Millstone

5 Things I Would Rather Sit Through Than This Board Meeting

By Will Darcy

# 1. An Ashlee Simpson concert…On second thought, scratch that. A Jessica Simpson concert. Ashlee's far too painful to even comprehend.

#2. A twenty-four hour marathon screening of every movie Ben Affleck ever starred in- starting with Daredevil and ending with my suicide.

#3. My father's lecture on "the birds and the bees" – the one with those disturbing anatomically correct finger puppets.

#4. A reading of War and Peace – by Ben Stein.

#5…

"Darcy, do you have anything you'd like to add?"

He blanched.

It was only for the span of a nanosecond and one would've had to have been gifted with the eyesight of a hundred hawks and maybe a couple of owls to have spotted it, but it had happened. Fitzwilliam Darcy – a man who appeared to be the very embodiment of all that was professional and joyless had nearly been caught slacking off. Letting his boredom and low opinion of meetings get the better of him, he'd spent the last forty minutes compiling list after useless list in his head that included such gems as: 5 tattoos I'm convinced Aunt Catherine has lurking underneath her clothes, and 5 brands of bleach I'm going to have to use to get said image of what's underneath Aunt Catherine's clothes out of my mind.

He was in the process of finishing up his tenth list of the day when his coworker felt the need to call on him. Grimacing, Darcy grunted something that was supposed to pass as a proper response and the meeting was quickly adjourned much to the gentleman's relief.

If one insanely bored individual suddenly got an insanely boring wild hair up his ass to sit down and chronicle every last event in Darcy's life, the events of the past four months would almost certainly end up in the pile marked "Sucked beyond the telling of it".

It started back in June, back when he was still young and stupid enough to believe he was the sole lord and master of his destiny. His mind was practically all made up. A culinary school was practically all picked out thanks to the handiness of a few scraps of paper and a Dodgers ball cap. And then his father selfishly went and dropped dead at the ripe, old age of sixty-two.

With a media empire left president-less and on the verge of imploding, Darcy naturally did what any other obedient son would've done; he sucked it up and accepted his new found (if completely unwanted) role as the head of the family business. It was his duty, after all. He was just one in a long line of Darcys to share the same fate. His picture would some day hang alongside those important Darcy men in the great hall of his family home – guaranteed to scare every last ounce of individualism out of generations of Darcys to come.

And it might not have been what he wanted (the very last fucking thing he wanted), but as long as he had the support of his great friends and the wonderful woman who was mere weeks away from becoming his wife, Darcy figured there was no way he couldn't get through this alive.

Then he had the misfortune of walking in on said wife-to-be legs akimbo. This wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't for his best man being settled between them.

By the time August came around he was one good day away from sitting down to a delicious meal of rat poison for one; and who could blame him?

Here he was stuck in a job he didn't want, blocking calls and emails from an ex-fiance who wasn't worthy of his time, and trying to somehow find a spare moment in his busy day to mourn the loss of the one man who could make it all better with a crooked smile and the words "Trust me son, it can't be all that bad". With his life quickly o.d-ing on 'miserable', Fitzwilliam Marcus Darcy – he of the level head, decided to ignore the desire to deal with his problems in a mature, healthy fashion. Mature and healthy was fucking overrated.

So he drank. A lot.

Today was October 15th and his actions over the past two months were a blur of Jack and Cokes and silent prayers he wouldn't wake up with Skeletor in his bed the next morning. But, having the unfortunate privilege of being in a photograph that included Paris Hilton and a bar top sounded alarms for his investors and fellow board members; today was the day he would straighten up his act or risk causing irreparable damage to the Darcy name.

Because if he didn't, his entire legacy could be summed up by one instance where he offered to light Lindsay Lohan's cigarette.

"Sarah, hold all of my calls," Darcy barked at his secretary as he rushed past her desk eager to reach the oak, double doors of his office. Eager to lock himself inside, slip his iPod out of the top drawer of his desk and pretend he was anywhere else in the world.

