Bazile.
Of course.
It hit him all at once. He should have seen it. Should have reversed the letters, read the screen with more suspicion.Bazile mirrored is ElizaB.
Elizabeth Bennet.
He stared down at his phone.
What were the odds? That the one woman who had called him out in front of an entire ballroom would sign up for the very thing she mocked. That they would match. That they would be compatible. That the data would say yes.
What were the odds.
Darcy leaned back slowly in his chair, eyes still on the door.
Chapter SIX
“I WASa bit worried when I saw your text,” Jane said, kicking off her boots at the door. “All it said was‘Have to meet. Call me when you’re out of class.’No punctuation, no emojis. I was bracing for bloodshed.”
Elizabeth, curled on the couch in fuzzy socks and a sweater she’d been pretending wasn’t technically pyjamas, accepted the latte Jane brought like it was both a peace offering and fuel. She poured it into her favourite chipped mug—better than drinking from a cup that felt like corporate guilt.
“It was a different kind of emergency.”
“Is this ajournalist emergencyor aLizzy-lost-a-shoe-in-Soho-againemergency?”
“Worse,” Elizabeth said. “Emotional whiplash. Digital betrayal. Possibly the unravelling of modern romance as we know it.”
“So... journalist emergency.”
Elizabeth huffed. “Okay, you know how I told you about Mr. F?”
“The faceless, mildly charming enigma from TrueNorth?”
“Yeah. Him. We’d been messaging all week. And I meanmessaging. Like full-blown paragraphs, clever references, actual questions that didn’t make me want to crawl inside my own skull.”
Jane sat across from her, unzipped her coat halfway. “And you liked him?”
“I did. Stupidly. He was sharp. Asked about my favourite bookwithoutmaking it about himself. Actually remembered details. And he was funny, Jane. Not just ‘laugh-through-your-nose’ funny.Laugh out loud in line at Trader Joe’s,funny.”
Jane smiled. “So you met him?”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “We picked a café. Neutral ground. I got there first. Ordered a cappuccino and even sat near a window like some woman in a romance montage. I was half-expecting him to be awkward or ghost me altogether.”
“And?”
Elizabeth set down her mug. “A black car pulled up outside. One of those sleek, shiny ones that doesn’t even have the decency to look rented. A driver got out. Opened the back door. And out stepped Fitzwilliam Darcy.”
Jane blinked. “I’m sorry—what?”
Elizabeth nodded. “Mr. F isDarcy.”
Jane let that sink in. Then, slowly, “You’re sure?”
“He described himself. Gray coat. Black jumper. Reading glasses. It was him. One hundred percent. And the way he looked at me? Heknew. He just nodded like I was some variable in an experiment that had confirmed his hypothesis.”
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
