Pride and Prejudice and Mistletoe

by Melissa de la Cruz

  “Oh?”

  “It was devastating when you left home, Darcy. I don’t know how I let it catch me off guard, but it did. The thing is, that I need to take responsibility for”—he looked back at his wife, who nodded encouragingly for him to go on—“is that I made it about Carl when it really just … well, it wasn’t.”

  “It wasn’t … about Carl?”

  “No. Don’t get me wrong. Carl is a nice young man and comes from an excellent family, but the real reason I was so gung ho on you marrying him was because it would mean you’d stay close to home and we, or, well, I wouldn’t lose you.”

  “But so … all you ever really wanted was for me to stay in Pemberley?”

  “You’re my only daughter, and by far the smartest and most delightful of all my children. Sorry, but it’s true.”

  “No need to apologize for that.” Darcy smiled slyly.

  “I wanted you by my side, my little co-captain, like when you were growing up.”

  “But … I thought … I thought this was about marrying into the Donovan family. You wanted me to marry up and make us look good. It all just felt so … contrived. I had to get away from … I had to go somewhere where nobody else had a say over how I lived my life.”

  “And I understand that now. I just wish you knew you could have had total say over your life without leaving Pemberley. I never wanted to control you; I just wanted you to be close to home.”

  “But … when I left, you turned your back on me. Why would you risk not seeing me at all if the whole point was you wanted to see more of me?”

  “It really hurt me when you left. I had big plans for you. I wanted you to help me run the company. I took it personally that you wanted to leave, and that was petty. I thought, somehow, freezing you out would make you change your mind and come home. I see now how that backfired. In retrospect, my behavior seems ridiculous, to be honest.”

  “It was,” said Darcy. “But I think I probably would have done the same thing. I’m stubborn, and I get that from you.”

  “That’s true,” he nodded, grateful for her magnanimity.

  “This is just so odd.” She looked around, feeling dazed. “All these years, I thought you hated me for not marrying Carl, and that made me so mad.”

  “Honey, I never hated you. Never in a million years.”

  “But if I’d known this wasn’t about Carl, but just about you … liking me so much that you wanted me close … well, I wouldn’t have been so spiteful.”

  “Well, then, this has all been a very unfortunate misunderstanding,” he said, patting her hand. “And I’m sorry.” She could tell these last few words were a strain for him, but she appreciated his intention.

  Darcy didn’t know what to say. Nobody had ever said anything like this to her. Be who you want to be? Do what you want to do? No pressure? She didn’t know what to do with this information, so she let it percolate in her mind, bubbling wildly, as she stared in disbelief at her mom and dad.

  “So you … do you mean that?”

  “Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Fitzwilliam. “We don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. We’ll love you no matter what. Isn’t that right, dear?” She turned to her husband with an urging glance, eyebrows raised insistently.

  “That’s right.”

  “But…” Darcy said, remembering, “you said if I didn’t marry Carl you’d cut me off financially. It was so important to you.”

  “I panicked! You were going to leave home and I panicked. We were so close for so long, Darcy, and I couldn’t handle the thought of you running around New York City with all those Wall Street scoundrels and rats and … subways.” He grimaced. Darcy laughed.

  “Dad, I’m a millionaire. I don’t take the subway.”

  “It was ignorant of me … and unfair to try to keep you from spreading your wings. Just know I did it out of fear. But the truth is … you’ve never let anyone tell you how to live your life, and that’s what I’m most proud of.”

  “Very good, dear.” Mrs. Fitzwilliam patted her husband’s shoulder approvingly. “That was perfect.”

  Darcy burst into tears. She didn’t try to stop herself, or even want to try to stop herself. She cried from the relief of knowing, for the first time, that she was loved unconditionally; she cried for the loss of Carl and the frustration of Luke; she cried for all the years she’d cursed herself for letting down her family, all that time wasted in secret self-loathing; and last, she cried tears of joy from knowing she’d never have to live like that again.

