"You're supposed to be getting me out of this, Everrett." Darcy levels a glare at his lawyer, who offers nothing better than a sheepish grin in response. The spacious CEO office of Pemberley Inc. feel a little more stifling than is strictly mathematically possible for something that takes up half a floor of their building.
"I've tried - picked it apart and put it back together." Everett shrugs in his royal blue suit. Only lawyers wear full suits these days. "It's iron-clad. The shares were never company property. And with them being your grandfather's personal assets, he had the right to make whatever stipulations he wanted."
"But marriage, seriously? Isn't it all a little too archaic for a company known for making investing accessible to the average guy?"
"Pemberley will stay afloat, even if the shares get diluted."
"But my ability to manage the company will not stay the same."
"It'll depend on the new shareholders, of course." Everett drops his smile for a bit. There are both pros and cons to hiring a high school friend as your personal and corporate lawyer. "But I doubt anyone will actively try to undermine you. Everyone knows you run this joint."
"And based on my grandfather's list of potential recipients of these shares if I do not marry and, I know, stay married for at least five years - who would end up being our majority shareholder by the end of the year?"
Everett had the good graces to look worried.
"Well?" Darcy grumbles.
"Considering that his godson, who's next after you, died last year and the one after him is no longer qualified due to having emigrated - "
"Yes?"
Everett takes a deep breath that he promptly expels with a grimace. "The shares would go to - George Wickham."
Darcy curses like he hasn't cursed in years. Even the walls look like they trembled for a bit.
"Why would he - "
"In old Mr. Darcy's defense, he probably did not think to update his will after the two other potential benefactors were disqualified."
"But George Wickham?"
"Perhaps he thought you would already be married by now?" Everett asks, very unhelpfully.
Darcy groans and throws his head back. There are days when even expensive, ergonomic office swivel chairs don't offer much by way of comfort.
"When did he make this will again?" Darcy asks the ceiling.
"Eight years ago, when you were dating - "
"The model who-shall-not-be-named." Darcy sighs. "Grandpa was right about that one."
Everett stays silent for once. Darcy continues his meditation over the small water spot in the corner for a good two minutes.
"When is my deadline for finding a wife?" He sighs when he pulls himself to a regular seat again.
"Two months."
Darcy curses again.
Monthly dinner at Bingley's is rarely something Darcy looks forward to in his mind, but there's something about his best friend's large home gatherings that tend to soothe him once he actually forces himself to show up. New Lancaster isn't that big of a place. It's a city, yes - but it's also a city largely existing in the shadow of NYC. So there aren't exactly that many choices when it comes to friends. Given that Charles and Jane's guests are mostly people they've either grown up with in church or at Lancaster Prep, at least Darcy doesn't feel completely ill-at-ease.
"Hey, you're early." Jane Bingley smiles at him when she opens the front door. The woman is rarely not smiling. In fact, the only time Darcy remembers seeing her unhappy was after she and Charles had broken up.
Darcy clears his throat. It's not exactly history that he's proud of. But he likes to think that getting Charles and Jane back together was the one good thing to have come out of his failed high school proposal to Jane's sister.
Why he was proposing at 18 is anybody's guess - probably just panic over the fact that Lizzy Bennet had been about to leave for college across the country and probably walk out of his life forever.
"Is anybody else here yet?" Darcy sheds his coat and boots. Bingley's house isn't remotely as big as Darcy's, but there's something homey about the place despite the large proportions. Bingley likes to say that it's the touch of a Bennet woman. Darcy doesn't really want to think of what the touch of a particular Bennet woman does - especially when he and Lizzy have managed to make up (of sorts) five years ago when she moved back to New Lancaster and starting working for Pemberley Inc.
As far as he's concerned, she is a past crush and a current colleague. He's got other bigger problems to deal with.
"Only Lizzy is late." Jane walks Darcy down the hall to the dining room with her signature smile on display. "Even Richard is early today."
