Page 70 of Stuck

“Couldn’t afford it.”

Yes, because God forbid he worked to pay his way. Jane, Mary, and I had all held down multiple jobs to get ourselves through university and would be paying off our student loans until we were in our dotage.

“More to the point,” he said, “I was a lazy sod. I was pissed off that I’d been caught, and punished, and all my job opportunities taken away for what I saw as one tiny mistake. And even angrier that no one in the sector would give me a foot in the door even though I technically still had a degree.”

If he was looking for sympathy, he had the wrong audience. I held my tongue, and there was no noise but the buzzing of the lights until he continued.

“I ended up having to move back home, and that’s when Dad stepped in and found me a job. He’d been working for years as the Chief Operations Officer for the Pemberley Group. Essentially Darcy’s right-hand man. He put a word in, and Darcy agreed to give me a chance. He found me a position at one of his companies. It was more junior than I’d have liked, but he said I could work my way up if I proved myself.”

I smiled, because that was very like Darcy.

“It was the last thing Dad ever did for me. He died a few months later.”

“Oh, George, I wish you’d reached out. I’d have been there for you.”

He gave a little shake of his head. “Don’t give me any sympathy. I’m giving you context, here, not excuses.”

“Okay,” I said seriously. I respected his candour.

“Anyway, I don’t know whether you know this, but the Pemberley Group throws this massive party every Christmas for all its employees across every company in its portfolio. It’s hosted at the main house up in Derbyshire, and it’s huge. I went that year, and… I met this girl.”

He took a deep breath. “She was really pretty, super flirty. I figured she worked for him too—there were hundreds of people there. We got chatting, had a few drinks. Kissed.” He paused, his cheeks reddening slightly. “I never would have touched her if I’d known. She told me she was nineteen. She looked about twenty-two.”

“How old was she?”

He couldn’t look me in the eye. “Fifteen.”

“Fifteen?”

Wincing, he peered up at me. “If I tell you that’s the least worst bit of this story, would you want me to carry on?”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“No! It was one kiss.”

I exhaled forcefully. “Okay then, carry on, although I’m dreading hearing what you think is worse than that.”

“I’ll get this out of the way quickly, then. It was Darcy’s sister.”

I covered my face, groaning through my hands, “That’s why he hates you!”

“Partly.”

My hands dropped, and I gaped at him. “Partly? There’s more?”

His face said it all. “I didn’t find out her age until weeks later, but I found out who she was right after we kissed, because she started telling me about her and Darcy’s lives at Pemberley—insisted on taking me on a tour of the closed-off parts, went on and on about the history and how amazing it was to live there. I understand now that she was immature and excited to have some attention from an older guy, but at the time… Well, it really wound me up.

“I’d just lost my dad, who’d worked for the Darcys for years without making a fraction of the money they looked to be pulling in. I was angry, broke, reduced to living in my mum’s spare room. I was at the bottom of the ladder at work, when I’d always expected to walk into a high-paid role. So when I had to follow her round this massive house, listening to what a great life she and her brother had, I thought, why should they have all this when I’ve got nothing?”

I opened my mouth, but George pre-empted me.

“And before you tell me it was because they worked for it, I know that now. I knew it then, too, because I was surrounded by people who never shut up about how innovative the Pemberley Group was, but if anything, that added fuel to the fire. Like I said, I wasn’t in a good place. And I was selfish, lazy, and entitled.”

When he owned it as straightforwardly as that, it left very little for me to throw at him. I considered throwing a shoe instead, because I’d never wanted to lay into him as violently as I did at that moment. How dare he ever have thought such unkind things about a family who’d been through so much!

“What did you do?” I asked tightly.

He was back to not looking at me, instead picking at his shoelace. “I stole something. On the tour, Georgiana took me into the Pemberley Group offices, and someone had left a computer on. I recognised what was on the screen and knew straight away it was sensitive. So I distracted her, emailed it to myself, and deleted the sent message. I thought I could sell it to competitors.”