Authors note:

I may confuse some of you however, the Emily and Elizabeth situation will all be revealed in due course.

If you haven't already re-read the last chapter please do because I have revised it slightly; thanks to the early readers who pointed out some clumsy mistakes I made.

Enjoy, Kx

O and if you were wondering the song Lizzie was listening to was 'Here I go again' by Whitesnake, great song

Elizabeth Bennett's desk was a mess, the remnants of last week's conference were strewn across her desk; delegate surveys, menus, conference schedules and handbooks spilled off the confines of her desk onto the floor. Glancing over at the desk opposite hers it was obvious that her slovenly ways did not run in the family, her sister Jane's desk was spotless; everything was filed in its correct place and there was not even a pen out of place.

Shuffling the papers back and forth Lizzie sighed as she returned to the desperate search to find her iPhone and pen; she was already ten minutes late and after the fuss she had made this morning when Jane had insinuated that Lizzie would probably be late for their meeting she had been determined to prove her wrong; 'well there was always next' time she thought.

"Ah ha" Lizzie triumphantly exclaimed, thrusting the misplaced iPhone above her head, whilst manically jumping up and down with excitement. Looking out the window at the desks outside of her office, she smiled to herself noticing that this had become such a regular occurrence that none of them even looked up from their laptops anymore.

'That iPhone will live to thwart you another day, huh Lizzie!' Charlotte Lucas, one of her senior project management team laughed as entered Lizzie's & Jane's shared office. "Jane called; she wanted me to tell you in advance that you're late."

Charlotte was one of Lizzie's best friends; she had known Lizzie since she was born, mothering her as they grew up and eventually living next door to one another in Kensington for several years before Lizzie moved to Windsor. When Lizzie first explained why she was moving away Charlotte thought it would be the end of their friendship, with everything that was going on in Lizzie's life at the time she thought she would be too busy to involve her childhood friend in her new life, so when Charlotte had got the call from Jane and Lizzie to tell her they were setting up their own events company, she jumped at the chance to escape her staid metropolitan life and moved near Windsor to support the girls.

Charlotte's life had never been a fairy tale, a plain Jane since birth none of the boys had fancied her at school, hell she hadn't even kissed a boy until she was 17 (and that was only because he thought she was Jane; it was very dark) and as such she knew when Mr Collins; her husband proposed, it was likely to be the only proposal she was ever going to receive and as a result she was now stuck in a loveless marriage to a man she did not respect. Nope Charlotte Lucas was nothing like the Bennett sisters, who from an early age had been surrounded by a flurry of attention, whether that was because of their family relations, personal lives or work situation they had always excelled in everything they put their mind too and it was no surprise that their business had taken off as quickly as it had; even in a recession.

Jane Bennett was the sensible sister, who always acted in a considerate and generous way; she was 28, with sun kissed blonde hair that danced on her shoulders as she walked and deep green eyes that shone like emeralds. Jane was gifted with a heavenly size 8 figure that suited her Grace Kelly inspired wardrobe and she as she walked she seductively swung her hips in a way that never failed to grab a man's attention. In contrast Elizabeth was the creative one, she always excelled in public speaking forums and had her father's tenacity and wit; in looks she was the exact opposite of Jane, at 27 she had wavy mahogany hair and a textured fringe which sometimes danced on her eyebrows when she was speaking animatedly. Lizzie eyes were two deeps pools of chocolate and her recently acquired curvaceous figure drove every man and woman crazy with desire. Elizabeth and Jane had always been polar opposites, the moon & sun, light & dark, angel & devil but for them this worked, they were each others ying and yang. In blindingly obvious contrast to both of the glamorous sisters Charlotte was a 5ft 6in, 34 year old, medium built, mousy brown haired housewife, who had married far too young to a man that she did not respect and could never love. All of these reasons contributed to why Charlotte worked for the Bennett sisters, she was never going to be in charge of her own destiny, she would never have the ambition or drive to run her own company and when the opportunity had been presented itself to work with them, she knew it would be the closest she'd ever got to determining how own fate.

