Chapter 17
Seventeen
S amuel Darcy glared at the still trembling door and the back of the woman who’d stormed through it. “That woman needs to be fired,” he said.
“That woman takes care of Mama like she’s the most precious thing in this world. She can call you every name in the book, as far as I’m concerned and dance a damn jig while she does it,” Mia shot back with enough heat in her voice that he actually looked at her.
Samuel, she’d realized, never really looked at anyone. He sized them up at first glance, then whenever he spoke to them after, he’d keep his eyes on his phone, his watch, his latest acquisition. People were just things to him, and once you saw through his charm, it didn’t take long to figure that out.
“You’re in a mood,” he snapped. “And you look like a goddamn indigent. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I had a little run in with an old friend of yours,” Mia said softly. “Actually, it was her psycho bitch of a daughter, but let’s not put too fine a point on it. Elizabeth was here at Barbara’s request. Evil is nothing without quality minions.”
“You’re babbling. I didn’t come here for nonsense.”
“Did you come to tell me another lie? To tell me that my adolescent selfishness destroyed my mother?” She laughed, but the hard, brittle sound would never be mistaken for humor. “Oh, you can’t, that particular line is already used up.”
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, as if she were a constant trial to be borne. “Mia, I did not come here to fight with you or to tolerate this overly emotional drama you’ve wrought?—”
“That I’ve wrought?” Mia gaped at him, astounded at his arrogance. “You did this to her!”
His jaw firmed and his mouth twisted into a thin, cruel line. “She drove that car, Mia. She’s the one who slammed it into a tree because she was being reckless!”
“Because you broke her!” she screamed at him. “With your lies and your cheating and your manipulation, you pushed her to leave! You let her walk out of this house devastated and clearly not capable of driving. You weren’t driving the car, but you sure as hell didn’t try to stop her from doing it! And now, all of this, my whole life has been devoted to taking care of her. All the guilt, all the responsibility that I shouldered for years, and all along, you did it! ”
“We will discuss this when you can behave rationally,” he shouted, oblivious to the fact that he was just as irrational at the moment as she was. A vein throbbed in his forehead and his face had flushed with anger. “I’m not going to stand here and let my daughter yell at me! We are Darcys, Mia. Whether you like it or not, you are my blood, and we are above this!”
“You’re not above anything,” she replied flatly. “You’ve lied, cheated, stolen, and broken every promise you’ve ever made. Listening to you talk about family honor is enough to turn my stomach! I’m done, Samuel. I’m just done.”
Every part of her felt heavy, as if weighted with lead. She didn’t know what to do. Even knowing that it had been a lie, reading that damned letter, saying it to him, confronting the thing that had held her prisoner for a decade left her more deflated than jubilant.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her back. “You don’t walk away from me! You don’t ever turn your back on me!”
She spun around and pushed back at him until he stumbled. “Or what?” she demanded.
He shoved her then, hard enough that she hit the wall and her head bounced off the plaster. Her vision flashed and dimmed before finally returning to normal. Somehow, she managed to stay upright
“If you want to leave, then leave,” he sneered. “But this house, and everything in it belongs to me. If you walk out, you do it with nothing but the clothes on your back.”
Mia considered her options. She had no car, no money. All that she’d managed to save from her salary had been eaten up paying for caregivers for her mother. Everything else was tied up in the distillery. Yes, she owned twenty percent of it, but what she and her brothers had been paying themselves was barely enough to get by. But the other option, remaining under his roof, was one she couldn’t abide. “Then I’ll go,” she said simply. “Evelyn will be back at seven. I assume you can spare two hours of your life to care for the woman you destroyed.”
“What I said all those years ago still stands,” he threatened. “You’ll never see your mother again. I’ll put her in a home, and you won’t be permitted to even cross the threshold.”
“I’m not eighteen anymore. I’m older and a hell of a lot smarter,” she replied. “You are her husband, and by law, her guardian, but any judge can overturn that and appoint someone else.”
He said nothing, just stood there with his chest heaving like a bellows. The fury that rolled off him left her unmoved. It wasn’t what she was doing, it wasn’t guilt or defensiveness at being caught in the lies. It was just wounded, angry pride because she dared to defy him. “I will fight you tooth and nail,” he finally said. “Just to prove you wrong.”
