The first thing she does in the morning, after showering, getting accordingly dressed and taking her first intake of caffeine is to call Charlotte and offer her a detailed, though not very explicit, summary of the events of the previous night.
"Don't make me beg, tell me what happened next."
The excited interest of her friend makes Lizzie miss her presence all the more.
"Well—he picked up my… coat and drove me home."
"No, I mean immediately after… you know."
Charlotte drops her voice at the last part of the sentence and Lizzie looks suspiciously around herself on reflex. They both are in very public means of transport on their respective ways to work, which has led them to verbally regressing to their early teens and shamefully overusing sport metaphors and the overstated you know.
"Immediately after? He picked up my coat and drove me home."
"What? You're not serious."
"Oh I'm serious. I'm deadly, confusedly serious."
The small pause in the conversation not only reveals Charlotte's astonishment, which, by the way, matches her own bit by bit, but also gives Lizzie enough time to reconsider if keeping this conversation on the bus instead of calling her friend later has been a wise idea at all.
"Maybe he has… performance issues?" Charlotte offers.
But Lizzie remembers, quite vividly, getting her hands inside his pants to pull his shirt out and undoing the button of his trousers in a way you couldn't possibly call modest; she recalls, with a sudden wave of heat spreading from her insides, straddling him and moving and to be sure Darcy held up the more than appropriate body response to those circumstances.
"I have hard evidence that suggest otherwise," she says in rushed, low whisper.
"Pun intended, I suppose."
Lizzie doesn't answer to that, instead presses her cell phone with more determination against her ear and turns slightly away from the old lady seated in front of her who looks too amused and invested in her private conversation to be an unsuspecting passenger.
"So there wasn't any kind of reciprocity." It's not a question, yet it sounds like her friend wants some confirmation.
"No. I think he was trying to be unimposing?"
"Really? Well that's weird and also kind of sweet. But mostly weird. What do you think he—" But Charlotte never finishes her own question. "You know what? No, we're not going to discuss this any further."
Lizzie is a little confused. "We are not?"
"No, and you know why? Because if the roles were reversed and he had been... on the receiving end in this change of scenario, nobody would be overanalyzing the situation this much, so I say we take a stand for equality and drop the issue altogether."
"Ok," says Lizzie, because honestly, she is definitely not going to be the one to stand on the way of gender equality.
"So, how is the weather over there?" she asks, which is lame but is also the only thing that comes to her mind. When five seconds later Charlotte hasn't answered yet she starts to worry; nothing good has ever come from a too quiet Charlotte. "Are you still there?"
Charlotte sighs and it sounds like defeat. "Ok, he drove you home?"
Lizzie nods and purses her lips like she knows her friend would be picturing her doing. "Yes, and he kissed me goodnight. On the cheek!"
"Oh my God, what's wrong with him!" Lizzie is about to interject, mainly because that is definitely her line and hearing Charlotte saying it makes her feel too vindicated to let it go uncelebrated but also in part because she suddenly feels strangely defensive. Not that it matters anyway since her friend is on a roll. "Granted, is not like a kiss on the cheek is a completely bizarre occurrence by itself, but given the circumstances? It's so weird. And strangely sweet. Mostly sweet though."
Lizzie sighs, deeply and theatrical as the hand that is not still holding her cell phone finds its way to massage her temple.
"That, my friend, pretty much defines my whole experience at Pemberley so far."
"Hi"
"Good morning."
Of course this would be the first morning they run into each other entering the building.
Incidentally is also the first time Lizzie rides an elevator without breathing at all.
Lizzie is a very grounded person, perfectly rational, with gold medal skills for denial, so when she happens to decide not to give any more thought to any misguided emotion emerging from the previous night events, that is exactly what her brain will try to do. Regrettably, the same inflexible resolution that is surely going to protect her from future ass biting is also what is currently preventing her from setting her mind on anything for longer than the span of a second before it ripples back to the forbidden subject.
She stares at her camera fixed in front of her, drinks coffee and stares at the camera some more for what feels like centuries. She could have sworn that whole civilizations had raised and fallen since she first arrived at Pemberley that very same morning, still, every time she takes a look at her wrist, the watch mocks her by barely registering the pass of time.
By noon she is mildly afraid that this could be what finally sets her on the path of certifiable insanity.