With a look of total panic, Sarah leapt from her seat in an attempt to catch him. "Mr. Darcy, wait! There's someone…" It was too late. Darcy had already flung those doors open and stepped inside coming face to face with a drowned rat.

Standing in the middle of his personal space, making a puddle on his plush carpet the young woman wrung the bottom of her soaked sweats and had the nerve to shoot him a sardonic smile. "Would you believe it's raining?"

Darcy's mind quickly ran over a list of the names of every monosyllabic monkey down in security he would have the pleasure of firing while his mouth quirked upward. "You don't say," he replied dryly.

"I tried to tell you, sir," Sarah began frantically, "she just walked in like she owned the place and wouldn't leave! I called security…"

Darcy shot Sarah a look over his shoulder. "Obviously they rushed to put down the doughnuts and turn off Passions at the news of a potential threat," he snapped.

"Hey – there's no reason to bite her head off." Drowned Rat now had the audacity to glare at him. At him; as if he was the insane-o who was busy racking up a trespassing charge. "Maybe you should hire better help."

Darcy's head cocked to the side as he dared to take a step closer. "Please forgive me, I seem to have lost my manners in all of this; clearly, I forgot to ask, who the hell are you again?" he practically growled.

He dwarfed her which wasn't exactly hard to do when one stands at six feet and two inches tall, but Darcy's broad shoulders, straight as a rod posture, and dark eyes made him the very definition of intimidating yet she didn't back down. This pitiful thing that had to crane her neck to keep from staring him directly in the chest, this dripping slip of a girl who, through a combination of freckles and oversized sweats looked not a day over thirteen, scowled at him as if he were a piece of dirt under her muddy shoes.

If he wasn't twenty shades of pissed off Darcy would've been slightly impressed.

"You're kind of a hard guy to find, you know?" she said absently while pushing strands of wet, red hair out of her eyes. "There are exactly two hundred and fifty two Will Darcys in the LA phone book and I made it to number two hundred and thirty seven before I found this hanging out at the bottom of my hamper." She waved a soggy business card at him. "Fitzwilliam, huh?" a snicker. "Must be a family name."

His hands unconsciously formed fists at his sides as his dark blue eyes narrowed. "Do I know you?"

She laughed humorlessly. "No, you really don't, but we've met." Sniffing suddenly, she furiously wiped at her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweatshirt and eyed Sarah warily. "Um, you might wanna close that door; I don't think you wanna risk having an audience."

Darcy let out a derisive snort, but found himself closing the doors on his very stunned secretary. If he was axe-murdered at this very moment it would be thanks in part to the public school system and the "Will they. Won't they" lure of Ethan and Theresa. Fucking wonderful.

"I really hope you're into collecting restraining orders, lady…"

"Lizzie," she told him quickly. "My name's Lizzie and like I said before, we've met." She shrugged nonchalantly as her eyes took the opportunity to focus on her sneakers. "I can't say I'm shocked you don't remember me; it's been a couple months and there was lots of tequila involved. Usually, I wouldn't have even bothered tracking you down; even if you did slip me your card and hey, paying for the cab ride home was a nice gesture, but it was pretty clear our time together was a one-night kind of deal. So, believe me Mr. Darcy when I say, I can think of at least five things I would much rather be doing right now than standing here in your office trying to think of a way to get this out before I'm hauled off by some rent-a-cop."

Darcy's patience had disappeared into thin air.

"Get what out?"

The expression on Lizzie's face was an odd cross between wanting to burst into hysterical laughter and hysterical crying as reached for the purse on his desk and pulled out a ziplock bag filled to the brim with OB test sticks. Removing one, she held it up so he could clearly see the little, blue plus sign. "Twenty-five boxes. I went through twenty-five boxes, and they all say the same thing."

Yes, today was the day Fitzwilliam Marcus Darcy (a family name, of course) would reclaim his sense of propriety, snap out of this ridiculous funk, and bring pride back to the Darcy name,

And then a very pregnant girl decided it would be a good time to stop by his office and ruin his life.

Fuck.