Eliot turned sideways to look at himself in the full length mirror. Was he gaining weight? He sucked his stomach in, trying to convince himself the new pooch was just bloating. And the low-grade nausea he’d been dealing with for the last two weeks was just a stomach bug. Or stress. He’d certainly had enough of that lately. There was no way that a one-night stand while he was on suppressants would end up in a—

Jane barged into his bedroom without knocking. “I just took a call from Ms. de Bourgh."

Eliot growled, his shoulders sagging. One glimpse in the mirror at his more-than-a-pooch was enough to straighten him. “What does she want this time?"

"To change the flowers. Again." Jane, sweet Jane, did her best to hide her frustration, but a sigh escaped her. She sighed again.

Anyone other than Eliot would think that second sigh was brought on by the mountains of stress that followed Ms. de Bourgh, but Eliot knew its source lay elsewhere, in the total silence that had echoed their individual nights of wanton sex. It’d been nearly three months now and not a single word, call, or text had come. For either of them.

Bing should have been man enough to break things off cleanly, not just leave things… unresolved.

“I should’ve called him,” she’d told Eliot weeks ago. “It's like he ghosted me. Like I only thought I was important to him. Then we slept together and now, nothing."

Eliot knew Jane was hurting. To distract her, they’d been hanging out with Charlie and George more and more. Often, with their younger siblings tagging along. George hadn’t picked up his pursuit of Liam, thankfully. Apparently that had been a drunken one night occurrence.

Eliot could relate.

But their personal issues needed to be set aside while they dealt with the most annoying client’s most recent list of changes. "What flowers has she decided upon today?"

"Roses and carnations.” Jane plopped down on his bed to stare at the floor.

"Interesting choices for the bridezilla." Eliot tucked his shirt in, feeling it did a better job hiding his pooch. He turned around and looked at Jane. "I don't really see her as a roses and carnations kind of woman. Do you?"

Jane simply shrugged.

"Right. I don’t really care, I just want her to stop changing her damn mind all the time."

Jane let out a soft kind of choked laugh. "Do you ever wish we’d passed on this client?”

Eliot snorted. He walked over and sat down next to Jane. “Daily. I tried to pass on her from the beginning. I didn't want her, or anyone from her family, as a client. It's Charlie who wants them. He sees them as a gateway to bigger projects and megabucks."

"I’m sure somewhere, deep inside, she’s got some serious emotional wounds she’s hiding.”

From anyone else, the comment would have seemed derogatory, but Eliot knew his sister. She was so sweet, cotton candy wouldn’t melt in her mouth, and she meant every damn word. Eliot pulled her up and announced that they needed to get to the office. “Can’t let our bridezilla think we don’t care about her.”

Jane’s smile was only a shadow of its normal strength, but at least it was there.

Charlie was already at the office, along with the equally disliked Mr. Collin Collins. The two were literally knee deep in flowers.

“Did you buy out the entire market this morning?” Eliot asked with horror at the price tag of such an act.

Charlie ignored him, as did Collins.

"No, no, no," said Collins. "We need to have pink flowers. And not just any shade of pink, the palest pink possible. A champagne pink.” Collins turned to draw Jane and Eliot into the discussion with yet another display of his devotion to Ms. de Bourgh. “Champagne is the finest drink we could expect someone of the caliber of Ms. de Bourgh to consume."

Charlie nodded, somehow managing to avoid being patronizing or obsequious. Eliot had no idea how he did it. “Of course! Champagne colored roses in the very palest pink possible. An elegant choice. Ms. de Bourgh should be pleased with the result.”

Collins waved his beefy hands at Charlie. “I’m so glad you understand how important she is. Some people don't seem to appreciate the honor of participating in the creation of this wedding."

Eliot and Jane cast glances at each other before turning to their respective workplaces. Ms. de Bourgh might be a wonderful client for someone as groveling as Mr. Collin Collins but she was the wrong kind for someone like Eliot.

