The first year is amazing. Her company grows more rapidly than she could have ever anticipated. She gets more requests than she can handle on her own and she ends up hiring six employees. They expand offices three times during the first year. They start in her apartment but once they move to an actual office space, she breaks her lease and moves in with her boyfriend.
That's another thing that makes the first year so amazing. William Darcy is everything she could have ever asked for. She realizes soon into the relationship that there is no one more suited for her and that she is going to spend the rest of her life with him. Months ago, something like that would have scared her, but she's thrilled by it. She catches herself doodling 'Mrs. Darcy' into her notebook during a meeting with investors. She dreams about their future children one night and instead of being frightened by how fast it is moving and how serious everything is. She never knew she could feel something so deeply and so fully as she felt about William. They can't sleep apart and they end up in the same apartment three months into their relationship.
It works. Everything works and everything is going so well between them. She's so afraid that she's going to wake up from this dream and be back at home living with her parents without a company and a boyfriend. She savors each moment during the whirlwind year.
She feels fulfilled and she feels like she is doing good work and that she is going to make a difference. She loves everything about her life. She loves getting up and going to work and she loves leaving at the end of the day to come home to the most amazing boyfriend. There is nothing she would change about the year, not even the ridiculous hints about marriage and babies from her mother or their failure of a ski trip.
Everything happens so quickly and a few weeks after her twenty-sixth birthday she ends up tearfully accepting a proposal from William. He takes her on another San Francisco tour and proposes to her on the water's edge. It's beautiful and romantic and heartfelt and everything she expected from William Darcy.
They keep things to themselves for a little while. It's not that they don't want to share their happy news with their friends and family, but they want to have something that's just theirs, at least for a little while.
At first, she thinks about how everyone is going to react. Her mother will be pleased but her father would warn her and advise her to be cautious. Jane would congratulate her sincerely and Lydia would tease her. Gigi would squeal and call Fitz, and then the both of them would take credit for all of it. Caroline would congratulate the two of them with a fake smile. It doesn't matter because they're happy and in love and certain that they are ready to be married.
The one person's opinion that she cares about is the one person's she shouldn't. Her thoughts don't go directly to Darcy's Aunt Catherine, but once they get there, she can't stop thinking about it. Catherine will, of course, insist on a pre-nuptial agreement. That doesn't bother her, not really. She understands why it's important. She has a business down and she knows that it's good to protect herself and her (limited) assets. She knows that they'll never need it. She knows that everyone says that too, but she's certain they'll never need it.
Shortly after they make their engagement public, she takes a good look at her books. That's when everything comes crashing down.