’t been as bad lately,” Charlotte felt the need to point out. “I can’t remember the last time we had anything close to an epic battle of wills between you two.”

  “We argue all the time,” I replied, giving her a look of disbelief.

  “Well yeah, but it’s more, oh Darcy, stop glaring at me and just admit I’m right,” she imitated, flicking her hair back and ending with a high giggle. I was horrified at the imitation.

  “Ok, Elizabeth,” Richard joined in, doing an actually impressive imitation of his cousin as his face hardened, his voice dropped, and he looked heavenward in clear frustration. “Fine, we’ll add that line of code in.” He paused to pout, maybe not a complete exaggeration, but the jut of his lower lip was definitely taking it too far. “And I do not glare.”

  Georgiana, I noticed, covered her mouth despite letting loose a rather undignified sounding snort of laughter.

  “I do not sound like that,” I replied, still shocked by her impression of me.

  “I would never give in so easily,” Darcy felt the need to add.

  “Just saying,” Charlotte shrugged. “The days of war are over. It’s a time of great peace at Darcy Technologies, especially on the third floor.”

  “You are so dramatic,” I said, rolling my eyes.

  “Come on, Will, we’re done here, right?” Richard gestured to the open doorway, where no more people seemed to be entering. “Let’s get these ladies some drinks.”

&n
bsp; He put his hand on the small of Charlotte’s back and led her into the main ballroom where everyone was lingering. I started up a conversation with Georgiana, who was surprisingly easy to talk to. I guess Darcy was the only one who inherited the antisocial gene. She did, however, share her brother’s interest in computers, and informed me she was two years into her BS in computer technology, with the plan being to go onto a master’s degree. We talked shop for a while; I asked her where her specific interests were and we were soon discussing a mutual love of networking.

  “I’ve never really done anything serious with it,” I told her as Darcy listened on, habitually not contributing anything to the conversation. “But I did have a lot of fun in my networking classes.”

  “Me too. Well, except for figuring out subnets.” Georgiana shook her head. “What a pain.”

  “That was the fun part!” I objected. “Figuring out how many networks on a system and subnetting everything just right? Strangely satisfying.”

  “Strangely is right,” she said with a grin. “You’re weird.”

  “You’re weird,” I childishly shot back with a smile.

  “Come on, Lizzy, I’m starving.” She tilted her head towards the food.

  We made our way to the buffet tables, talking about the better aspects of networking, according to Gigi, as she insisted I call her. We lost her brother somewhere along the way. I didn’t notice to where until about twenty minutes later, when Charlotte, Richard, Jane and Charlie had joined us.

  “Uh,” Gigi said, clearly disgusted.

  “What?” I asked, looking down at her plate, thinking she had eaten something gross. “Was it this weird purple pastry looking thing? I’ve been waiting for someone else to try that for a while because there’s no way I’m going to be the first.”

  “No,” Gigi grimaced. “Sorry Charlie, but your sister is being skeevy again.”

  Charlie let loose a long-suffering sigh, and the whole table followed Gigi’s gaze to where Darcy was standing rigidly while a half-naked woman was clutching his arm and was whispering into his ear.

  Holy surge of jealousy, Batman.

  Seriously, though, what the hell was that woman doing all over my… um… boss?

  “What is she wearing?” I asked instead.

  “Not much,” Richard and Charlotte replied in unison, and then grinned at each other.

  “Yeah, sorry Gigi,” Charlie rubbed the back of his neck. “I didn’t even invite her this year, but she kind of remembered the date and knew we were coming so…”

  “That is your sister?” I asked him. He looked a little bit ashamed, but I could hardly blame him.

  “Lizzy,” Jane gently admonished. Okay, maybe it wasn’t fair to point out the flaws in other people’s family members, especially when I had Lydia and Kit running around out in the world, but it had been a knee-jerk reaction.

  “Sorry, Doc. She seems, um, nice?” I squeaked the last work out as we all watched her clutch Darcy’s arm possessively and sneer as Abby, the still-annoying newest hire of our department went up to talk to him.

  “Try again,” Richard grimaced softly. “This is getting creepy. Dance, Char?” he offered, holding out a hand to her.

  “Good idea.” Charlie followed suit with Jane.

  “So,” I said, purposefully turning away from the scene that was causing all kinds of confusing anger in me. The focus of my thoughts might have been telling, however, when I asked her, “Boyfriend?”

  “No,” Gigi answered a bit too quickly, and then cocked her eyebrow in a more laidback manner. “You?”

  “No,” I answered, and then raised an eyebrow. “Who’s the boyfriend?” I gazed at her for a moment before Gigi sighed.

  “Don’t tell Will,” she said. “He will definitely not approve.”

  “Why?” I asked slowly, worried she was about to tell me she was dating someone so horrible that Darcy would definitely need to be told and I would be in the uncomfortable position of either keeping quiet to maintain my fledgling friendship with her or rat her out for her own good. Luckily, she rolled her eyes.

  “Um, because he’s a boy and he’s interested? He could get a blessing from the pope himself, but all Will would see is someone of the male species that wants to get close to his baby sister.” She huffed with the well-versed tone of this being an ongoing annoyance for her.