Unfortunately, Eliot was stuck with her for as long as Charlie insisted that they do the wedding. But it was past time to do something about the spiraling, out of control costs. Charlie and Eliot couldn’t afford to carry the demanding woman further without a larger deposit. Especially if Charlie were going to do ridiculous things like buy out the flower market.

Eliot pulled out the file for the engagement party. He opened it to page one. “We finalized the venue for the engagement party on November twenty-eight at seven in the evening. Is that correct?"

Collins sent a little kiss in Eliot’s direction. “Yes, yes, of course. It's perfectly fine. Not a thing has changed. Ms. de Bourgh knows her mind. Once she decides on something, she stays with it.”

Eliot refrained from pointing out that Ms. de Bourgh had, in fact, changed the date and location a combined seven times. Not because she had listened to either him or Charlie about the impossibility of scheduling certain venues for certain dates, oh no. Half the time it was because her astrologer or her psychic told her to, and the other half just because the wind was blowing a different direction, as far as Eliot could tell. It wouldn’t be worth the effort to point that out to Mr. Collin Collins. He had displayed a remarkable ability to block out all negative aspects and bad news about his employer.

“And have we arrived at a decision about the flowers?” Eliot tried to cover the weary dismay in his voice.

Charlie and Collins spoke over each other both in an effort to explain exactly what was wrong with the previous flowers. Eliot pretended to care. Very little. He scanned his notes, realizing with surprise that Ms. de Bourgh had picked champagne colored flowers during their first meeting and twice more since then.

The end result was that no flower had been chosen. Eliot lingered with a sick feeling in his stomach, feeling as if that wasn’t the end of the bad news, though he couldn’t say why. His feeling was soon answered.

"Oh my. I forgot to tell you.” Mr. Collins put his hands to his cheeks, pushing his mouth into a surprised O. “Ms. de Bourgh has decided to have the wedding in Los Angeles.”

Eliot tossed his notepad on to his desk.

Even Charlie seemed taken aback, though he only blinked rapidly and took a deep breath. “She wants to have the wedding in Los Angeles?"

Collins nodded his head, lifting two discarded flowers, as if considering them once more.

Eliot steepled his fingers, trying to hold back the urge to wring the neck of the man across from him. “And she is aware that her wedding invitations went out last week?”

Collins’s mouth dropped opened. Obviously this was news to him. Not for the first time, Eliot wondered about the intelligence level of his current client and her assistant.

Charlie rushed in to assure Collins that this “little change” would be no issue at all.

And that’s when Eliot lost it. “Not an issue? Are you kidding me? This woman has driven us to near bankruptcy. We can’t afford to keep changing course each time she changes her mind.”

Immediately, Charlie was in his face. “Can we speak privately?”

“No, Charlie, we can’t speak privately, because you refuse to look at the facts, no matter how clearly I point them out to you. We don’t need this kind of stress for so little reward! This has to end.”

Collins dropped his flowers and carefully straightened his jacket. “I see. I knew that you were having trouble committing to this event, Eliot, but I thought your professionalism might help you manage your clear feelings of inferiority, but I see I was wrong. Ms. de Bourgh will be very displeased at this turn of events.” Charlie tried to speak, but Collins, with a rare show of strength, raised his hand to stop him. “No, thank you. I’ve endured quite enough for one day. I will see myself out.”

Collins pranced out and Charlie turned to Eliot, his face flat with pure anger. “We are not finished talking about this.” He chased after Collins, slamming the door behind him.

Jane sat down in the chair across from Eliot. “That wasn’t exactly your finest moment.”

Eliot didn’t disagree. Arguing in front of a client was never a good idea. He felt no guilt for chasing Collins off, but his gut burned with shame for the look Charlie had given him. But Charlie’s approach of “you have to spend money to make money” was about to dump them in a hole they couldn’t crawl out of.

“What if Charlie can’t win him over?”

“We can’t afford to keep carrying her, Jane. There’s next to nothing left.” He handed Jane the invoice he’d given to Collins the week before, the digits at the bottom showing the true cost of Ms. de Bourgh’s many change requests. Collins had simply waved him away, saying they could bill them after the event.