  “Angel, what’s wrong?” asked Mrs. Fitzwilliam. Mr. Fitzwilliam shifted uncomfortably, apparently not used to seeing people cry.

  “Nothing’s wrong.” Darcy laughed through her tears. “I’m just really happy. I’m happy this is all over. I’m happy to be home with my family.”

  “Maybe you should…” Mr. Fitzwilliam looked to his wife for approval. She nodded for him to go ahead. “Maybe you should move back home for a little while. Just to take a break and relax. You can have as much space as you need. We can give you the entire guesthouse; you’ll never even see us.”

  “Dad!” Darcy laughed. “But I would want to see you.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes. And I think you make a good point. I’m going to think about it.” Darcy meant what she said. What was there for her in New York anymore? She had virtually no social life to speak of, and she was financially set for life. She’d been working so hard for so many years, out of the need to prove herself. She’d been driven by wanting to run away from the past, but now she felt she neither had to prove herself nor run away from the past.

  18

  Cozy and content, Darcy sat up in her childhood bed, watching Gilmore Girls and eating rocky road ice cream directly out of the carton. In her mind she was practicing how she would tell her partners that she was cashing out from Montrose Montrose and Fitzwilliam, and to her surprise, none of it made her anxious at all. She’d made more than enough to last them and future generations for a good long while—that was one of the benefits of being partner. The sun was setting on Christmas Day and, though she was spending it alone, she felt wildly grateful to have her health, the love of her family, and her few but close friends, namely Bingley.

  Just then, there was a knock at the door.

  “Uh, who is it?” she asked. After Darcy had convinced everyone that she was feeling much better, her parents went out to a cocktail party and, as far as she knew, her brothers were with their significant others.

  “It’s Bingley.”

  “Bingley? What are you doing here?”

  “Can I come in?” he asked through the door. Darcy laughed.

  “Yes, yes, get in here.”

  Bingley came in and sat at the foot of her bed. He was wearing a white dress shirt buttoned to his neck, with a navy silk tie, and she could smell expensive cologne wafting off of him.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  “Amazing, actually. How are you? You look fancy. Where are you going?”

  “The rehearsal dinner,” he said delicately. “For Luke and Charlotte.”

  “Oh, right,” Darcy grumbled. “I forgot that was tonight.”

  “You didn’t forget.”

  “Nope.”

  “I think you should come with me.”

  “Ha!” Darcy guffawed. “Yeah, right. Why the hell would I volunteer to embarrass myself like that?”

  “I don’t think it would be embarrassing. I think it would show that you’re thinking about people other than yourself. I know you wanted to do that by helping out Kit and Lyle, but nobody’s gonna know you did that.”

  “Hmm.” She thought it over. “But it’s not like I was invited.”

  “Actually, you were. Your parents didn’t give you the invitation at the hospital because the doctor said not to do anything to agitate you.”

  “Oh. But still, I wouldn’t want my presence to be any kind of distraction to him on this night. The night before your wedding sho
uld be a drama-free night.”

  “Wow,” said Bingley. “You really are starting to think about people other than yourself.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I really am.”

  “I’m just a text away if you need me.”

  “Thanks, Bingley, you’re the best.”

  “I’ll stop by after, to check up on you.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Love ya,” he said, opening the door.

  “Love ya too,” she replied, as he shut the door behind him.

  * * *

  An hour later the wheels in Darcy’s mind started to turn. They started to turn faster and faster, until she had to hit Pause on Gilmore Girls because she couldn’t focus on their quick and witty dialogue.

  Why would Luke invite me to his rehearsal dinner? she wondered. Why would he do that if he thinks I’m a brat and a snob? Did he do it to prove that I think I’m better than everybody else? Everyone would show up except me, and then it would be obvious that I can’t show up for anybody unless it benefits me? What a jerk. I’m not a snob, and I do care about other people. I’m a grown-ass woman and I can show up for my lifelong classmate and neighbor, show my support, even if he said all those things about me. I’ll show up and I’ll be gracious and that will show him. Luke Bennet, get ready to meet the new Darcy Fitzwilliam.