"Do you want to go and have lunch with me?" asks Gigi in a text message saving her from a certain future in mental institutions. Lizzie is so glad to have a way out this not-thinking-about-it madness that she answers using only capital letters.
After that her morning gets easier. She has a purpose. She has food to think about!
She sets her camera for recording again and makes a long due video of questions and answers that helps her keep her mind focused until Gigi shows up to pick her up.
They go to this Mexican place on the 3rd Street that is not far from Pemberley's offices because it's a sunny, cold day and Lizzie enjoys the walk in this weather, the company and the superb "Paradise salad" that this place offers.
"—so Fitz convinced my coach that there was some kind of medical emergency. We ran down the stairs out of the training court and across the city as fast as we could, and we arrived to the concert venue barely five minutes before it started. Of course we were all flustered, I still had my racket in my hand and Fitz had his fake medical ID hanging from his shirt and they didn't want to let us in. I've never seen Fitz fake cry so hard in my life."
Lizzie giggles a little at the mental image Gigi provides.
"Did you make it?"
"Oh we did but, William was furious when he found out."
She tells stories like this, with open frankness and intent to amuse. It makes Lizzie feel a little more relaxed with herself, a little bit more like home, and when Gigi insists in discussing some details of her past videos she obliges without feeling trapped and weird as she would have done before.
Is not until desserts arrive that Gigi casually asks, "So what did you guys do last night?"
And inevitably she panics, she tries not to but she panics; blood leaves her face and the air in her throat refuses to get in and then out of her lungs, her palms start to sweat and apocalyptic scenarios where Charlotte has become a force of evil and hijacked her vlog again fleet across her mind while she reminds herself to Keep. It. Cool.
"Why do you ask?"
Gigi makes a noncommittal gesture. "It's just that you had that thing downtown together and Will arrived kind of late last night so I figured maybe you guys had gone out to have dinner or something."
"Nope, no dinner," she says a little too quickly neither confirming nor denying anything about the something part and attacking without mercy her chocolate cake in a feeble attempt to cover her tracks.
If Gigi suspects anything, she has the delicacy not to comment on it while Lizzie swallows a mouthful of chocolate, yet she can't stop wondering if like Darcy in Netherfield, she is the one who can't help being weird and awkward this time around.
"Have anybody properly informed you of the change of schedule for the afternoon?"
"Oh, yes."
They happen to meet at the drinks and snacks counter too.
"There is an impromptu meeting later with the creativity team. I could put you in the calendar event if you'd want to attend."
"Sure."
She happens to forget how to speak in proper sentences with real verbs coincidentally around the same time.
The conference room is kind of crowded, not only the creative team is there but also people from marketing, distribution and development. It turns out to be a casual get together to outline the strategy for a new campaign, with lots of coffee, pastries and brainstorming going around.
To say that Lizzie enjoys it would be to put it quite mildly. She eagerly absorbs the working method as Mrs. Reynolds beside her writes down the most popular ideas with a proud little smile on her face.
What is left unsaid, what Lizzie hopes remains unnoticed is how mesmerized she is by Darcy.
He has the cuffs of his pristine white shirt rolled up to his elbows, the two first buttons undone as he talks loud and clear. His hands, strong and long fingered accompany his every word with concise and precise movements as he walks up and down the room, with calm, with a determination that enthrals everyone.
It warms her up, this relaxed self-confidence with which he conducts himself, his head up and a little enthusiastic smile on his mouth, it opens an uncertain hole in her stomach. Her traitorous body has a penchant for his every little gesture, vibrates in tune with the rhythm of his words, remembering on its own the only other time she has seen him this kind of self satisfied.
"I heard you went to the meeting downtown yesterday?" asks her Mrs. Reynolds at the end of the meeting as the attendees progressively leave the room.
"Yes, as a matter of fact I did."
She feels rather than hears Darcy approaching from her back and ignores the constant tingling at the end of her fingers.
"And did you enjoy the experience?"
She sighs, deeply. "I most certainly did."
"Good. I'll see you around Miss Bennet."
Her heart beats loudly in her ears as she slowly turns around. Incredibly tall, with his cuff still rolled up and the buttons still undone, Darcy smiles more widely than he has done before and a weight that she didn't know was there before lifts off her shoulders.
"May I offer you a ride?"
