“That is not true,” Elizabeth said, but it came out weaker than she intended.
Jane’s hand reached across the space between them and rested over Elizabeth’s fingers.
“Lizzy,” she murmured, “you don’t have to forgive him tonight. You don’t have to trust him tonight. But you do have to be fair.”
Elizabeth swallowed.
Fair.
Darcy’s word had been a verdict, or so she thought.
Her own had been judgment.
She leaned back, staring at the darkened room. The television’s muted glow flickered across the walls, and somewhere in the background a woman’s voice sang softly—an artist Elizabeth didn’t recognise, the sound almost ghostlike beneath their silence.
“I don’t know what I feel,” Elizabeth admitted at last, the confession bitter on her tongue.
Jane’s hand squeezed gently.
“That,” she said softly, “is a much better beginning than pretending you feel nothing at all.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes, wine untouched now, the quiet stretching around them.
And somewhere beneath her anger, beneath her certainty, something unsettled remained—persistent as a question she could not yet answer.
She opened her eyes again, turning her head toward Jane with a faint, strained incredulity.
“Wait,” she said slowly, “is that why you used the wood, nails and crucify reference? Like I’m Pontius Pilate, and he’s… Jesus or something?”
Jane blinked, then let out a helpless laugh.
“Lizzy,” she murmured, equal parts amused and exasperated, “that is not what I meant.”
Elizabeth huffed softly, though the corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
“I should hope not,” she muttered. “Because that would be entirely too dramatic. Even for Lydia.”
Chapter ELEVEN
THE NEXTweek passed in a quick haze.
Not the peaceful kind, not the sort that softened with time, but the kind that blurred at the edges because Elizabeth could not bear to look at it too closely. Days came and went, filled with ordinary things—emails, deadlines, grocery runs, half-hearted conversations—and yet none of it felt quite real.
Everything kept circling back.
A café table. Darcy’s silence. The way he had looked at her, as though he wanted to speak and refused himself.
Or perhaps as though he had nothing to say at all.
And beneath it all, Jane’s words would not leave her alone.
You liked Mr. F.
Elizabeth had tried to dismiss it. Tried to scoff at the idea, as though liking someone could be reduced to a careless confession.
But she could not get him out of her head.
Not the billionaire. Not the headlines. Not Fitzwilliam Darcy, app-founder and algorithm-architect.