  She hopped out of bed and opened her closet. She picked the first dress she saw off its hanger and pulled it over her head. She didn’t have a lot of time, she knew, to arrive on time without making a scene, and it didn’t matter what she looked like if she was going to make this night as not about her as possible. She was going to blend in, in this taupe, conservatively styled dress, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Bingley will be proud of me, she thought, stepping into a pair of brown leather kitten heels. I’m being very grown up about this. Sure, I wanted Luke, but things didn’t work out that way. A brat would throw a fit, but I am not a brat. I am a magnanimous and compassionate lady, and I do not hold grudges.

  She bundled up, preparing for the cold, and called an Uber. She tapped her foot nervously the whole ride to the venue, worried she’d be late and that her lateness would be misunderstood as an intentional slight. She hoped when she arrived she could slip in among the crowd, find Bingley as soon as possible, and latch on to him for the night.

  But when she hurried up the front steps and opened the restaurant door, the place was completely empty and the lights were turned down so low they were practically off. Oh my God, I missed it entirely, she thought. Or, wait, maybe I got the address wrong?

  “How could I have gotten the address wrong?” she said out loud, cursing herself.

  “You didn’t,” said a voice in the dark, startling Darcy. She recognized that voice; it was Luke’s.

  “Luke?” she asked, baffled. He stood up and into the beam of light cast by an outside streetlamp.

  “Hi, Darcy,” he said humbly, arms crossed over his chest.

  “What happened to the rehearsal dinner?”

  “There’s no dinner,” he said. “I called it off. Actually, I called the wedding off, the whole thing.”

  “But … why?”

  “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but I realized Charlotte wasn’t the right girl for me. I thought she was, but she wasn’t.”

  “What made you realize that?” Darcy looked down at her shoes.

  “You.”

  “Me?” Her eyes grew big with acute curiosity. “But I thought I’m—”

  “Darcy, I am so sorry for what I said to you that day. It was horrible of me, and I can’t take it back, but I can tell you how sorry I am.”

  “I don’t understand. How did you … What made you…”

  “Mrs. Walsh from Pemberley High called me. She told me what you did. Honestly, it blew me away. That you would do that for my family … it was just incredible of you. And then, on top of that, you didn’t even tell me? You truly did it just to help. It made me realize how wrong I was about you, Darcy, wrong from the beginning. I judged you because of your money and your privilege, but that was so immature of me. You’re not a snob; you’re just different than I am. Different in a good way. You have ambition and drive and I … I think I love you for that. You’re a wonderful girl, Darcy, and I was an idiot to push you away. Please forgive me.”

  Darcy felt the blood drain from her head, and for a second she thought she might pass out again. She blinked repeatedly, trying to wake herself up from what surely had to be a dream. But she wasn’t waking up, because this wasn’t a dream. The restaurant was real and Luke standing there was real and all the things he had just said were real. She took a deep breath, knowing her life would never be the same after this moment.

  “I forgive you, Luke,” she said, taking a step toward him. “And I love you too.”

  He rushed to her then, lifted her by her waist, and spun her around so that her taupe-colored dress swooshed and swirled.

  “I’m so happy,” he said. “You’re incredible.”

  She beamed giddily and looked up at the ceiling.

  “There’s no mistletoe,” she said.

  “Oh man,” he said. “That’s too bad. I guess we just have to go home.”

  “All right then,” she joked, pretending to leave. “See ya later.”

  Luke grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him. He pressed his lips eagerly up against hers, and they stood there together, just like that, as the snow outside came down all around them, falling perfectly into place.

  * * *

  Darcy could remember every single Christmas since the time she was three years old. Not many people have memories from that far back, but Darcy did, and was mostly proud of that fact. The Christmas she was three she sat at the base of the gilded tree as her brother Kenneth tore the gift wrap off box after box and threw it into piles that built around her until she was in a sea of shiny, glossy paper shreds.