It rains heavy on the street as they come across under the awning of the entrance of the building, though this time Lizzie suspects their encounter is less of a coincidence than before.
"I've already called a cab, but thank you."
He nods and lowers his head making his chin come near his neck.
"Good night then, Lizzie," he gives a step towards her and lowers himself until his lips find her right cheek.
For the next ten minutes all that Lizzie can think about is wait.
Despite the ridiculous costume theatres, the not so veiled criticism to her points of view and completely disagreement about main goals in life, Lizzie loves her mother very much, to the point of missing her sometimes when she is away and feeling particularly homesick, but when her mother calls her that night all that Lizzie can feel is as if someone had drained all the oxygen in the room leaving her to suffocate as her mother digress over and over again about how unblessed she feels for not having the future perspective of baby grandchildren.
"—I don't know where I went wrong Lizzie. Oh my God, you're going to die single and alone, surrounded by filthy cats—" Lizzie closes her eyes and mentally counts to ten to be able to keep enduring this kind of conversation, making noncommittal noises here and there and trying hard not to listen to her mother chastisements.
"—and Jane, poor Jane, all miserable and abandoned in L.A… we must do something about it."
It sparks in her mind the memory of Darcy's intense look after he questioned the benefits of keeping meddling into Jane's and Bing's affairs while doing theatre costume and a rush of fear overcomes her.
"Mum, No! We absolutely shouldn't get into Jane's' business." There's has been certainly more than enough of it even if her mother is not aware of it.
"Oh that's rich coming from you, young lady. Your sister Lydia has told me that you are not speaking to each other because you wouldn't stop telling her how she should live her live, though she is doing far better than you. If you are so selfish that you don't want to help your eldest sister fine, then I got nothing more to say to you. Goodnight Lizzie."
Talking with her mother leaves her exhausted and frustrated as always, it also leaves her wondering once again how much of her sister's pain would have been avoided if she hadn't convinced Jane to play it cool in the first place.
Lizzie doesn't sleep much after that but the time doesn't go to waste as she muses and ponders in the dreamless hours of the night, reaching the inevitable conclusion that given that her own life is a mess, she might as well stay out of other people's life choices.
Who knows, she even might make her next video about it.
"Hey Lizzie. Are these all really letters to Charlotte?"
She can't find anything appropriate so say. Nothing that could tell Bing in a few words the story of the videos and the regret she feels now for having lied to him for so long, so she says nothing at all.
"I'll see you around. Take care."
It's the kind sadness in his voice what shames her the most.
There's a dinner party organised by Caroline at the Darcy's because, apparently, it's customary among the rich and wealthy to plan events at other people's houses, and not intrusive, rude or preposterous at all as Lizzie would have thought.
"It's just going to be a bunch of people," Gigi tries to convince her. "Bing, Caroline, Fitz, Will, a couple of friends and me. Pretty casual. It's going to be fun."
Lizzie smiles and accepts the invitation with some reluctance because she likes Gigi and it's not fair to keep refusing half the plans that she suggests to her although Lizzie is pretty sure she will manage to unintentionally offend these new people in her vlog somehow within the next week.
She goes nevertheless, with her blue dress and a ponytail and a bottle of Corison Cabernet Sauvignon from 2001 (so outside her budget that she doesn't even want to think about it) since she doesn't know about the rich and wealthy, but among the middle class she proudly belongs to, it's only good manners to bring something to a party.
"Oh, you didn't have to." Darcy's eyes grow a little wide while he takes her coat and the bottle from her hands, "but thank you. This is actually one of my favourites."
Lizzie stands there, smiling open and proud, warmed up by this illogical feeling of fulfilment until Fitz spots her and surrounds her with his long arms in a warm embrace.
"Hey, hey, Lizzie B!"
Gigi introduces her to the people she doesn't already know puts a glass of red wine in her hand and convinces Bing that somebody owns her a normal not awkward dance to the slow music that keep sounding in the background.
She is halfway into her second glass of wine when Darcy appears at her side, he is wearing a short sleeved grey shirt and when their arms bump the feeling of his warm skin contacting with her cooler one raises goosebumps all over her.
"Do you want a tour of the house?"
"I'd love to."
