Page 16 of The Bad Girl and the Baby

Chapter Five

This time, he was there waiting for her at the same table. But then she was five minutes late. There had been a last-minute situation up at the gym, and Sam, her manager, hadn’t arrived yet, so she’d had to sort it out.

She’d wanted to be on time, to be in place and waiting when he turned up—she wanted to be in control of the coming meeting. Also, she was guessing that punctuality was high on Captain Mathew Peterson’s list of positive attributes, and she was going to do her best to impress him. To make this relationship work. Not that theyhad a relationship or anything. But she had given herself a stern talking to. No more losing her temper.

She was in the right, and he presumably must see that now or he wouldn’t have arranged this meeting. All the same, she planned to try for a little humility.

She was interested to see how that would work.

His gaze burned into her as she crossed the road from the gym. She’d even worn a dress, black, sleeveless to show off her tattoos, ankle length—though split up the side to show her black Doc Martens, embroidered with blood-red roses.

There was a look in his eye she couldn’t quite fathom. In all that had followed, she’d sort of forgotten that first night. He’d wanted her. She had a flashback to the feel of his erection pressed against her belly, and heat washed through her. She pushed the memory away; it would only confuse an already difficult situation.

He was out of uniform again, but looking just as sharp. He stood up as she approached. An officer and a gentleman. She waved at a passing waiter. “Can I have a coffee, please?”

“Sure thing, Darcy.”

She sat down in the seat across from him, her gaze drawn to the file on the table between them. Then she waited for him to speak.

“Tell me what happened,” he said. “Why you went to prison.”

It wasn’t what she’d been expecting—an apology perhaps—and she thought for a moment. How much should she tell him? All of it, probably. She took a deep breath and started from the beginning.

“Emma met your brother when she was seventeen. Our parents had been killed in a plane crash a few months earlier. She was still reeling from that, and I think she saw Steven as someone strong she could lean on. And I suspect he loved that.”

The waiter put her coffee down, and she tossed him a smile.

“Go on,” Matt said.

“I didn’t like him from the start. And the feeling was mutual. But if Emma was happy, then I was good. But one night, she phoned me up crying. I went around. He was gone, but she had a split lip and a black eye. I wanted to go after him, but she begged me not to, said he’d just had too much to drink and he hadn’t meant it. I couldn’t believe what she was saying. I tried to make her promise not to see him again, but she wouldn’t.”

“Why the hell would she stay? Why didn’t she report him?”

“I don’t know. I’d have killed the bastard.” She and Emma had always been opposites. Emma had been a sweet and placid child. Darcy had been a monster, into everything. Despite that, they’d been close growing up. But the death of their parents had hit Emma hard. Hell, it had hit Darcy hard as well, but maybe she’d fared better because she’d felt responsible for her sister. She hadn’t allowed herself to fall apart. “Anyway, it went on. Occasionally she would call me, and I’d go pick her up, get her away until he’d calmed down. They got married and she didn’t even tell me. She probably knew I’d try and talk her out of it.”

“I was at the wedding,” he said. “They seemed so happy.”

She shrugged. “I’m sure your brother could be very charming when he wanted to be. Plus, it gave him access to Emma’s money—we both had an inheritance from our parents—so of course, he was happy. I wasn’t invited. Maybe they thought I’d be some sort of specter at the feast.”

“There was no feast.”

“No.” That’s how Emma had excused not inviting her. She’d said it had just been a small affair at the local registry office.

“So how did you end up in prison?”

“A few months after the wedding, Emma called me, telling me she was pregnant. She was so goddamn happy. And she said Steven was happy. A ‘changed man,’ she said. Hah.” The familiar hatred flooded her system, tying her insides in knots. “A week later, she phoned me in a panic. Steven was drunk. She’d locked herself in the bathroom, but he was banging on the door. By the time I got there, he’d broken it down. He was beating the crap out of her and she was three months pregnant. I totally lost it. He ended up with four cracked ribs, a broken arm, and two black eyes. But he was drunk out of his head and just wouldn’t stop coming.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I think it was the humiliation that hit him the hardest—that a woman had beaten him up. Among his other attributes, your brother was a misogynistic pig. He swore he would make me pay, and he did.”

“Didn’t your sister stand up for you? Say it was self-defense?”

“She came to see me. But she told me she had to stand by him. He was her husband, the father of her baby. He’d lose his job, and he’d sworn he wouldn’t drink again. He promised he would change.”

“So she let you go to prison for protecting her?”

Darcy looked away for a minute. At the time, she’d believed she would never forgive Emma. She’d been so furious. Through the whole court case, she’d been completely disbelieving, then afterward, she’d wrapped herself in a blanket of bitterness at the system that had protected Steven because he was one of them. She’d even started to hate her sister for being so goddamn stupid. In the end, Regan and Summer had pulled her out of it. At first, she’d tried to ignore them, especially Summer, who she’d believed was like Emma. A victim. And at that point, she wanted nothing more to do with saving anyone. But Summer was no victim. She was just about the nicest person Darcy had ever met—someone whose life had taken a wrong turn, but had a core of pure steel. With their help, Darcy had realized she had to forgive her sister, or she’d never be able to forgive herself. She’d written to Emma, told her she loved her and was there for her.

She’d received one letter of reply with a photo of Lulu and a plea that if anything should happen to her, she would make sure Lulu was safe and happy. Then a week later, she’d gotten the news that Emma was dead.

“Darcy?”

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