  In later years, once James was born, a tradition developed among them of leaving cookies out for Santa Claus, next to a potted plant in the upstairs hallway. They’d stay awake for as long as possible, peeking under the cracks beneath their doors, hoping to catch a glimpse of him as he stopped for his nighttime snack. But Darcy never bothered to stay awake. She curled into bed early each Christmas Eve and shut out her light, because even at eight years old there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt in her mind that Santa Claus was a big, sad, pathetic lie. She couldn’t believe how dumb her brothers were for falling for such a hoax—especially Kenneth, who was older than she was and definitely should have known better.

  The simple logistical errors in the myth of Santa Claus seemed so obvious to her. He was one man who had an entire planet’s worth of presents to give out in the span of twenty-four hours—did nobody else care to comment on the sheer impossibility of this? Not to mention the flying sleigh, which was just straight up not a thing that existed. You’d have to throw out logic and believe in magic in order to buy this story, which she did not.

  Then there was the issue of naughtiness versus niceness. The adults wanted you to believe that the amount of presents you received on Christmas morning had to do with how well behaved you were throughout the year. This was how they got you to follow rules, an obvious ploy in Darcy’s mind. The truth, she observed in the school days following Christmas, was that the amount of gifts you received on Christmas had nothing to do with how you behaved and everything to do with how much money your parents had. This realization in itself debunked the Santa myth on its own, because if there really was a Santa Claus, who was supposedly a benevolent monitor of childhood morality, he would never let this happen; he would make sure well-behaved children got good presents no matter how poor they were. He would go straight to third world countries, where the kids were hungry and courageous, and he would make sure to give them food before flying over to Ohio to make sure all the brats Darcy went to school with got their My Size Barbies and their Furbies and their Kid Motorz Hummers. But there
were kids who were starving to death all over the world—this much she overheard on morning talk radio that Edward listened to—and so there couldn’t possibly be a Santa Claus. And on that note, she figured, there probably wasn’t a God either.

  Those were Darcy’s childhood Christmases.

  As a teenager, once the Santa dream was squashed for her naive and gullible siblings, the Christmas tradition morphed into the Fitzwilliam parents asking the Fitzwilliam kids point blank what they would like for Christmas, and then delivering. She knew her parents most likely did not look at the list but instead passed it over to one of their many assistants to take care of. Either way, the excitement of seeing who got what presents was nonexistent, so Darcy chose to sleep in. Why wake at the crack of dawn to open presents she already knew she was getting and that would be waiting there for her all day?

  Furthermore, once she turned fourteen, she only ever asked for various books, and those she definitely didn’t have to wake up early for. Some of her favorites that she asked for and received over the years were The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Common Sense on Mutual Funds by John C. Bogle, One Up on Wall Street by Peter Lynch, and Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. The year she was sixteen she got into the biographies of the billionaires she admired most: John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie and Cornelius Vanderbilt. The year she was seventeen she grew frustrated with and bored of reading about rich men and began seeking out the rich women she could learn from. Research at the Pemberley High library led her to Geraldine Weiss, Debra Cafaro, and Susan Shaw. It was around this time that she became appalled at how few women were successful or acknowledged in the world of stocks, and she decided that, when she grew up, she’d aspire to do something about it.

  After almost an hour of kissing Luke in the snow, she forced herself to break free from him to go home and celebrate what was left of Christmas with her family. Having not returned to Pemberley for eight years, she had gone eight years without providing a list for her parents. And not having prepared to be in Pemberley this year and therefore not providing her parents with a list of requests (because why would she?), she was not expecting any gifts. But on this Christmas night, Darcy made her way through the front door and into the downstairs living room to find an obscene display of professionally wrapped presents beneath the oversize tree, and her entire family lounging casually on the living room furniture, each one looking lazier and merrier than the last.