I teetered into the conference room, feeling like a baby giraffe in my new heels. My notes were clutched in one hand, my dignity in the other, as I tried to channel some kind of “polished professional” vibe. Inside, William Darcy sat at the head of the table, the epitome of calm control.
He looked as maddeningly perfect as ever, his tailored suit sharp enough to cut through steel. His hair had that “just messy enough to look hot” thing going on, and his expression radiated the usual mixture of indifference and mild annoyance.
“Miss Hollis,” he greeted, not bothering to look up from his tablet. “You’re late.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. “Actually, I’m one minute early. But nice try.” Sliding into the chair opposite him, I forced a smile. “I see you’re still leading with charm.”
Darcy finally looked up, his sharp eyes flicking to mine. His gaze lingered—just for a second—and I could’ve sworn there was a flicker of surprise. Or maybe approval? Either way, it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
“Punctuality is a courtesy, Miss Hollis,” he replied, his tone cool. “But I suppose that’s a foreign concept to you.”
“Wow,” I said, flipping open my folder. “I didn’t realize we were starting with insults. Next time, I’ll bring a helmet.”
Darcy’s lips twitched ever so slightly, but he quickly recovered. “Let’s move on, shall we?”
As we started discussing the Princess Anna divorce case, Darcy’s clipped, curt answers grated on my nerves. Every time I asked for insight, he deflected with the bare minimum. It was like pulling teeth with a pair of chopsticks.
Finally, I snapped. “You know, I could just Google your answers at this point. I’d probably get more detail.”
Darcy arched an eyebrow, leaning back slightly in his chair. “You could,” he said evenly. “But this interview makes or breaks your career, doesn’t it?”
Touché. My frustration simmered, but I refused to let him win.
I flipped through my notes, Darcy’s words replaying in my head like a song lyric I couldn’t quite place. Something wasn’t adding up. He kept circling around the same phrases—Anna’s reputation, her public image, how she’d been struggling—but it was all very vague. Too vague.
I narrowed my eyes at him, sitting up straighter. “Wait a second.”
Darcy looked up from his papers, expression unreadable. “Yes?”
“You keep mentioning how Anna’s been struggling with her ‘reputation’ and ‘public image,’ but you’re being deliberately careful with your words.” I leaned forward, studying him. “You’re avoiding something, aren’t you?”
Darcy exhaled sharply, clearly unimpressed. “Miss Hollis, I would never be anything but forthcoming in a legal discussion.”
I ignored the dry sarcasm and tapped my pen against the table. “No, no, there’s something you’re not saying. You wouldn’t be handling this divorce if it was just about image management. This is about damage control.” I tilted my head, eyes narrowing. “She had an affair, didn’t she?”
For the slightest second, just the briefest flicker, something passed over Darcy’s face. Annoyance? Guilt? Resignation? Whatever it was, it was gone before I could fully register it. His jaw tightened, and I thought for a moment that he wasn’t going to answer at all.
Then, in that maddeningly clipped voice, he said, “I can’t confirm or deny that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “But if you could?”
Darcy’s lips pressed into a thin line. “If I could, I’d advise you not to include that detail in your reporting.”
My mind raced. An affair would explain the tension, the leaked texts from her husband, and the press frenzy around the divorce. Darcy was obviously trying to protect her, but it was all starting to click into place.
“You’re good at dodging questions, you know,” I said, leaning forward. “Is that something they teach at lawyer school, or is it just your charming personality?”
Darcy’s lips twitched again, and this time, he didn’t bother hiding it. “I don’t need a thesaurus for insults, Miss Hollis. Your questions speak for themselves.”
I gasped, mock-offended. “Did you just make a joke? Somebody call Buckingham Palace.”
And there it was. A smile. A real one, complete with dimples I hadn’t noticed before. My brain briefly short-circuited at the sight of them.
“What?” Darcy asked, frowning slightly when he noticed me staring.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, clearing my throat. “I just didn’t know you could do that. Smile, I mean. It’s a bit unnerving, honestly.”
Darcy shook his head, muttering something under his breath before returning to his notes.
As the meeting wrapped up, he handed me a folder of additional documents. “Stay on top of these,” he said briskly. “And try not to let your… creative tendencies derail the work.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” I replied, standing up. “I’ll keep everything boring and lifeless, just for you.”