The rooms that he shows her are magnificent, with spectacular views of the bay and the gardens and sculptures and paintings that decorate the spaces with glorious taste. It's a bit like walking through Pemberley's offices for the first time all over again, only this time Darcy guides her carefully with his huge hand on the small of her back and she finds herself constantly holding her breath.
"Oh my God, is that is that a real Hopper?!" she takes a step toward the picture but Darcy takes her hand in his and leads her along the hallway.
"I think, you will like this room best."
He opens a double door and a huge circular room with high sky ceiling appears before her eyes. There are two big leather couches in the middle over what seems to be an Arabian rug, but what takes her breath away are the full stocked bookcases that from floor to ceiling seem to cover every inch of wall that is not a window.
If a talking candelabra and a clock happened to enter the room in that moment she wouldn't even be that surprised.
Darcy lets go of her hand and she takes cautious steps into the room, as if it all will dissolve like a mirage if she isn't cautious enough.
"This. Is. AMAZING," she says almost above a whisper as Darcy moves at her back. She can hear him walking and a bookcase opening a closing but she is too mesmerized by what she sees to look anywhere else.
"It has been my intention for some time to show you this," he says approaching her and puts a book into her hands. "It was a personal favourite of my mother."
Lizzie looks at her hands. The book is ancient and heavy, the red leather covers are scuffed and she slowly and carefully turns the book around to look at the spine; Sense and Sensibility it says in golden italic letters and Lizzie drops her mouth and lifts her stunned eyes to his.
"Is it…?" she doesn't dare to finish the question.
"Yes, it is a first edition," he says shyly and moving a little closer. "I think I remember you saying that you counted this title among your favourites."
Lizzie's heartbeat speeds up as she breathes faster, her eyes filling with tears for no reason at all. She holds the book with one hand against her chest and lifts her other hand to his neck, pulling his mouth down towards hers.
Their lips meet and this time neither of them hesitates, they don't rush into it either. They caress each other with their tongues, with their lips, with their teeth, pulling softly and pushing carefully. His breath gently touches her cheek as she slowly and intently explores his mouth with laziness. He wraps her arms around her, the book secure and forgotten trapped against their bodies, and she feels cocooned and sheltered, by his warmth and his smell as one of his hand runs up and down her back in an unhurried pace.
He sighs and changes the inclination deepening the kiss without haste, indulging the slow and determined wrestle of their mouth and her fingers entangled in the soft hair of his nape.
"Darcy? Are you hiding in the library ag—?" Caroline's voice travels down the hallway a little faster than she does and Lizzie has just the right amount of time to jump in her skin, take a huge step backwards holding the book tight and look intently at her shoes before Caroline appears at the threshold.
"Oh, Lizzie," Caroline says. "You are hiding in the library too. How charming."
There is obvious resentment in Caroline's tone of voice but it's been a long time since Lizzie cared about the other woman's thoughts. She puts the book in Darcy's trusting hands with a heartfelt little smile and a whispered "thank you".
As Lizzie walks the hallway back to the sitting room she wonders at which exact moment did her life start to resemble the main plot of a cheap soap opera.
Jane calls her in the morning.
"So how is Darcy like at Pemberley?"
"You have met the guy, Jane." She uses her frustrated, slightly irritated tone of voice because anger, always seems like the easiest choice. "He is stupidly tall, insanely professional and only wears those ridiculous, expensive suits. Oh and he always has an opinion. About everything! It doesn't matter what you say, the guy always has his own damned informed opinion because God forbids he wouldn't know about what he is talking about and on the small chance that he does not know what somebody is talking about, he won't stop asking questions. And did I tell you about the car, Jane? He has a pretentious hybrid car that goes along with his pretentious private swimming pool and his pretentious first edition of Sense and Sensibility."
"Lizzie…"
"And the way he indulges his little sister and his friends? Completely ridiculous! Oh, and Mrs. Reynolds, he actually holds the doors open for his secretary and pulls the chair out for her, who in hell does that?! And he never, NEVER! uses simple words."
"Lizzie, you actually like all those things."
They don't talk about Bing at all.
What Lizzie can barely acknowledge is that she is scared to death. It's not like she is going to confess it to any other breathing human being on the planet, of course, but in those rare occasions when she is being completely honest with herself, she can come to admit that she really is frightened.