Completely oblivious to the thoughtful repose Charlotte had slipped into Lizzie chuckled, Charlie was obviously hovering about to make sure Lizzie left "Farlie what would we do without you?" Lizzie teasingly revived her friend by poking her in her ribs, causing her to squirm and before she could playfully hit Lizzie back she had flitted past her and was rushing out the front door barefoot with her patent grey heels swaying in her hand "tell Jane I left ten minutes ago" that was her final instruction as the door closed behind her; the rest of the team continued drumming on their keypads not even batting an eyelid that their fearless leader couldn't even put her shoes on before leaving the office.

Running across the car park, Lizzie jumped into her waiting brilliant red Audi S3 luxuriating in the new car small that filled her nostrils. Flinging her bag onto the passenger seat, she surveyed the damage a toddler can do and tossed the abandoned dummy into the back seat before slamming the car into gear and manically driving out of their gated premises. After several minutes of boring silence, Lizzie flicked on the radio and began bobbing her head to Whitesnake, whilst throwing the car about the road dancing to the music, on several occasions she narrowly missed oncoming traffic and avoided rear ending a parked car; she just could not understand country drivers, it was all about the city for her, you had not lived until you'd successfully squeezed your way between a bus and lorry and escaped with only a broken wing mirror.

Reaching across into the seat next to her, removing her eyes momentarily from the road she thumbed through her notes attempting to find something that she could skim read to prepare for the meeting; she would never drive like this with William in the car but there was something about Jane's attitude to this meeting that put Lizzie on edge. For one, Jane had never had a penchant for keeping secrets and two, she was always absolutely honest with Lizzie, even brutally so; so why was she being so secretive about this Client. Sure a little bit of detective work proved that the Client was some hotshot IT company but she couldn't get a name or a contact and that was mightily unusual. Lizzie liked to perform background checks on all her clients (she didn't have Jane's trusting nature) and it had on several occasions won them the job, I mean it's not every day that you get meet an events organiser that will hide your mistress from your wife at the same time as organising a dinner on the great wall of china in a monsoon.

Forty minutes later Lizzie had managed to navigate her way to the meeting point, which was an upmarket central London hotel overlooking Hyde Park. To get here she had cut up cyclists, tourists, cabs, buses and lorries but it felt so good and she didn't regret it even though she had been flipped the bird on more than one occasion. Slamming her breaks on she jumped out the car, whilst pulling her heels on and threw the keys to the waiting valet; who gladly jumped into the front seat but not before glancing back over his weedy shoulder to give her an appreciative once over before pulling away.

'Ahhh' she sighed, twirling around with her arms out, taking in a panoramic view of her home; here the buildings were familiar to her, the architecture, the noise, the pollution, the shops, the traffic, the cosmopolitan feel, it was all buzzing; feeding her it's energy, welcoming her home.

A tall imposing doorman pulled open the glass door to her, welcoming her to the Dorchester and as she passed his eyes lovingly roamed her figure whilst she obliviously navigated her way through the marble lobby to the restaurant. Craning above the heads of all the waiters, she scanned the room for her sister and after a few surveying glances she spotted Jane delicately sitting across from a shaggy blonde hair gentleman at the back of the restaurant.

Making her way through the throng of tables, she took in the other guests, each one of them seemed to be absorbed in their own conversation however, there were some, especially the high society elite that bristled as she walked past; a familiar feeling washed over Lizzie that she no longer belonged here, not anymore, not after everything that had happened.

Finally making it to the crisp white linen table she coughed, announcing her presence to her sister and her lunch date; awakening them from their oblivious reverie.

"Elizabeth! You're here" Jane jumped up encircling her sister in a courteous hug before turning back to the gentleman "Charles this is my colleague Elizabeth Bennett and Lizzie this is Charles Bingley." Charles graciously stood to welcome their new guest, gently shaking Lizzie's hand before ushering to take a seat.

