Page 17 of First Impressions (Passion and Perseverance #1)

Chapter Thirteen

Beth spent the rest of the week working mostly from home.

She stopped in at her office on Wednesday to let Phil know how the meeting with Mrs. DeBourgh went and what she expected of Beth.

She left out the part about spying on Mr. Darcy - and how that was the whole reason they had secured her business in the first place .

That day she also received another email from Mrs. DeBourgh ‘thanking’ her for the invitations to Longbourne’s Charity Ball and RSVP’ing for herself and her daughter.

Overall, she wouldn’t say it was an unproductive week working from home; she kept herself on a tight schedule, waking up early and either going to the gym in their apartment building or doing yoga, addressed any guest responses or vendor questions about the ball, ate lunch, checked her work emails, and edited PR pieces her assistants sent over to be released to the news at the beginning of next week.

Mostly, she was proud of little she allowed herself to think about Mr. Darcy.

Well, she told herself it was only a little.

The day after he had shown up at their apartment, she deliberately took the morning to decide how she was going to handle her feelings for him, determined to approach this problem rationally.

The reality was that she was intensely attracted to him and there was just no way she was able to ignore that.

Accepting that fact meant she just needed to decide how to handle any future romantic encounters, both physically and emotionally.

She figured she had two options – completely avoid Mr. Darcy at all costs or acknowledge that just because they might end up physically involved didn’t mean she had to let her emotions become attached.

Option number one was pretty much unfeasible because of her family and professional obligations, which left her with option number two.

Option number two really wasn’t so bad when she thought about it, as long as she could stick to it; it wasn’t too different from her previous, although limited, relationships.

Granted, she seemed to get along with those men better than she did with Darcy, but she had still kept her feelings aside so that they couldn’t compromise her personal goals.

Plus, the man’s personality was completely intolerable to the point where she felt secure believing it was an impossibility for her to even like him, let alone love him.

She could enjoy the pleasure she experienced with him for what it was and keep her emotions to herself; especially if he was capable of doing it, then so could she.

The highlights of her days were seeing Jane come home from work glowing from spending so much time with Charles.

It seemed like their relationship was progressing pretty rapidly, and Jane was completely head over heels.

In spite of her deliberate attempts on the first day to keep the conversations focused on Charles and Jane, when Thursday rolled around Beth couldn’t help but inquire about Mr. Darcy.

“So, was Mr. Darcy there this week?”

Beth didn’t miss the small smile that slipped across her sister’s face.

“He was. He met with dad a lot to go over some final details about the purchase price and payments and things like that, but he was there.” When Beth didn’t respond, Jane continued with the observations she knew her sister was really wondering about.

“On Wednesday, he really didn’t look well.

Not that I’ve been around him all that often but compared to the other times when we have met, he was a mess; he looked like he’d been up all night and even though his clothes and hair and everything were still perfect, his mind was all over the place.

Before, he would coolly control the conversation, always trying to keep them focused on business, but Wednesday he had a blank stare as if he was lost in his own thoughts; he wouldn't answer when Charles addressed him and asked him to repeat several questions. It was just very unlike him.”

“Oh.” Beth felt her insides begin to tingle at the thought that it was because of her that he was so distraught.

Served him right.

“And he asked about you.”

Beth clenched her teeth to keep her jaw from dropping. “Wait, what? What did he say? What did you say? ”

“Well, Charles wanted to speak with dad alone in his office, so that left Mr. Darcy and me alone for a few minutes. He was very awkward at first, you know how he is, asking me questions about my job and working for family, about our younger sisters and if they wanted to work for the firm; and that led him to questions about you, what you liked to do, if you liked your job, things like that. I think he thought I would just assume the questions were to be polite and not notice that he had subversively guided the conversation onto you, but it was obvious he wanted to know more about you.”

Don’t get excited, Beth. You don’t care what he thinks or how he feels about you. She tried to keep reminding herself of that even though she was powerless to stop the rush of pleasure that swept through her, knowing that he was interested in her and not just attracted to her body.

“What did you tell him?”

“Mostly general stuff about your work and how achieving your goals is so important to you. That you have a very strong and determined personality, which he said he had already gathered; he said that you had impressed him,” she paused here to look at Beth, who looked like she was about to faint.

“He said what?” Beth choked out. Mr. Intolerable continued to leave her speechless even when he wasn’t physically there.

“Well, it almost seemed like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

He started to drift off into his own world when I began to talk about you, he closed his eyes and started to rub his forehead like he had a headache, and when I stopped talking he kind of stared right through me and quietly said that you had truly impressed him.

I was shocked too, based on everything that you’ve told me he’s said and done so far, so I said that you were one of the most impressive people I had ever met and that you would be happy to hear that he agreed. ”

Jane gave Beth a quick smile as she got up to go make them a cup of tea.

How does one go from ‘tolerable’ to ‘truly impressive’?

