She turned back to Darcy, trying to look casual about being very much locked inside a yoghurt shop with Fitzwilliam Darcy.
“Well,” she said lightly, “that’s dramatic.”
“It’s something.”
She sat back down with a sigh, blowing on her hands even though it wasn’t that cold.
“Trapped on a second date in a frozen yoghurt prison. This is either fate or a lawsuit.”
Darcy remained standing for a moment longer, watching the employee pace behind the counter with her phone pressed to her ear. Then he returned to his seat.
“I’m not litigious,” he said dryly.
“That’s what all the rich people say.”
He chuckled—an actual, audible chuckle. She wasn’t sure she’d heard that sound from him before.
They fell quiet again, the tension oddly softened by circumstance. It wasn’t cozy exactly, but it was… paused. Contained. Like the wind outdoors had made the world smaller for a little while.
“You know,” she said after a moment, “it’s weird more people don’t recognise you. For someone with your net worth, I figured people would be swooping over you to get autographs or something.”
He tilted his head. “So you did Google me.”
“I had to. After the café, I needed to know what I was getting into.”
“And?”
“I’m still deciding.”
“I’m a private person,” he said. “That probably helps.”
“That, and the fact that your Wikipedia photo makes you look like an exhausted finance bro.”
He smiled again. “That was intentional.”
She grinned. “A strategy?”
“Selective visibility.”
“I can’t relate.”
He met her gaze. “So what does that make you? Not interested in privacy at all?”
She leaned back slowly. “Me? I’m an open book.”
“Are you.”
“With… limited print editions.”
He didn’t press. She didn’t elaborate. Outside, the rain blurred the city to grayscale. Inside, their cups sat between them, half-melted and ignored.
But neither of them seemed to mind.
***
Elizabeth sank into the couch, legs tucked under a throw blanket, a glass of red wine warming slowly between her hands. The heater buzzed faintly in the background, but it did little to erase the chill the frozen yoghurt had left in her bones. It wasn’t just the cold—it was everything. The shop. The conversation. Him.
Her phone buzzed. She stared at the screen to find out the caller ID. Jane. She considered ignoring it for a moment. Then sighed and picked up.