Lizzie had been expecting a much sterner expression from her sister considering that she was over an hour late but it seemed that Jane was too busy employing her smiles on Charles to notice the time. "Please accept my apologies for being late; the traffic was awful getting into London."

"Don't worry Miss Bennett, Jane here has been keeping me company and from everything she has told me I can tell that I am going to like working with you very much." Charles had a friendly, unassuming smile and his scruffy hair and relaxed grey trousers and unbuttoned shirt highlighted that Charles genuinely was an easy going guy and 'hey' Lizzie mused 'anyone that goes as doe eyed over my sister as you gets a vote in my book.'

"Jane here has just been informing me about your family. It's not every day I meet the daughters of the ex . . ." Charles broke off, rocking back and forth in chair obviously trying to get a better look at something "Will you excuse me?" Without waiting for their approval Charles jumped up from his seat and rushed over to the entrance, Lizzie had followed him with her eyes but could not see what had alarmed the placid gentleman so much. Turning to Jane, Lizzie observed her as she watching her admire stare follow Charles's retreating frame "He's certainly smiling at you a great deal Jane I wonder perhaps you didn't need me here after all."

It took Jane several seconds to register that she was being spoken to but when she did she quickly composed herself and turned sharply to Lizzie, causing her blonde hair to sway against her shoulders "Lizzie, how could you say such a thing? If you had not been late again I would not know him better than you and we could have won this business together."

Okay, Lizzie was right; Jane was annoyed she just couldn't show it in front of Charles.

"Besides, the Lizzie I know could never be stuck in traffic; she'd sooner snorkel down the Thames than stop at a red light." Jane lowered her gaze to meet Lizzie's chocolate eyes and she folded her arms across her chest, revealing a little bit more of her bronzed skin from under her shirt cuff.

"I'm not that bad a driver with William in the car.' Lizzie protested as Jane crossed her; Jane didn't know what either of them would do if anything ever happened to William. At one time, she had cursed Lizzie for getting into that situation but now William was a part of each of them and she could not bear to consider the dark world without him on. Lizzie sensed however, that she would not win this conversation so turned attempted to turn the conversation back to calmer waters "So tell me Jane, what exactly will be doing for Charles again and who did you say he worked for?"

To Jane this conversation topic was not calmer waters and it made Jane's blood run cold. Lizzie had a sixth sense for these things and Jane knew that she had tried to do some investigative digging on their 'prospective' client. Luckily Jane had intercepted all her attempts at subterfuge and had successfully kept who the Client was from her sister. When Jane had gotten the call from Charles to say he would like to meet with them to discuss their AGM, Jane had considered it carefully but realised that organising this event would put 'J & E Events' on the map. Unfortunately, with all her planning Jane hadn't for saw that Lizzie would be late again and she would have the chance to tell her who the Client was before Charles arrived. The last thing Jane wanted to see was her sister hyperventilate in the Dorchester surrounded by their mothers crones but unfortunately, it looked like the train had left the station and there was no way to stop it. Contrary to what Lizzie thought, this meeting was not for them to pitch for the business but indeed an informal meeting to celebrate that they had been rewarded the business and that the contracts had been signed. Jane knew it was devious and it would hurt Lizzie immeasurably but she was convinced that it would do her the world of good, it was time she stopped letting the past haunt her and moved on with her life.

Unfortunately, there was one thing Jane had not factored into this whole plan to get Lizzie to move on with her life and that was her past coming back to bite her in the ass.

"Ladies, sorry I left you so abruptly, please excuse me however may I introduce you to Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, the owner of dArta Software. Darcy this is Miss Jane & Elizabeth Bennett."

End note:

Thank you once again for taking the time to read this. I am going to Venice for a long weekend on Friday so may not get to update/add new chapters until early next week and I don't think you would be satisfied with a small chapter so we will see.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts :)