Monday, July 23

Darcy woke well before his alarm the next morning, and his first waking thought was of Lizzie. He had habit to thank for that, he supposed; but still, it was not a particularly good omen. He rose with determination and began his normal weekday routine: work out for half an hour, breakfast while catching up on the news, then to work. Early hours were a practical necessity for a West Coast-based CEO, but fortunately he was a morning person by nature. Lizzie too was an early riser. He usually found her in the breakfast room, latte and phone in hand, but his early start meant she was not there today. That was just as well.

It was a relief to allow the routine of work to absorb him. Emails upon emails, conference calls with Reynolds and later with a major investor, decisions to be made on everything from the latest advertising campaign to the production team's proposed upgrade of the video editing software. It energized him, all of it, but especially his virtual meeting with programmers working on the as-yet-unnamed story and communications app. The actual guts of their algorithms were beyond his comprehension, but the team's excitement was palpable, as was the progress they'd made.

Progress and creative fulfillment. Seeing them in his company and employees always brought satisfaction, but especially now, in his absence. He knew CEOs who felt they couldn't leave the helm for more than a week. He had worked remotely for three months now, returning only a few days at a time for key meetings—yet Pemberley Digital was thriving. He was lucky in his employees, and he knew it, both those he'd hired and the core that remained from his parents' time.

Yes, work was satisfying and energizing…but it could not evict Lizzie from his thoughts. They strayed to her easily and often, even more so now that he knew the commonality in their professional interests.

Caroline came around noon, inviting him to lunch as she did every weekday. Before the Bennets came he had usually joined her and Bing. Lately, however, Bing had started driving Jane to and from work as well as disappearing around midday, presumably to meet her for lunch. Darcy might still have lunched with Caroline occasionally, but lately she had taken to needling him over his supposed future with Lizzie. The picture she painted was alarming—Mrs. Bennet loudly asking the price of each of his furnishings, Lydia sock-sliding the length of his house—and Darcy found that his best defense was to keep to his room with a plate of food to graze on as he worked.

Today she announced lunch in a slightly nervous tone, but his response was the same. "I will come down for something later. Please don't wait for me."

"I can bring up a plate for you," she offered. "I know what you'll want. There's—."

He shook his head. "Thank you, but I prefer to select my own food."

Caroline moved from the doorway to come stand beside his desk. "Darcy, I want to apologize for yesterday, for not telling you what we were filming."

"'Not telling me?'" he echoed. It was not her omission but her outright lie that was at issue.

"I just…I didn't want you to find out all the terrible things Lizzie has been saying about you!"

"I see."

"I was shocked when I found her videos. She was so unfair, to Bing but especially to you—mocking and slandering you like that in front of thousands of people! I knew you would be furious at her, especially since you…". She stopped, biting her lip. "Well, I decided that instead of telling you about the videos, I'd just try to warn you away from her. I didn't want you to get hurt," she finished, touching his shoulder lightly.

Darcy's jaw tightened. He and Caroline were friends, or at least they had been, and she was his best friend's sister and currently his hostess. But he was not going to passively accept her continued lies.

"I might believe that, had I not watched you in her videos."

"But I just—."

"Cunning under the guise of apology will not work with me, Caroline."

Caroline flinched slightly at that, her eyes first widening, then dropping to her feet. She could not leave quickly enough.

Darcy's frown remained. How easily manipulated did she think he was, that she would try to pin all the blame on Lizzie? She had been helping Lizzie with costume theater when he arrived, and costume theater of him could only mean mockery. In addition to lying, she had participated in the very thing she claimed to deplore.

Costume theater for tomorrow's video, Lizzie had said. Darcy steeled himself, knowing it would be wiser not to watch. Curiosity beckoned irresistibly, however. Would she mention that he had found her filming, or relay any of their conversation afterward? In the past, any interaction with him seemed to have inevitably ended up in her videos, but he could not begin to guess what she might do now.

The new video was there in her playlist. "My name is Lizzie Bennet," she began, "and today is the day I eat my words." Which words, he wondered, leaning forward intently.

The footage following her theme music had been filmed prior to his interruption. Or so he assumed, for in it Lizzie complained about the "agreeable-off" between Bing and Jane, and while he frequently shared her exasperation at their unrelenting pleasantness, surely she did not now lament the lack of conflict between them.

"But there is at least one person I can count on not to be happy about everything," she said. His lips contorted in a wintry smile. Of course she would think contrariness his finest quality. "Don't get me wrong—Darcy is still unpleasant, disagreeable, and full of himself, but at least he's not afraid to have an opinion. It's usually a very disagreeable opinion, but it's nice to have something you can depend on. The man finds a way to criticize everything and everyone."

Caroline entered, and they performed the familiar costume theater scene. Then he arrived. It was strange hearing himself in Lizzie's videos. He sounded…dense, he thought, overly formal and far too slow on the uptake. He winced when he heard himself naïvely volunteer to be in her videos, remembering how intrigued he'd been that she had already introduced him to her viewers. No wonder she had laughed in his face.

He had never stepped into the camera's view. Lizzie's face was not visible either, only her torso as she fidgeted nervously before the camera. Her voice was as high and strangled as he recalled. Their conversation played without jump cuts. He apologized—"you are one of the most attractive women I have ever known, and I was a fool to state otherwise"—and then left. The video's last image was Lizzie sinking to her bed with an expression of bewilderment.

Darcy played the video again, then again, his dissatisfaction growing. He tried to reason himself out of it. After all, Lizzie told her viewers up front that she had been wrong and did not try to gloss over their confrontation. That was more than he had expected. Her insults, though nothing new, still had the power to sting. He would have resented them, especially after her promise last night, if not for the hope that she had left them in to typify which words she was eating.

But that was exactly the problem: he didn't know what she meant. The video was as enigmatic as her apology last night. It wasn't that he expected a point-by-point repudiation of all that she'd said about him. But the video had ended too soon. He needed to know more. He had finally realized how completely they had misunderstood each other, even had a portal now into her thoughts, but had only one cryptic sentence filmed after their confrontation to tell him what she was thinking.

He was being ridiculous. Just yesterday he had balked at being in any future videos, and now he was frustrated that she didn't say more about him? Perhaps she would in a later video. Perhaps she intended this as a cliffhanger for her viewers. Or perhaps she would say nothing, finding him uninteresting as anything other than an antagonist.

What did it matter? Why did he care what she thought of him? He had determined to be disinterested, and this was a poor beginning.

Enough. He closed his web browser, went downstairs to pick up the plate of food that Stephane had kept warm for him, then immersed himself in work once more.

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I would love to hear your thoughts on this chapter—thanks for reading!