that he knew what he was going to do.
He walked to Charles and put an arm over his shoulder. “Let’s have some fun,” he said, his voice darkly persuasive.
“What do you want to do?” Charles said foggily.
“Change the song,” Darcy grinned wickedly. Charles matched his grin.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he agreed, delighted with the prospect of some harmless mischief. “Let’s do it.”
Darcy began a simple melody line to which Charles joined eight bars later.
From her seat, Elizabeth felt her jaw drop as she recognized the introduction Darcy was playing. Shock overwhelmed her as she watched Darcy staring coldly at her, snarling and mouthing the chorus to her. The message was unmistakable, even for someone as blind as she had been.
Chapter 14
Instinct for self-preservation alone drove Elizabeth out of her seat and into the lobby. Charles’s voice followed her, but at least she was away from Darcy’s eyes. His eyes were so angry and hurtful. As she listened to the hurtful, mocking words, Elizabeth felt sick to her stomach.
A moment later Jane joined Elizabeth, looking at her in shocked confusion. “Why?” she stammered.
Elizabeth could only shake her head and hold up her hand, not ready to speak yet.
Charlotte and Alex burst through the doors. Charlotte took a look at the Bennets’ expressions and said, “Okay, we’re out of here. Let’s go and get a drink.”
Darcy was pleased when he saw Elizabeth leave the theater. His temper was broken by her expression of surprise and hurt. But as his rage and vindictiveness were appeased, he found that he was left with little more than a cold emptiness inside. Intuitively he knew that he would regret his action at some point, but now he just felt numb.
“What the fuck!” the bitch producer screeched as she stormed the stage.
Caroline intercepted her and listened to her ranting for a minute as Charles and Darcy laughed together at her.
“What the fuck was that? They are not going to fucking sing that on my show! I can’t broadcast that! Everyone told me they were professionals!”
Caroline stopped her there. “They are professionals, but they are also artists,” she told her calmly. “You don’t keep professionals cooling their heels for over two hours! Now, they are not going to sing that song tonight; they were merely blowing off steam.”
“They better not!”
Anne de Bourgh appeared out of nowhere and spoke up imperially, “I promise you, Vicki, they won’t.”
Vicki glared at both the women and muttered, “They better not! Friggin’ bastards!” before marching off in an angry huff.
Anne looked at Caroline, her eyebrows lifted.
“They won’t,” Caroline said in a much less certain tone.
“Perhaps you should have a word with them.”
Caroline gave her a stiff nod while making a mental note to give herself an extremely large raise and went to speak to the band.
Richard walked slowly from around his drum kit to Darcy and Charles. “Well, that was fun,” he observed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Do you feel better now?”
Darcy gave him a black look but otherwise ignored him.
Charles took a moment to study the audience while Caroline and Anne talked. “Do you guys see Jane?”
Richard fixed Darcy with a look and shook his head slowly. “Oh no, don’t tell me he didn’t know.”
Darcy glared at Richard, then answered, “I saw her before, but I think she left. We’ll see them later, I’m sure.”
Charles frowned. “I really need to see her.”
“Charles, we’ve all got rooms at the same hotel. We’ll see them there, I’m sure.”
Richard exhaled loudly. He could already feel the headache starting.
At the King Cole Bar in the St. Regis hotel, the two Bennets and the two Lucases found a table for an emergency meeting.
Jane was pale, her hand shaking as she sipped her drink. “Why? Why would Charles do that?” she asked no one in particular. “I mean, we sort of had a fight Sunday night, but nothing to warrant this.”
Elizabeth sighed. She didn’t want to talk about what happened, but she had no choice. “Jane, it wasn’t you.”
“What?” Jane asked, completely dumbfounded.
“Want to share, Lizzy?” Charlotte asked knowingly. Charlotte hadn’t missed Darcy’s vicious expression. When compared to Charles’s “little boy acting out” expression, it told her everything she needed to know.
Elizabeth blew out a long breath. She fixed her eyes on the Maxfield Parrish mural dominating the room and told her story. “The song was directed at me. I went to Darcy’s loft last night, and one thing led to another and I spent the night.” As she spoke, she kept her voice as dry and emotionless as possible.
Elizabeth heard Charlotte snort, but she couldn’t look at her. “This morning he told me that he loved me. I wasn’t ready for that. I asked him to slow down, and he kept pushing, and in the end, he pushed me right out the door.” She stared at her drink as she stirred it, and then took a long sip.
“Bastard!” Alex seethed.
Elizabeth realized that just the night before, George used the same word for Darcy and she felt the wrongness of it. Regret colored her voice as she said, “No, no, he’s not. I hurt his feelings.” She pushed her hair back from her face. “Well, maybe he is. That song was pretty shitty. I think he thinks I didn’t believe that he was sincere. I didn’t know,” she shrugged at her own confusion.
Charlotte sat back, an expression of disgust on her face. “So let me see if I have this straight. He had amazing sex with you, then screwed you over, right?” She snorted. “Well, that’s three for three for Slurry!” She raised her glass in a mocking salute.
“But the point is Charles isn’t breaking up with you, Jane,” Elizabeth finished.
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Alex said, taking the newspaper that sat abandoned on the next table. It