It's not that she likes Darcy, that's not such a great deal, what completely, utterly terrifies her is that she is falling in love with him, she knows it because she has tried hard to stop it without much success, and what if, what if, in the same way that she came to hate a William Darcy that was just her biased version of him back when they both were at Netherfield, the Lizzie Bennet that Darcy fell in love with isn't real either.
In those moments of open truth, she can imagine what her sister Jane and her best friend Charlotte would have to say if she ever told them about her fears; that it really isn't a matter of how Darcy feels but of how she feels that she should take a leap of faith and be completely honest with him. Lizzie has never been very fond of any kind of leaping.
Instead she stays late at Pemberly and pretends to work till there's virtually nobody else around. She waits at her workspace, then Darcy appears in the threshold to offer to drive her home and she always accepts because she is completely and madly in love with his car. It has been exactly like that for the last three days.
"He has an Oscar!"
"I didn't want to imply that he is a bad actor, I was merely pointing out that the plot quality of some of the his movies is not the best"
They always talk, about work, politics, ethics, culture… they talk about tiny, stupid things and about strong, main issues. The ride from Pemberly to her apartment last about twenty minutes, Lizzie always wishes it lasted a lot more.
"All Colin Firth's movies are to be treasured!"
"Even 'Mamma Mia'?"
"Ok, mister, first of all that is a low punch, and second and more important, are you saying that you have watched 'Mamma Mia'?"
"Well, you must be well aware that my past is not always something I'm proud of" he says and smiles at her looking momentarily away from the road.
"I'm not going to let that go so easily. The details of the circumstances that lead to you watching 'Mamma Mia'. Do tell, please"
"I'm afraid that is a long story and this is a short ride"
The car comes to a stop in front of her apartment's door. Darcy kills the engine and goes around the car to open her door as he always does but Lizzie doesn't go out of the car immediately, instead she takes a couple of seconds looking right straight ahead, sighs deeply and works her courage before stepping off the vehicle.
"Lizzie? Is anything wr—?"
She doesn't let him finish.
"Contrary to popular belief I'm not really good with this sort of declarations and I think is pretty obvious anyway but I want you to know that I enjoy your company very much"
Her hands are icy cold, so much that it almost hurt when she clenches them into fits but she does it anyway. She takes a step forward and look up to his face; they are close enough for her to appreciate the shadows of the nightlights playing on his features and the warmth of body lazily reaching hers. She waits for a reaction.
Darzy smiles, just a little, his eyes filled with understanding resignation.
Her stomach tightens, her lungs can't get enough air. God, she is absolutely useless in this kind of situations.
"I also appreciate the pleasure of your—"
"I like you!" she interrupts though it sounds childish and ill fitted even to her own hears.
Darcy just smiles a little wider and looks slightly confused. She is clearly a mess. And a failure at any kind of communications related studies since she seems to be utterly unable to effectively communicate.
"What I want to say is that I like to talk to you and to walk around the city with you and to spend time with you" she sounds so very lame that she has to role her eyes.
Darcy smiles shrink. Lizzie's stomach contracts even more.
"Oh"
"That sounded far more platonic than I intended" she lowers her eyes and lowers her voice "I wasn't aiming for platonic. At all"
She looks up again, searching in his face for a sign. This time the smile reaches his eyes which widen a little with realization.
"You really like me" he inquires without the proper tone for a question, looking for confirmation, blatantly cautious in his conclusions.
Lizzie smiles, teeth showing and all, and nodes fervently like one of those wobble head dolls that people put on their car's dashboard. "I really like you"
The words are still lame but this time the message is getting through.
He goes for her mouth slowly, giving her time to retreat or look to one side. She does neither, of course, she just waits and anticipates and when his lips finally touch hers, the shivers that run through her back and the trembling of her hands on his lapels are not so subtle.
"Cold?" asks Darcy and Lizzie counts the fact that his speaking doesn't resemblance iambic pentameter as a personal victory.
"Do you want to go in to—?"
"Yes"
Lizzie smiles and struggles with her keys while trying to open the door. She is not really sure of what happens because one moment they are out in the street and the next they are inside her apartment and Darcy is carefully taking his jacket off and bending it over his flexed arm.
"Do you want a tour of the house? Although aside of what you see there's only the bathroom and the bedroom" she says feeling like he is getting dumber by the minute.
