It took a lot of self-control not to squeal when Lizzie Bennet showed up for her tour. Gigi forced herself to give a normal smile, shake Lizzie's hand and start leading her beyond the lobby of Pemberley Digital's main building. She was pretty proud of how well she kept her excitement under control.
There was one part that almost gave her away, though. Not the fact that she knew about Lizzie's videos or that she was trying to get her together with her brother, but that she was a Darcy. When she took Lizzie to the Memorial Hall, she couldn't talk about her parents with a calm and detached voice. Of course she couldn't. Why did she think she could? It wasn't so bad touring the art collection and the theater and the conferences rooms, but the greenhouse garden – a place Mom would have loved – she couldn't even mention it without getting a lump in her throat.
She managed to cover it up with a cough and hurried Lizzie along to the performance space. On the way, however, Lizzie stopped and stared at one of the photographs hanging on the long wall of the corridor. Oh, no. Was that a Darcy family picture? Gigi joined her and hid a sigh of relief. It was a family picture, but an old one, with only a very young William and their parents.
"This is your CEO, when he was boy?" Lizzie had a strange look on her face. Gigi didn't know what to make of it.
"Yup, that's William Darcy."
Lizzie blinked, then nodded and moved on down the corridor…only to stop again at a much more recent picture of William, taken just before they lost their parents. Somehow the photographer had gotten him to smile. It was one of Gigi's favorite pictures of him. Judging from Lizzie's fixated look, she found something appealing in it as well, though maybe for very different reasons.
This was very, very promising. Gigi swallowed a noise of glee and saved it for later.
After a minute Lizzie turned, clearing her throat and smoothing the fabric of her clothes unnecessarily. "Sorry, we were headed – that way?"
"That's right. Toward those double doors." Gigi let Lizzie go a few steps ahead so she wouldn't notice her tour guide triumphantly bouncing up and down on her heels. Then she resumed what she hoped was a professional stance before joining Lizzie in the performance space.
Gigi ended up giving away her identity and practically everything else by the time the tour was finished, but it wasn't like she could keep it hidden forever. Just long enough to get a peek at how Lizzie felt about William when she thought no one important was watching her. It was definitely worth a teeny tiny bit of deception.