Eliot sat at the bar with his head in his hands. "That was the worst meeting with a new client ever."

Jane picked up her shot glass, sucked down the contents, and slammed the glass onto the counter with a sharp crack. “Definitely. The. Worst.”

Eliot blinked in surprise. Normally, Jane wasn’t so strong in her opinions. But he was fairly certain that the lack of communication from a certain alpha contributed to her mood. He felt her pain, though he hadn’t expected a follow up from his one night stand.

Charlie shrugged carelessly. “Could’ve gone worse.”

Eliot picked up his head to look at his friend. “Oh really? How?”

Charlie took a shot. “Could've fired us.”

Eliot looked at the rows of pretty bottles across from them, each containing its own brand of alcoholic denial. “That might’ve been an improvement over what we’re actually having to deal with.”

Ms. de Bourgh had shot to the top of Eliot’s “Most Demanding Client” list in record time. Exactly one minute. Through Collins, she had told them she wanted an early October wedding with a mauve and topaz color scheme and a nautical theme. Nautical? With mauve! The moment they walked in, she’d hit them with not only a date change, but a complete reversal on the colors and theme. Her astrologist had decided that somehow, she’d read the start chart incorrectly, and now Ms. de Bourgh wanted to move the wedding up to June. After Charlie had spent days schmoozing the Willinghams and had nearly reached an agreement with them, knowing how difficult even that later date was to schedule! And now she wanted teal and burnt umber. Eliot could fathom ways to make that look nice, but was certain she would deny every one of them.

“Hey there, handsome,” a man drawled from his left.

Eliot turned and smiled. “Hey, George. Long time, no see. What are you doing here?”

Charlie leaned back in his seat. “George.” He raised his glass, downed his third shot, then said, “Tell Eliot the Pemberlys are ideal clients. Tell him how working for them will blow up our visibility—in a good way.”

George laughed. “Well, they’ll blow you up for sure. That much I can promise.”

Eliot smirked, the harsh smile coming readily to his face after all a long day of Mr. Collin Collins and Ms. de Bourgh. “That bad, huh?”

“Oh, man, you’ve got no idea. That family.” George shook his head and took a long pull from his bottle of beer.

“Dude.” Charlie nodded at the bottle. “Why are you drinking that shit? There’s like, twelve options on tap!”

George shrugged. “I’m no connoisseur. Beer is beer. Why waste a bunch of money on hipster crap when I enjoy a good old Natty Light just the same?”

Charlie grimaced, but Eliot completely understood where George was coming from.

“You know the Pemperlys well?”

“Grew up with them. My dad worked for Mr. Pemberly, but beyond that, they were great friends. Played a lot of golf.” George shook his head. “Rich white dudes and their golf, am I right? Anyway, sad story short, my dad died unexpectedly on a business trip with Mr. Pemberly, and the old man paid for me to continue at prep school and then covered my college tuition.

“Darcy and I were friends back then, traveling in the same social circles and all. I mean, he’s always been a little—” George straightened his back and put on a stern face “—but we got on well. His dad was kind of a surrogate dad for me, after mine died. To be honest, I think Darcy was a little jealous of any attention his dad gave me.”

“Jealous?” Eliot shook his head at this new sign of Darcy’s selfishness. “Man is way too freaking arrogant. His dad was just being nice to the son of a dead friend.”

“Exactly. That’s what I told Darcy, too, the last time we spoke. He didn’t see it that way.” George finished his drink and set his empty bottle aside.

“So after college, I got a job working for Mr. Pemberly. I did a lot of the stuff my dad had done and did it well. But when Darcy took over the company, I was fired without warning or reason.”

George’s lips thinned into a line, maring his normally handsome, carefree visage.

“Is that even legal?” Eliot asked.

George shrugged. “Virginia is an at-will employment state. They don’t have to give a reason to fire you.” He drained his beer and slammed it on the bar.

“That sucks,” Charlie said, ordering George another drink. Charlie, being Charlie, couldn’t bring himself to order the bottom of the barrel, and George accepted the hipster IPA with a thanks.

George’s story did absolutely nothing to change Eliot’s view of the Pemberly family, but it helped ease the strange feeling of annoyance he’d felt toward Darcy ever since leaving Bing’s house. Relief—that’s what he was feeling now. He didn’t regret the sex—hate fucking was a new experience for him, and not one he was tempted to make a regular thing, but damn had it been hot. If he could just manage to avoid Darcy during the rest of the de Bourgh wedding debacle, then he could consider himself home-free.

“Uh oh,” Charlie said, nodding beyond George. “Trouble trouble.”

Liam bounced up next to Eliot and slung an arm around him. “Why the long faces?”

“What’re you two doing here?” Eliot asked instead of answering. Their younger sister, Kitty, followed quietly behind Liam. “She’s too young to be in a bar.”

“Shhh.” Liam waved a shushing hand at him. “Geez, bro, keep it down or you’ll ruin her cover.”

George smiled at Eliot. “Siblings.”

Eliot grinned back. “Can’t kill ‘em, even when you want to.”

George laughed. Liam quickly took over the conversation, transferring his attention to George. Eliot did his best to forget that the two had slept together. Liam was grown enough, and George seemed like the kind of guy to treat him right. Briefly, Eliot thought about warning George that Liam was flighty, but discarded it. One, it wasn’t fair to his brother, and two, if George couldn’t see that, he wasn’t the man Eliot took him for. Bing’s comment about George and Darcy’s past danced in the back of Eliot’s mind, but it was hard to reconcile that with the quick witted, charming man before him. Whatever Bing had heard, it would have been filtered through Darcy anyway, and he seemed to have a very low opinion of most people.

Jane had barely said a word in over thirty minutes and had not objected in the slightest to their youngest sister showing up at a bar, which wasn’t like her. She blinked her eyes rapidly, but it did nothing to hide their glassy gleam.

“Oh, shit.” Eliot eased himself off of the bar stool and put an arm around Jane’s shoulders, pulling her into his chest. Her sudden onset of sobs thus hidden, Eliot said goodbye to everyone and asked George to make sure his wayward sibs didn’t get into more trouble.

George grinned and winked. “I’ll handle it like they were my own siblings.”

“Thanks.” Eliot gave him a fist bump. “I owe you one.”

George’s eyes flashed. “I promise to collect.”

Eliot nodded, his attention back on Jane, knowing there was nothing more he could do for her than get her out of here. He knew that Bing’s silence after sleeping with her had hurt her, but he hadn’t realized how deep those emotions ran until now. Feeling powerless, he patted her hair and murmured, “Everything will be okay, sis. Everything will be okay.”