Pride and Papercuts (The Austens #5) - Staci Hart Page 0,50
Bennet?”
“What are we, in third grade?”
“It makes so much sense,” she said half to herself. “All the antagonism, the infighting—”
“Georgie, your imagination needs a leash. We were just helping each other with our presentations.”
“Even that!” She motioned to me. “You were helping her.”
“How can I beat her if I don’t see what she’s got to offer?”
“You’re a mess, Liam. Wait—” She lit up. “If you’re with Laney, does that mean I can date Jett?”
The levity of the moment sank like an anvil tossed overboard. “You cannot see Jett Bennet, not any more than I can see Laney. Which I’m not. Whatever our current truce is, it’s temporary. No universe exists wherein Laney and I are a thing.”
She watched me, seeing too much. “Is that because of her feelings or yours?”
My face flattened to cover the thunder of my heart. “Does it matter?”
“It matters.” She waited.
“Both.” But I didn’t specify which of my feelings kept Laney and I apart.
She accepted the non-answer as an answer after a moment and a sigh. “We have a meeting with the marketing team in an hour. Are we still going to Catherine’s for dinner tonight?”
“She confirmed earlier.”
“Think she’ll make me play the piano for her?”
“Doesn’t she always?”
Another sigh. “She makes me feel like a little girl.”
“Catherine has a knack for making people feel inferior. We’re lucky it’s just our age she holds over us.”
“True. She can’t exactly fire us, can she?”
But I gave her a look before we parted and reminded her, “Don’t be so sure.”
Hours later, the sun had set on the week, and I found myself in Catherine’s penthouse with a scotch in my hand, listening to Georgie play the piano.
She’d always had a talent for it, though she complained her way through a young lifetime of lessons. When our parents died, the lessons ended, and so did her practice. The only time she played was when we visited our Aunt, and though Catherine never noticed, the sadness in Georgie rose to the surface with every brush of her fingertips on the ivory keys.
But my mind was far away, testing the edges of a place they didn’t belong—Laney Bennet.
Thoughts of her had circled my heart for hours. Days. I wasn’t a man who often wanted what he couldn’t have. I wasn’t a man of longing—I was a man of action. Perhaps the shift had come with the softness that’d arisen between us that week. Maybe it was the slow rise of the possibility of her affection when I believed there to be none. It didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t allowed to have her, even if she was interested. I’d convinced myself she wasn’t—just because she’d put her knives down didn’t mean she cared for me.
But the feeling was awake in me, and I didn’t know how to soothe it back to sleep.
The song she played—Chopin, though I didn’t know which—came to a close, the last notes suspended in the air until they faded away.
“Oh, Georgiana. How lovely. Thank you for indulging an old woman,” she said with a smile.
The Catherine seated next to me was the one we knew as family. Juxtaposed to the callous CEO of De Bourgh was the more gentle—if not still demanding—woman who had spoiled us at Christmases and was known to occasionally smile, as she was now.
Georgie stood and curtsied before reaching for her gin and taking a seat.
“Tell me how the week went,” Catherine said, somehow managing to look both relaxed and stiff at the same time. “The review for the bookstore is next week, is it not? Are you prepared?”
“We are,” I answered. “We have two strong campaigns for Georgie to review. Strong enough, the client is going to have a hard time choosing.”
“Liam still thinks he’s going to win though,” Georgie teased.
Catherine’s brows nudged each other. “Win what?”
I shot Georgie a look. “Oh, nothing. Just a little friendly competition.”
“Is Caroline running the other team? I do love a good challenge. It produces the best work when one’s afraid of losing.”
“No, not Caroline,” I said, figuring now was as good a time as any. She’d find out soon enough. “Laney Bennet.”
All softness left her. “I thought I was clear regarding my feelings on the Bennet girl, particularly where you and this company are concerned.”
“The competition was already in play by the time we talked. I wasn’t aware of your feelings before that.”
Georgie worried her lip.
“To give her such a place in this project? Liam, this is a blasphemy.”