Just as I was gathering my things, my phone buzzed violently against the table. I glanced down and groaned. Mum.
Darcy raised an eyebrow at me, and I gave him a tight smile before turning away and answering as discreetly as possible.
“Mum, I’m in a meeting, can we—”
A loud, ragged sob cut through the line.
I immediately stiffened. “Mum? What’s wrong?”
Another sharp inhale, followed by an even louder sob. Oh God.
“Mum?” I tried again, lowering my voice. “Are you okay?”
Then, just as I was bracing myself for whatever fresh hell was about to drop, she wailed into the phone at full volume.
“Your father isn’t just dating Melanie! She’s pregnant!”
I nearly dropped my phone.
My mouth opened and closed as my brain desperately tried to keep up. I blinked, staring at nothing in particular, my fingers gripping my pen so tightly it snapped in half.
“Mum, I—”
“She’s pregnant, Sophie! Pregnant! Can you believe this?! The whore is having a baby!”
Several heads in the office turned toward me. Darcy gave me a sharp look from across the table, probably because my mother’s banshee-like wailing was now echoing through the entire room.
I slapped a hand over my phone’s speaker and hissed, “Mum, I am in a very important meeting. Can we talk about this later?”
“LATER?!” she shrieked, her voice climbing to a new level of hysteria. “Oh, sure! Let’s schedule a convenient time to discuss how your father—the man I spent twenty years of my life with—is about to have a brand new child with a girl who still says ‘hashtag blessed’ in real-life conversation!”
I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply, begging for patience.
Darcy cleared his throat. I cracked one eye open to find him watching me with a mixture of curiosity and something that suspiciously resembled amusement.
I pressed the phone harder to my ear, whispering, “Mum, I really cannot do this right now.”
She ignored me completely.
“I HOPE HE ENJOYS CHANGING DIAPERS IN HIS SIXTIES BECAUSE I AM DONE BEING MATURE ABOUT THIS! DONE, SOPHIE! I WANT WAR!”
Oh, for the love of—
“Lovely,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. “What can I do to cheer you up?”
“Bring a boyfriend to the next family dinner,” she sniffled. “That’d do it.”
I glanced at Darcy, still seated at the table, his expression unreadable. A wild idea popped into my head before I could stop it. “You know,” I said, “I might have a solution.”
I exhaled, tapping my pen against my notepad as I weighed my options. “So, let me get this straight,” I said slowly, looking Darcy dead in the eye. “You don’t want me to report on Anna’s affair. And I, in turn, would very much like to avoid my mother setting me up with every eligible man within a fifty-mile radius at this disaster of a family dinner.”
Darcy remained perfectly still, his expression unreadable. “That sounds accurate.”
I leaned forward. “So… how about a trade? I leave the affair out of the story, and you come to dinner with me as my fake boyfriend.”
His jaw twitched, but otherwise, his face remained neutral. “You want me to pretend to be romantically involved with you for an evening?”
“Bingo,” I said, giving him my most innocent smile. “It’s a win-win. You protect your client’s reputation, and I get one night of peace from my mother’s matchmaking.”
Darcy pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling sharply. “This is absurd.”
I shrugged. “So is my mother, and yet I have to deal with her on a weekly basis.”
He stared at me for a long moment, as if assessing whether I was actually serious. Finally, he sighed, adjusting his cufflinks.
“Fine,” he said. “But for the record, this is highly unprofessional.”
“So is using a fake name at Starbucks, but we all do it.”
Darcy gave me an unimpressed look. “What exactly am I supposed to tell your family?”
“That we’re deeply in love, obviously,” I said, barely suppressing a grin. “And that you find me both ravishing and intellectually stimulating.”
Darcy gave me a flat look. “I will not say the word ravishing.”
I waved a hand. “We can work out the details later. Just show up, look brooding, and if you could smolder a little, that’d be ideal.”
He exhaled, looking like he was already regretting every decision that had led him to this moment. “I’ll be there.”
“Fantastic,” I said, grinning as I jotted something down in my notes.
“What exactly are you writing?” Darcy asked, glancing at my notepad.
I grinned wider. “Just making a list of things we need to discuss before dinner. You know, like how we met, our fake anniversary, whether we’re soulmates or just madly, passionately in love—”
“I’m reconsidering this arrangement,” he muttered.
I beamed. “Too late, boyfriend.”