First (Wrong) Impressions: A Modern Pride & Prejudice (26 page)

Homelessness: No, no, no, no. She talked about that all day.

Economics: No. She indirectly talked about that all day.

Taxation: No. See above.

Sexual experience: Ha! No.

Prostitution: Hell, no. She was a firm supporter of legal, unionized prostitution. Next!

Drugs: God, no. She talked about those all day.

Corporate interests: She promised G she would
not
slap him.

That left pretty much nothing. Music? Food. Yes, food! They could talk about food. That was a safe topic. She’d just have to avoid discussing industrialized agriculture, local farming support, tax credits and subsidies for corporate agriculture…ah, shit. There was really nothing she could talk about that was safe.

Good God. Lydia was right; she really was utterly pathetic.

Ugh.

At 7:30, she heard the lock click on the door and her heart pounded. Her blouse was still damp and he was early. Her grey T-shirt had spaghetti sauce splatters on it. Oh well. She was sure William Darcy had spilled something on himself at some point in his life.

“Lizzy?” he called out.

She steeled her nerves and poked her head out of the kitchen to smile at him. “You’re early.”

He slid his briefcase onto the table at the entrance and, while untying his dress shoes, said, “I can leave.”

She chuckled. “That isn’t what I meant. Supper isn’t ready yet, that’s all.”

“That’s fine. Do you mind if I take some time to unwind?” He eyed her outfit. “And change into something dirty.”

She rolled her eyes. “Take your time. If you’re tired, we can do this later tonight, or even tomorrow. Take a nap, even. Or we can just go to bed early.”

He cocked an eyebrow and she felt the heat rise in her cheeks. She rolled her eyes.

He gave her a small smile. “I’m a little irritated about work, but it happens. When your entire team is working on a project, it’s expected that you work, too. Some time to unwind will fix it.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

He shrugged as he put his shoes and coat in the closet. “Breakfast. Oh, and cold coffee.”

“Here,” she said, ducking into the kitchen. She grabbed him a banana and a slice of cheese she hadn’t grated yet. She handed both to him. “Eat. It’ll take the grumpy edge off.”

He inclined his head and took both. “Thank you.” He stared at the stain on her chest, the long drip between the forms of her breasts. Because, obviously, that’s where it would fall. “I’m going to grab a shower. Give me half an hour?”

“Honestly, William,” — she winced at how her voice dipped when she said his name — “take your time. I know what it’s like to need a buffer.”

He smiled, wider this time, and nodded before heading down the hallway. She found herself smiling after him. What was she doing? They were horribly-matched. He’d spend all of his time afraid she was using him for the money, and she’d spend all of her time worrying if he was worrying about her using him for the money.

So why was she doing this again?

****

Lizzy didn’t start to cook the linguine until a half hour after Darcy had arrived, so when he emerged from the shower she was just straining the pasta.

“Just in time!” She declared and gave him a quick once-over as his attention went to the sauce on the stove. He’d changed into faded jeans and a grey T-shirt, just like hers. Ah, crap. Now she couldn’t change out of this stupid stained one.

“Can I do anything?”

“Nope,” she said. “Did you bring the wine?”

“Oh, right,” Darcy said and walked out of the kitchen, affording her a lovely view of him from behind. He returned with the bottle, one Lizzy didn’t recognize. She knew the majority of the $20 bottles out there.

“I’m going to guess that isn’t from the under-$20 shelf.”

“I’m going to guess that bottle on the counter is,” he said with a cocky expression.

“Touché.”

He opened the bottle and she asked, “Are you very hungry?”

“Very,” he said, “though I have to admit the snack helped take the edge off.”

“I know my power snacks.” She portioned extra pasta for him.

“Oh, don’t give me extra if you’re hungry,” he protested.

Lizzy poured sauce over the plates. “Trust me, I don’t need the calories. You can have them.”

“You look fine just the way you are,” he said, and his voice turned husky. He gave her a look that made her, for just a beat, want to rip all her clothes off and fling herself at him.

Oh yeah. Really a bad idea to spend much more time with the rich man.