"Charlotte must be good for him." Darcy smiles.
"Oh, I hope so." There's a rush of sincerity in the way their hostess speaks. "It was such a risk, you know, pairing them up."
"Richard always liked her. He just needed a nudge."
"Charles thought so too, you know," Jane says as they join the rest of the laughing, mingling group of young professionals. "But Richard used to say he'll never date a teacher."
Darcy smiles. "It all depends on which teacher."
It takes a few minutes for Darcy to greet everyone - with nods from the men and hugs from the women. He's not exactly the hugging type, but he can manage a civil hold or two. Ever since his cousin and Lizzy's best friend Charlotte started dating half a year ago, the dinners have started to feel a little too couple-y, what with he and Lizzy being the only single ones left, at least they have been since Caroline Bingley left for Europe last year.
And tonight, of all nights, the fact that he is an unmarried man cuts even closer to home.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" Lizzy rushes in behind him in a whirlwind of energy ten minutes later. She's relaxed her outfit a bit since the meeting at Pemberley this morning, her blouse untucked from her pencil skirt and her heels discarded. Her neat bun has been traded for a looser ponytail. She usually dresses even more creatively, but he appreciates that she makes effort to look her professional best whenever they meet with the board.
She looks good in anything anyway.
"Great! We are all here! I'm starving!" Louisa Hurst, the most currently pregnant, announces unabashedly. With the way she and Jane Bingley have been taking turns the last five years, there will be thrice as many Bingley cousins as siblings soon enough.
"Not yet!" Richard interrupts with a laugh. "I have an announcement first."
All eyes focus on the military intelligence man. Richard is grinning even more brightly than usual when he tugs Charlotte closer by the hand. Then he lifts their chunk of joint fingers, making sure that the large diamond catches the chandelier's light.
"We're engaged!"
Chaos ensues - happy chaos, mostly.
And Darcy feels far more alone than he's ever felt in years.
"Hey, you joining in or what?" Richard's voice cuts through his thoughts, and Darcy realizes a little belatedly that the entire gang has gathered for a group picture in front of the fireplace.
"I can take the picture," he offers, if just to avoid having everyone watch him cross the room awkwardly on his own.
"Join us! You can't possibly - "
Darcy cuts off his cousin by grabbing the phone Lizzy Bennet had just been about to use for a strategically angled groupfie. He snaps a series of photos before anyone else can get a word in and deposits the phone back to her within thirty seconds.
"There," he says.
"Come on, Darce," Richard laments. "What's wrong with you today? Got fired by the board?"
He knows it's a joke, and he thinks everyone else in the room thinks it's a joke. But Lizzy, the only other person in the room who actually works for Pemberley, seems to be eying him a little more keenly.
Darcy shrugs. "You have no idea."
Maybe he'll tell the boys later, while the girls coo over wedding plans - maybe.
The firm knocks on his office door cut through Darcy's concentration like a knife. He blinks and pulls away from the latest quarterly report. Pemberley is doing well. Their hard work is paying off. And Darcy isn't quite sure to laugh or to cry that all this success might just well land in the hands of one George Wickham if Darcy can't find a bride in the next two months' time.
He isn't averse to marriage, nor to women in general. But he's always been an old-fashioned sort of guy, and he's always thought of marriage as a permanent, lifelong institution. It's the kind of thing someone should only get himself into if he's found someone he actually wants to spend the rest of his life with.
The odds of finding someone like that in two months, after thirty years of not finding her, aren't the best.
"Darcy?" A voice adds itself to the knocking.
Darcy clears his throat and slides himself away from his monitor. "Come in."
Lizzy Bennet walks in, fresh and professional and trendy as always, her pony tail swinging behind her as the edge of her glasses catch a glint of the sunlight pouring in from his large side windows. He doesn't remember having an appointment with her this morning, but he doesn't exactly mind seeing her. They may not be close friends, but she's the closest thing to someone he has both a professional and personal relationship with in this entire building.