"I would absolutely love to see your bedroom" he says as a matter of fact and with a polite smirk on his face.
Lizzie has no other choice but to giggle, take his hand in hers and pull to guide him to the aforementioned bedchamber.
"Be warned, it surely it's nothing like what you're used to" she is thinking of her Ikea bed with plain blue cotton sheets and the stocked pile of second hand books she bought at a street market for a bunch of dollars that she uses as a bedside table.
"That fits the description of a number of things since I met you" he says letting himself be softly dragged across the kitchen/living room, "and I must say that I've grown fond of it"
Lizzie is nervous. She clumsily takes Darcy's jacket from his arm and hangs it alongside her coat on the clothes stand situated on a corner. Once the task is over she doesn't know what to do with herself.
"Do you want something to drink? A cup of coffee maybe?" it's stupid and preposterous to ask it now that they are both in bedroom. Yes, she is tragically aware of her own awkwardness.
"Do you want a cup of coffee?" asks Darcy with a certain intrigued look.
"No"
Lizzie feels terribly self conscious. For all their previous experiences, this is the first time she is alone with Darcy with the premeditated intention of them being alone instead of the result of a spur of the moment.
Darcy takes a step forward and raises his hand to caress her cheek and cups her face caringly. "Would you rather prefer that I would go now?"
Lizzie sighs deeply and relaxes a little bit against his palm "No"
He kisses her then, softly and unrushed. Lips against lips moving lazily. Darcy's free hand rises to rest comfortably on the curve of her waist and Lizzie presses her mouth with a little more insistence, seeking out for him.
It makes her dizzy, the unhurriedly way he undresses her, with intention, taking his leisure to caress every inch of naked skin he finds in his path. It also unnerves her, the slow pace, the waiting, the wanting.
They are both on their knees on the bed and Lizzie slides her mouth against the length of his neck with more intention, she pushes her unbuttoned shirt off his arms and explores with her warm hands the muscles under his skin, his torso, his shoulder blades, the suggestive path marked by his oblique abs.
She pushes him backwards lightly, making him lay back and she takes the chance to kick his pants before they are both in just their underwear.
Darcy smiles widely at the sight of her and Lizzies wonders how before Pemberley she never noticed how much he usually smiles.
It all escalates from there. Hands and mouths and teeth. Their limbs entangled as they roll and in the way sometimes. The wet sounds of their bold kissing and the warm air of their hasty breaths fill the room.
Darcy works proficiently between her legs, drawing slow circles with his thumb, using his other fingers to enter her over and over again, building the pressure inside her while he watches her, kisses her, clasp his other hand in her thigh, up to the curve of her ass, in her hip, and he kisses her and slides his tongue and stubble cheek along her body, reddening her usually white skin as he advances.
Her nostrils flare and her breath gets caught in her throat as she comes, pressing against him, and her body looking blindly for the warmth of his skin as she tries to hold him close with barely responsive arms.
It may take her a few seconds to recover but when she does, Darcy is looking at her with intent, a smile too smug for his own good planted on his face.
"You have a lovely bedroom" he says, and she giggles again.
She makes them roll around the bed so she is on top of him and kisses him deeply and sloppy. "Nothing like what you're used to?" she asks against his mouth while her hands caress the skin of his stomach and keeps travelling south.
"Definitely"
It's barely morning, the sunlight that filters through the window of her bedroom is barely enough to create shadows but she can read in his eyes nevertheless; they tell secret stories of lust and longing and care that she thinks she understands.
She moves astride him, up and down and back and forward with her hands on the warm, hard surface of his stomach, his fingers clenched on her hips as their pelvis meet and collide over and over again.
"You are nothing like what I'm used to either" she imagines she says, but she can't catch her breath as the rhythm increases and the only word that leaves her lips is "William"
She hopes that even in the dim light he would be able to read in her eyes too.
One Saturday afternoon they will be still in bed in a mess of sheets, underwear and oversized clothes when her cell phone will ring. The call won't last long but the silence that follows will.
"It's Lydia" she will say. There will be a tremble in her voice and unshed tears in her eyes. "And Wickham"
Suddenly there will be to much anguish and distress in the room for them to be able to breath without suffocating.
"I have to go home"
And neither of them will be able to tell if what they are about to say is a temporary farewell or a permanent one