The usual topics of discussion started their date, with Lizzy carefully avoiding all topics on her Do Not Discuss list.

She asked him about work and he rambled about mergers and lawyers and “redundancy”. Lizzy bit her tongue; lay-offs were a part of economics and that was off-limits. He asked about her day, and she said it went well because it had. He asked her about the fundraising blitz and she said it was going perfectly.

He eyed her and said, “You’re lying. What happened?”

She debated brushing him off, but decided to tell him because she needed to vent. “Melissa and I went to this one construction company. They’re going to donate five hundred to the Lighthouse, which is great. But the executive assistant who sent the message recommended in her email that we get more church supporters and gave us some contact information.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“She recommended a church in Edmonton that backed out because I’d…done something.” Like, driven an eighteen-year-old meth-using prostitute to the clinic for an abortion. “It’s so frustrating at times. I get that people want to help the homeless in a way that makes them feel better. I don’t even think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just tough to combine that need with the reality of helping.”

“It’s not for the faint of heart.”

“No, it isn’t. We’re just stuck in the middle. A lot of the grants that are available we can’t have because of the religious affiliations, yet I can’t get rid of the religious affiliations until I get the grants. Sorry. I’ll stop ranting.

“I don’t mind.” He twirled pasta on his fork. “It seems to me there are plenty of churches who would support you for having stood by Luke and Pastor Liam.”

“Yeah, I know. Plenty of them stepped up, in fact. I’m very grateful.” She sighed. “Melissa, Luke, Ed, and everyone else have already given me the lecture.”

“Then I won’t give it to you again,” he said, with a smile.

“This topic will just cause a fight. Let’s talk about something else.”

“I think you’ve lost some objectivity because you’re in the midst of a financial crisis.”

She stared at him. “What part of ‘this will cause a fight’ did you not grasp?”

“Hear me out. You’re upset with losing the bulk of your donors, but you’ve known all along that you were likely to lose them if they found out about Luke. It seems to me that you’re not angry at your donors, so much as angry at yourself for not having been more proactive.”

Lizzy gritted her teeth.

Darcy went on. “So you’re beating yourself up over a management decision that you knew you should have made a year ago.”

Lizzy put her fork down. “Yup, this is going to cause a fight.”

“I’m not trying to pick one.”

“Do you have any concept of how hard my work is? I know the names of the people who are directly affected whenever I make a decision. Do you know why I was at Luke’s house before Christmas?”

“No.”

“Because one of my favourites, someone I enjoyed seeing at the Faith, froze to death and I found her on the fucking stairs. She died because of my one-blanket-per-person rule. Or what about last winter? It was minus thirty-five outside. One of the banned guys asked for a blanket. The door staff had already given him one in the afternoon, so I said no. One blanket, one person. I had plenty of blankets, but I never liked him. Couldn’t stand him. He was a horrible, violent, racist, misogynistic asshole. I was gleeful when he punched me because I got to ban his ass. So, no, I refused to give him a blanket.” Tears welled up in Lizzy’s eyes. “He OD’ed on morphine that night. He was in a methadone treatment, too. He’d just started. He froze to death. They aren’t really sure which was the killing blow: the dope or the cold.”

Darcy hung his head.

“Two years ago? One of the guys was off his meds and was scaring the volunteers. I knew he was harmless, but they were getting wigged out by him talking about the alien implants in his brain telling him to stop the police. So I kicked him out to make my volunteers feel better. An hour later? He was hit by a car speeding down 95th street and killed.”

Anger boiled inside her. “I’ve had to pretend that those were the realities of homelessness and mental illness and addiction. When it was my fault. My own fucking fault that they’re dead. I killed them. So you don’t dare ever tell me I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I know exactly what I’m doing and I bear the guilt of it when I fuck it up.” Lizzy grabbed her plate and slammed it into the sink, sauce and food splattering the sink and the counter, and a bit more hitting her T-shirt. She gripped the sink until she was in control again, and then took the dish rag from behind the faucet to clean up the mess she’d made, starting with her shirt.

“This was a mistake,” she muttered.

“I was going to say,” Darcy said in a gentle voice, “that you knew you should make the business of finding new donors the priority, but that you decided the day-to-day needs of your clients were more important.”