She strides all the way up to his desk. "Is it true? The marriage clause in your grandfather's will?"
Darcy shuts his eyes briefly and sighs.
"Unfortunately." He looks her in the eye. She looks - unexpectedly concerned. "I've had Everett look it over and under and forward and backwards - it's water tight."
"And if you don't fulfill the terms of the contract - "
"Yes, the shares go to him." Darcy clenches his jaw.
Her frown stays on as she drops onto the gray office chair. "I can't believe it."
"I know." Darcy groans. "How did you know?"
"I was the last one to leave last night. Walked in on Charles and Jane talking about it in the kitchen."
Darcy nods.
"You don't mind - do you?" She shoots him a worried look. "I mean, I know it sounds like gossip, but I thought that given our friendship and the fact that we both work for Pemberley, that you would think it's important for me to know - at least sooner or later."
Does his long-serving respect, admiration, and begrudging attraction for the scholarship kid from high school constitute a friendship? Darcy doesn't really know, but he's not about to argue the finer points of their complicated history when they have a much larger problem at hand. He shrugs. "It's okay. I don't mind."
She nods, her frown still tight. "It's going to be a media disaster, either way."
"You mean if I marry, or if I don't?"
"It won't look great if you marry on short notice," she admits. "It's not supposed to matter what a CEO does with his private life, but image is everything for a company these days."
"Especially if my head of media and communications says so."
Lizzy grins very briefly before frowning again. "But if the shares go to George Wickham."
Darcy nods slowly while she gives a long, tired sigh. Not a lot of people know that the scandal-ridden reality star who is in and out of rehab used to live with the Darcys, growing up with them like an honorary sibling. Lizzy is one of those who do.
"It's going to be a disaster." She groans as she leans forward, just stopping short of burying her face in her hands. Then she turns to look at Darcy again. "Is it alright to give me a heads up about which disaster I should be bracing for?"
"It's going to be a media bloodbath either way, isn't it?"
"No question. But if we know early, we can try our best to control the narrative."
Darcy shrugs before throwing his head back against his swivel chair. "What sort of narrative can we possibly cook up for making one of the most reviled men on the planet the majority shareholder of Pemberley?"
"None that I can think of right now."
"Exactly."
"How about the alternative?"
"Marriage."
"Yes?"
It's a topic he has studiously avoided ever bringing up in Lizzy Bennet's presence ever since she had vehemently turned down his suggestion after their high school prom that she marry him and be his lifelong trophy wife instead of going off to college. He doesn't blame her, at least not anymore. Why he'd ever thought clipping her wings would be a good idea was stupid at best and arrogant at worst. But it's been more than a decade, and they are professional colleagues now - colleagues who just might see the company they've built up together land in the hands of a known drug abuser and sexual predator.
It's not exactly a good time to mince words.
"Do you see a girlfriend or fiancée anywhere?" Darcy gestures helplessly around his large, expansive, luxurious, lonely office. "You know the work hours I put in. There's not a lot of women who would put up with that kind of significant other."
"Even with your copious riches, numerous holdings, and an unlimited supplementary card or two?" Lizzy prods.
Darcy glares at her. "Don't throw my words back at me."
She grins. "I'm glad you've moved on, but 18-year-old William Darcy was kind of a memorable jerk."
He hasn't moved on, not really, but she doesn't need to know that. "Is this what women do? Joke about the blockheads who got away?"
"If you only knew." She smiles, but she doesn't look particularly amused. "Anyway, I guess I'll just try to come up with a hashtag or two for either scenario - maybe vet some media outlets who might be willing to break the news in a more flattering light."
"About Wickham, or about the impossible marriage?"
"Well, you tell me."
Darcy groans and stretches his arms. "If only I knew."
A/N: It's an improbable situation, but that's what fanfiction is for! Thanks for reading!