Jane flinched at the dollar amount. “Well, there’s got to be something we can do.”

Eliot thought of Darcy, of maybe going to him with the bill, and dismissed it. He didn’t want to be seen as a groveler. “We can't afford to cater to them. Not in time, not in money.”

“But you can’t afford to lose Charlie, either,” Jane said softly. “There's got to be some solution that doesn't involve bankrupting the business.”

“Well, if there is, I haven't figured out what it is. And, to be perfectly honest, my bank account doesn’t exactly have wiggle room.” At her look, Eliot added, “It’s nearly zero. Do you have enough in yours to handle rent for the next month?"

Jane paled. “No."

Eliot shrugged. If they couldn’t at least get Collins and Ms. de Bourgh to reimburse them, he knew they could take her to court, but that could be months in litigation, and where would that leave Jane and Eliot? Back at their parents? With the heirloom dog globes?

Jane nodded as if she’d made a decision. “Well then, we need to get a new client.”

Eliot rolled his eyes. “It's almost Thanksgiving. How are we going to get a new wedding client, days before Thanksgiving, who will start paying right away?”

Eliot rubbed his palms against his eyes. It was just a ludicrous idea. No one planning a winter wedding would wait this long to get a wedding planner—at least not anyone who could afford the type of costs they needed to offset.

“What about a Christmas party?” Jane asked.

Eliot looked up at her. "A Christmas party? You mean for somebody?"

Jane shrugged. “Sure. How difficult could it be?” She leaned forward in her seat, the idea causing the first bit of enthusiasm Eliot had seen since Bing stopped calling. “I mean, we plan ornate weddings. That’s just a bunch of people celebrating. We know all the vendors. They might want some variation in clients too. A Christmas party doesn’t seem that difficult. It’s like a wedding minus the ceremony. Just a reception."

Eliot leaned back in his chair, thinking. “If we could find a corporate client… we might even be able to manage several of them. Do you think we can find clients quickly?”

Jane tapped her finger against her chin. “I’ll go around and drop flyers off at several corporate plazas. Maybe put a bug in George’s ear, too. He says the big wigs are always dropping by the bar at the marina. He could talk us up.”

Eliot was getting excited about the idea. “If we are able to line several up, we might be able to streamline the process—use the same vendors for each event. Just wash and repeat.”

“We can send an email to our previous clients and let them know we’re branching out into party planning. We might be able to get one or two clients.”

Eliot had to ask the obvious question. "And what about Ms. de Bourgh and her frequently modified engagement and wedding parties?”

Jane rubbed her temples, then pulled her hair into a ponytail. "If Charlie manages to keep her as our client, then I say Charlie and I deal with her.”

Eliot scowled. “Charlie will give her anything that she asks for. That’s why we’re in this mess now.”

Jane nodded. "And that's exactly how we’re going to need to deal with such a wealthy and influential client. We just charge her for everything, and tack a ten percent charge for being a pill."

Even that much was a strong condemnation from Jane, and it sparked a smile on Eliot’s face. “So how exactly do you see this all planning out? If Charlie manages to salvage the de Bourgh events?”

“Charlie and I will deal with Ms. de Bourgh’s engagement and upcoming nuptials. You, my dear brother, who likes to make normal people happy, will deal with our other clients and party planning."

Eliot sat at his desk and opened his calendar application. "It's going to be close. It’s late to start peddling for Christmas. We might not get a lot of takers.”

He wanted her to be realistic. Hell, he wanted to be realistic with himself.

“There are six weeks until Christmas, brother dear. Then there's New Year’s. After that is Valentine's.” Jane shrugged once more. “So what if we branch out into birthday parties for little rich snots? We need money coming in.”

Eliot grimaced. That was part of what he hated about this whole de Bourgh thing. It wasn’t about crafting a beautiful event, a memory. It was just making a rich person feel powerful.

“What’s more important, Eliot? Trying or giving up and moving back in with Mom and Dad?”

The thought of living with their parents once more, especially the eccentric Mrs. Bennett, was enough to make anyone agree.