Tears streamed down Lizzy’s face. She kept scrubbing.

Darcy’s chair scraped against the tile floor. “You decided to put people above money and let the money people, like Luke and Melissa, deal with it.”

Lizzy wiped her face.

“I respect you for that. I’ve always respected you, since that breakfast meeting when I heard you speak.” He stepped behind her, but didn’t touch. He didn’t invade her personal space. He just stood near as she silently wept. “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t work hard. I can’t imagine the stress that you’re under.”

Lizzy’s hands shook, but she managed to steel herself against more tears. God, she was humiliated.

“I don’t know how you can do it and still laugh as much as you do. I’m proud that I know you.”

And the tears started again.

“At no point did I mean to criticize you. I’m sorry.”

It was several seconds before she could whisper, “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

“You have nothing to apologize for.” He touched her very lightly, just a soft brush of skin against skin. “Come back and sit. We can talk about whatever you want. I’ll agree with everything you say. I won’t argue or disagree or fight. I promise.”

She turned to face him, swallowing the hurt. She was so ashamed of herself. “Don’t tell anyone what I just said. I’ve only ever said that to Luke.”

“Never.” He looked down and removed his hand from her arm. “Though, I would have called you a liar if you’d said those deaths hadn’t affected you. I didn’t know one of your people died in the fall. I wouldn’t have…well, I think things would have been different.”

Unsure of what to say, and unwilling to venture down memory lane, Lizzy declared, “I really need another glass of wine.”

William went back to the table and topped up her glass. He offered it to her.

“Thanks. That was my fault. I made a list of topics that would cause a fight. Work was on the list.” Lizzy wiped her face. She was an ugly crier; her pale skin would go blotchy and she always looked like Rudolph. “Oh, God. I must look awful.”

“You look fine. What’s on the banned topics list?”

She ran through everything.

“Hmm. So we’re left with the weather and the state of the roads.”

“Weather is out. That’s going to bring on climate change discussion, and we’ll fight over that. No wonder we never really talked before. We have nothing in common.”

William smiled “I believe we’re more similar than you give me credit for.”

“Born into money? Sorry, you have Conservative written all over you.”

“And you have pinko commie written all over you. It’s even on your shirt.”

She snorted her wine, and it burned her sinuses. She started laughing and threw her head back. “Guilty as charged.”

“Since I’ve already upset you, we might as well hit every topic on your list. As I understand it, Fitzy has a fifty on you slapping me tonight.”

Lizzy laughed again. “How about we take turns asking each other a question from the list, but we can’t argue over the answer.”

William topped up his wine glass. “Deal. Though you should eat some more. That’s your second glass of wine.” He pushed the cheese bread at her. “Have some starch, since the rest of your meal is in the sink.”

“Yeah, sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. I already knew about your temper.” He ignored the dirty look she shot him and pulled a menu off the fridge. “Here. Pick something. I’ll order in.”

Chapter 31

The Darcy vs. Bennet Round Robin entered its third hour and second bottle of wine. Lizzy was flushed and tipsy, and Darcy was the same. They’d ended up with Chinese and had camped out on the sofas, the coffee table filled with take-out boxes. They couldn’t agree on the entrees and ordered enough for a small army.

In the three hours of questions, answers, and laughing, they learned a lot about each other. He told her how he’d donated money to family planning programs in central Africa. She told him about her views on Star Wars versus Star Trek, and he told her that he believed Picard was a better captain than Kirk. She told him she was a strict voter for the NDP and he confessed that he was actually a Liberal voter, but had great personal respect for the late Jack Layton and had even meet him a couple of times.

“Okay, my turn. Why didn’t you tell me the sugar donation was from you?”

William blew out a breath. “Too many reasons.”

“Give me one.”

“I didn’t think you’d accept it, but I wanted to help. So I told Fanny to check out your blog and to send it in her name without any contact information.”

“William, you donated over ten grand worth of stuff.”

He shrugged. “That’s what I donate every month. Fanny looks after it all. I tell her causes that interest me and she spends my money. My turn. Why did you and George break up?”