Darcy’s brow wrinkles and she rests back against her pillows. “I can cook my own dinner, Jake. I’ll survive the evening.”
Without giving it much thought, my hand lifts to cup her cheek, brushing her hair out of her face. “You’re sick.”
Becca’s eyes almost bulge out of her head before she slides off the bed. “Well, I’ll let you two duke it out, but I’m pretty sure Daddy’s going to win, Darcy. Let the hot guy take care of you for once.” She winks at Darcy. “See you two tomorrow.”
My mouth hangs open as she leaves. “Did she just call me hot?”
Darcy giggles. “Think so.”
I snort and shake my head. “The loosest cannon I ever met. Buttered noodles?”
“If I can come hang out while you cook,” she says.
I extend my hands. “Let’s go.”
Downstairs, Darcy sits on a bar stool at the island, a modern addition to the otherwise original kitchen. “Noodles are up there,” she says, pointing to a cupboard.
I reach to get them, and when I turn back, Darcy’s staring at her hands. “I should probably tell you some things about earlier. About what I’m doing here.”
This is it. She’s finally letting it all out, the thing she’s been hiding for the last month.
“Alright. Shoot.” I get out a pot and fill it with water from the sink. When I set it on the stove and kick on the burner, Darcy eyes the pot.
“Wait, are you not going to salt the water?” she asks.
“Salt the water?”
She gasps. “You don’t salt your pasta water? Nonna Rossetti’s going to rise out of her grave and put the evil eye on you.”
I hold my hands up. “What? How am I supposed to know this stuff?”
Darcy shakes her head. “Just when I think I have you figured out, you do something unhinged like not salt your pasta water.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll salt it. But come on. Out with it, boss. You were about to confess your secrets.”
“Ugh, fine,” she grumbles. She examines the calluses on her palms and hesitates. Just before I’m about to nudge her again, she speaks.
“So, before I came here I was in Raleigh, where I’ve lived for a long time. With my fiancé.” She winces, checking my face. “I mean, ex-fiancé now. I broke it off and came here. Quit my job. Ran.” She pokes at her left ring finger.
“Runaway bride, huh?” I ask, trying to balance keeping it light with letting her know I can handle the big stuff. I’m a jokester, but if she’s hurting, I want her to feel like she can come to me.
Fuck, maybe I am a daddy.
“Already had my dress and everything,” she snorts. “We were supposed to get married in September, but yeah. That’s not happening now.”
I nod, setting two bowls on the island between us. “What happened?”
Stormy jumps up into Darcy’s lap and she softens, giving her a pet. “We both worked for the hockey team, him in sales and me in marketing. That’s how we met. We had to work together a decent amount and we just kinda hit it off. Made it official, signed the papers with HR to say we were dating. Long story short, it’s been—or, it had been—three years, and he kept getting promoted, while I stayed in the same spot. I finally had a shot at the head of marketing position and um, he sabotaged me.”
“What?”
Her voice breaks as she goes on. “He told the hiring manager that after we got married, I was going to quit anyway so he could be the breadwinner. That was not my plan at all, just what he was pushing me to do. I still thought I was in charge of my own career. But since I’ve been here and unpacking it all . . .”
She rolls her lips between her teeth and sucks a breath through her nose. “I think he’d been manipulating me for a long time. In a lot of ways. I straightened my hair because he said it looked more professional when we went to work events. We went to the gym together so he could make sure I got my workouts in. I did a lot of things to look good for his family. He slowly isolated me from my family. He got jealous of some of the players on the team that I had inside jokes with, even when they were in committed relationships and I knew their wives.” Darcy pauses and her jaw tightens, then she shakes her head to clear it. “There were a lot of things he did. He just . . . picked on me a lot. Never trusted me. I was so tangled up in it that I couldn’t see it for what it was. And now I don’t know what’s left of me.”
Oh, fuck no. Rage bubbles in my gut. It’s hard for me to believe guys like that still exist, something I hoped died in the generations before us. Guys like my stepdad who stepped in and swung their dicks around like they were the most important things in the world. My back teeth grind and my lips tighten.
Darcy watches me warily. “What? Why are you mad at me?”
