Darcy gave her a fierce look. “You didn’t fail. Did their coaches notice? Or were they in on it? How could you know? Did Stefan even know what he was doing was illegal?”
“Still…I listened to the wrong people and didn’t ask the right questions.”
“Wrong people?” He looked confused.
Oh, this was the moment. George Wickham, the man who’d tried to smear Anne Darcy, whom Darcy hated and had warned Elizabeth about, was the sports agent she’d entrusted to connect her to athletes. Oh, how Fitzwilliam Darcy would cringe in revulsion. Oh, how she needed to leave.
“Elizabeth, you have time. The print run was held up—didn’t you say that? For some pop singer’s biography?”
“Uh-huh.”Thank God for stupid pop singers and their trail of broken hearts and overdoses.
“Perhaps you can swap out the bad actors? Cut them from the book?”
“You mean find some new scandal-proof skaters and gymnasts?” She shook her head. “No, I think I’m tapped out.”Not to mention tainted by association with cheaters and liars.
Darcy rubbed his chin and looked at her intently. “Your connection to Stefan and the others: Is that who you mean by ‘the wrong people’?”
She swallowed and looked away. “George Wickham, sports agent extraordinaire. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
His soft expression dissolved. She felt a chill as his face went blank.
She needed to call Mr. Philips. She needed to cry. Most of all, she needed to get away from Fitzwilliam Darcy. “I should get my phone. It’s charging in the kitchen.”
But she didn’t move.
Jane and Charles, with dry clothes but wet hair, stopped in the doorway, hands clasped together. Spotting her sister and Darcy, Jane tugged on her fiancé’s hand, holding him back.
“Look, Charles,” she whispered, staring at the pair sitting closely together on the sofa. “They’re getting along swimmingly.”
Charles nodded, a broad smile on his face. “Told you so. They’re both stubborn as can be, but I knew they’d hit it off eventually. Maybe they can share a sundae, eh?”
They walked into the room. “Hey, can we hide out with you guys? There are some very scary sisters hovering about,” Charles joked.
Elizabeth looked up at him, her face stained with tears.
“Lizzy!” Jane ran toward her sister. “What happened?” She threw her arms around Elizabeth and gave Darcy an odd look.
“It’s okay. Long story about a stupid girl who might have blown up her marketing career.” Elizabeth gave the couple a watery smile. “But you know I’m just doing it to pay the bills anyway, right?”
Voices were heard in the hallway, and Jane threw Charles a panicked look.
“There’s a back staircase,” Darcy offered. He stood and walked to a door behind a tall potted plant. “The Fitzwilliams were big on playing sardines and hide-and-go-seek.”
The women fled upstairs. Charles glanced at the recumbent form of his still-snoring brother-in-law and turned to Darcy. “What the hell is going on?” He narrowed his eyes. “Please tell me Caroline didn’t have anything to do with it.”
Elizabeth sat numbly on the bed, certain she was living the longest afternoon of her life. Nothing had ever compared to the sense of doom hanging over her—not as a child, listening to her parents and their endless fighting over money; or as a college student, sitting in a doctor’s office waiting to find out whether she could ever play competitive soccer again; or just a few weeks ago, staring at her apartment walls and wondering how she could have so misjudged Fitzwilliam Darcy. She had made a horrible mistake in working with and trusting George Wickham, putting her employer’s long-in-the-works, make-or-break book at risk. And Philips/Hill had basically paid for her master’s!Oh.Her reputation as a writer, a researcher, a college-educated woman was imperiled.I am an idiot.
She half-listened as the rest of the party continued without her. The nappers snoozed, the sunbathers roasted, the bookworms read, and the swimmers frolicked, all oblivious to her stupidity. Lydia took Elizabeth’s spot aboard the raft for pirate wars, and Mary stood, life jacket strapped on and whistle hung around her neck, ready to zing buccaneers with penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct. No amount of complaining from Lydia thatallpirate conduct was unsportsmanlike would sway her.
An hour or so later, Elizabeth headed downstairs, phone in hand and feeling her fate was sealed. Hearing shrill voices in the kitchen, she headed to the living room where she found Darcy in the corner talking with her aunt and uncle. She pondered that for a moment until her aunt looked up and gave her a small smile. She returned it and walked over to the huge sofas by the windows where Jane and Mary sat playing a board game with Ava and Alex.
“I’m meeting with my boss tomorrow at his house,” Elizabeth said softly.
“You have to leave?” Jane groaned. “Is it so bad?”
“It’s fine. It will be anyway. I’ll take the Jitney.”
“I’ll drive you,” Darcy said quietly.