  I relaxed, though she still hadn’t told me what the guy was like. “Richard’s more chill, but even he loves to scare guys off. I’ve learned to keep possible candidates a secret until things are serious. You know how Will can be with normal people. Have you ever seen him with someone he does not like?”

  “Yo,” I replied with a raised hand.

  “He doesn’t not like you.” Gigi said with a laugh.

  “Okay, maybe he doesn’t not like me now,” I allowed “but when we first met? You heard Char- it was epic.”

  “Either way,” Gigi shook her head, clearly not wanting to fight about this topic. “James is really, really nice,” she said. She seemed to want to drive this point home. “But he’s not exactly perfect. For one thing, he’s five years older than me – twenty-five.”

  “Ok, not bad,” I tilted my head back and forth. “What else you got?”

  “He’s… a college drop-out. Well, he’s a musician, but…” Gigi sighed.

  “Nice. Trifecta. Older, dropout, musician.” I nodded approvingly. “Hot?” Gigi looked me over, apparently trying to decide if I was mocking her before she finally smiled.

  “Hot.” She confirmed.

  “Look, you didn’t ask for my advice,” I began, “but—”

  “But let me guess. I should be focused on my studies; I shouldn’t be messing around with a guy that much older than me; I should—” Gigi started with a bit of exasperation. Clearly, she had been hearing this advice from all over, and that didn’t even include her brother yet. I waved her off her tirade.

  “But – you love computers, right?” I asked. She looked confused but nodded. “Enough to know you want to do this for probably the rest of your life?” Again, she nodded. “Dude, that is the hard part.”

  She looked surprised at my statement, so I continued “If you know what you want to do for a career at your age, you’re already ahead in life. Do you know how many people ten or twenty years older than you still don’t know what they want to do in life?” She looked deep in thought, clearly taking in my words. “I mean, you can still fuck it up by dropping out and becoming a groupie, or druggie, or sinking all your money into supporting his starving artistry, or whatever people think will happen when you have a musician for a boyfriend,” I added.

  “Please,” she rolled her eyes and I grinned.

  “But, you seem pretty smart, so I doubt that will happen. College is the time where you are supposed to find out what your interests are, and that includes men. Do you like a laid-back guy, or will he eventually drive you crazy? Do you like the straight-A over achiever, or the guy that’s really, really into kung fu movies?”

  “I feel like there is a story there,” Gigi hedged with a smile.

  “There is. All in all, I learned that I was definitely not into that guy.” I shuddered. “You get my point, right? Live life. You’re young, you run green, your teeth are nice and clean.”

  “I should see my friends, see the sights, and be alright?” Gigi finished. I grinned, insanely pleased she caught my song reference.

  “That’s it, you’re awesome; we’re best friends,” I informed her. She laughed.

  “Thanks, Lizzy. That was actually really good advice.”

  “It’s been known to happen.” I ducked my head modestly. “If only my own sisters would think so.” I rolled my eyes. This launched us into discussing mutual family woes. Of course, love life aside, Gigi generally thought her brother could do no wrong, so she had very few grievances to air.

  Eventually we broke apart when a group of her friends showed up and I told her I should probably go mingle. To my great displeasure, Caroline was st
ill attached to Darcy. Her dress was so low-cut the V practically reached her navel. I grimaced, looking away and making a real effort to greet everyone I knew from work and make small talk.

  As the party was winding down, Jane caught up with me and let me know she and Charlie were going to take a ride around the property on one of the horse-drawn carriages and then leave for home.

  “It looks like Charlotte might actually go home with Richard tonight,” she said and we both looked over to where Richard and Char were sitting; he was twirling a finger through her hair and murmuring something in her ear that made her grin. “Will you need a ride?” she asked.

  “No, don’t worry about me, I’ll find my way home if Char gets lucky.” I wiggled my eyebrows and Jane smiled indulgently.

  Charlie came and let her know their carriage was ready and I took a moment to admire how adorable they looked before I finally decided to go through with a plan I had been forming for about a week.

  First, I risked Charlotte’s wrath by interrupting their friendly tête-à-tête to ask Richard if there was somewhere I could use a computer undisturbed.

  “Liz, we’re at a party. Don’t be that guy,” Char said with barely disguised irritability.

  “You can use Darcy’s study. He won’t mind.” Richard, I was happy to note, didn’t seem inclined to detach himself from Charlotte long enough to show me the way. “Up the stairs, first door on your left.”

  I thanked him. I also let Charlotte know I had a ride and not to bother finding me if she wanted to leave before I had returned; I was gone before they could ask questions.

  An intimidating-looking man blocked the staircase, apparently put there to keep people like me from wandering away from the party and into the private quarters. I pointed to Richard and let him know that he vouched for me. Richard, apparently, had been waiting for this to happen and gave an indifferent wave of his hand before turning back to Char. That was enough for security, or whatever he was, and I was able to slip past.

  I entered Darcy’s private study, turned the lights on, and then quickly shut them off again. I opted instead to light the fire – electric, thank god, I was not about to figure out anything more complicated. I also turned on the two lamps on either side of his very large desk onto their lowest setting. The lighting seemed right, so I tapped out a text to Darcy.