She hadn’t done anything except kiss him, and she wouldn’t consider her kissing skills as ‘impressive’.

Ok, maybe there was everything else that he knew about her, that he’d seen and heard about her from being at Longbourne and around her and her family for the past few days.

Her guard down, she felt proud that she had impressed him.

Proud and excited, which was new for her because she had never cared about impressing men.

She was confident in who she was, whether they wanted to appreciate her or not; but knowing that Darcy did gave her a sense of satisfaction that she had never experienced before.

As Jane began heating the water she continued her story, “At that point, he seemed to come back to reality and almost like he was embarrassed or regretted his compliment, because he quickly asked me if any of our other sisters were as headstrong as you - like he was trying to distract me from what he had said. I told him that you must have been adopted because, unlike the rest of us, you weren’t willing to be dominated by anyone; you make your own path to success and aren’t content to just docilely follow others.

” Jane’s light humor pulled Beth from her preoccupation with Mr. Darcy’s comment.

She shook her head and laughed as Jane placed a cup of green tea before her on the counter.

“Is that all you had to say about me? What did he say after that?” Beth jokingly asked, inside dying to know more.

“Well, by the time I said that, Charles came back and our conversation was interrupted. I hope I said the right thing. He seemed more agitated after I said that, but maybe it was just that Charles had returned.”

“Haha, there is no right or wrong thing. I don’t care what he thinks of me.”

Except she was really starting to and it was a problem.

Why did she care so much what he thought of her?

It’s not like she was overwhelmed by his billionaire status and wanted to impress him for his money; and she certainly wasn’t thrilled with his personality thus far.

And if she did impress him, why was he so rude and cold to her? Why could he admit this to Jane, but not find one pleasant thing to say to her in person?

After all of her rational thinking and planning, here she was watching as her feelings became entangled with this man without him even present.

The amount of pleasure she received from hearing about his compliment was soon stifled by her aggravation with herself; for the first time, she realized that she had wanted to impress him, wanted to show him that she wasn’t just like everyone else - blinded by his status and fortune; and mostly, that she wanted to put a dent in his arrogance and egotism.

Jane was right, she wanted to dominate him. She wanted Mr. Intolerable to look at her with respect so that she could bring him down a notch or two for his impudent comment about her being barely ‘tolerable’; she wanted him to realize that she was his equal.

Realizing that she had been quiet for a few minutes, she took a sip of her tea and asked Jane, “ Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”

“Well, I didn’t know where your head was at and I didn’t want to bring him up if you were just trying to move past the whole situation.

I’m sorry. I knew I should have said something.

I just didn’t want to upset you; I’ve just never seen you get upset over a guy before.

” The remorse on her sister’s face told her that she was truly sorry, not that Beth would have thought anything different. Jane was an open book.

Not wanting to discuss her earlier resolution regarding Mr. Darcy or how he had just shattered it with one compliment, Beth redirected their conversation back to Charles and asked if Jane would be seeing him the following day.

Thankfully, Jane didn’t prod her about what she had decided to do about Mr. Darcy.

Unlike the other women in their family, Jane listened to help and support her, not to get caught up in some new drama.

“Well, I think he will be at the office tomorrow, but he will definitely be at dinner tomorrow night. Mom has been texting and calling me every ten minutes about the menu and the table settings and what drinks to serve and what she should wear. I think I’m beginning to see her like you do!

” She joked even though she was incapable of such an opinion.

She should have known that Charles and Mr. Darcy would be invited to their family dinner, but her mind wasn’t in the most stable place these past few days. Preparing herself for what she already knew the answer to be, she asked Jane if Mr. Darcy was also invited to dinner tomorrow night.

“Yes, and I’d be prepared for mom to be on her matchmaking game if I were you. Are you going to be ok? I can always tell them you are sick or something.” Jane’s face grew concerned as she realized Beth didn’t know that Mr. Darcy was planning on being there.

“No, it’s ok. I will never hear the end of it from mom if I don’t go. I’ll be fine.” She hoped.

“Well, if you want me to put my purse outside your door so that you can trip over it and hurt yourself, just let me know. I’ll bring the doctor’s note with me and everything to exculpate you.”

Beth chuckled as Jane made her way down the hall to her room.

As if one mind-altering surprise hadn’t been enough tonight, now she was going to have to see Mr. Intolerable tomorrow.

She had planned on at least having through the weekend before having to see him again, although at least this was in a public setting.

If you had asked her this morning if she was ready to confront him, she would have unwaveringly replied ‘yes’; now though, she wasn’t sure.

This morning, she comforted herself knowing that while Darcy was attracted to her physically, he clearly didn’t like her – that scenario she could handle.

Now, with his admission to Jane, everything had changed; all her emotions she had been able to justify suppressing were now flooding her brain and all she could think was, he likes me.

I want him to like me.