She had never considered that he wouldn’t. “Given your well-publicized affairs and recent scandals, not to mention the crazy ass Stepford daughter of your former mistress tried to murder me—I don’t think I’ll have a problem getting a judge to agree that you can’t possibly have her best interests at heart. So you do what you feel like you have to, but be prepared, you son of a bitch, because I’ll do the same.”
He grabbed her hair and hauled her forward. Until that day, Samuel had never touched her in anger. He’d shouted, he’d ridiculed and manipulated, he’d guilted her into conforming to his will, but he’d never physically harmed her. As he dragged her toward the door, Mia fought. She kicked, clawed, elbowed and did everything in her power to make his life hell.
By the time they’d reached the door, they were both shaking and out of breath. His face had turned a shade of purple that, at any other time, would have caused her concern. In that moment, she hated him enough to wish that he would have a stroke or a heart attack. She’d put him in the same kind of nursing home he’d always threatened to put her mother in.
“Get out,” he gasped. “Get out and don’t come back. If you want to run with that white trash, do it, but you’ll never step foot in this house again.”
Mia grasped the doorknob and twisted it. “I’m not leaving because you made me. I’m leaving because I can’t bear the sight and stench of you any longer. This,” she said, “is my choice.”
With that parting shot, she stepped outside into the cold, frigid air. Panic hit her, twisting her stomach into knots as she worried about who would take care of her mother. Clayton. She needed to call him, but her phone, her purse, her clothes, everything was inside the house. She was standing on the front porch in her bare feet with nowhere to go.
Go to him. That little voice whispering inside her mind was more temptation than she could resist. Go to him. The phrase came again to her mind—louder, stronger and with a clarity that left no room for indecision. Broken down by everything that had transpired, she needed him, if he’d have her.
That thought brought a fresh wave of panic for an altogether different reason. As Mia stepped off the porch, the first raindrop fell, splashing on the bare skin of her arm. She didn’t fight it or bemoan the fact that one more thing had gone wrong in her miserable life. Instead she embraced it. She’d let the rain wash her clean and rid her of all the poison in Samuel’s lies and machinations. He’d made her his puppet and for years, she’d done exactly what he wanted. It was time, she thought, to do what she wanted and to do it out in the open. No more secrets. No more hiding.
Her steps quickened and she ignored the cold as she walked down the driveway toward the road that would lead her to Bennett Hayes.
Bennett sat on his couch, feet propped on the coffee table and a beer in hand. The UK game was on and he was doing his damnedest to be interested in it. The truth was, he was having a hard time being interested in anything. Things with Mia had ended on a note that he didn’t much like.
It wasn’t just that it was over. He’d been an ass. He knew it and he didn’t like it. But there would be no chance to apologize, no chance to make things right. He’d laid down an ultimatum knowing full well that she wasn’t ready to make those kinds of decisions. He’d pushed and she’d pushed back and now it was done.
He lifted the bottle to his lips again only to discover it was empty. “Fuck,” he said as he rose to his feet to retrieve another beer.
“Bennett!”
At the sound of Carter calling to him from the porch, Bennett cursed again. “What the hell do you want?”
Carter had come over to watch the game, but he’d been acting weird as hell and had gone outside more than ten minutes ago with his cell phone. The whole thing was bizarre.
“Bennett, get your ass out here! Now!”
Bennett rubbed the back of his neck and tried to erase the tension that had gathered there, but it wasn’t going anywhere. Reluctantly, he crossed the living room and stepped out onto the porch where Carter stood staring out into the rain. “What the fuck is it?”
“You’ve got company,” Carter said simply and pointed.
Bennett looked in the direction Carter indicated. She was walking along the road, wearing the same shirt and jeans she’d had on the night before. They were soaked through. Her hair was plastered to her skin and even from a distance he could tell that her skin was all but blue with the cold. What the hell was Mia doing?
She turned at the end of his driveway and walked slowly toward them. At first he thought she was shaking from the cold, but he realized as she got closer that she was crying.
Bennett stepped out into the rain and approached her. “Are you crazy? It’s freezing out here! Where is your coat?”
“It’s at the house. Samuel wouldn’t let me take it,” she said between hiccupping sobs.
His jaw clenched. “What do you mean he wouldn’t let you?” Over Mia’s shoulder, he saw his aunt’s door open. His mother, Carter’s mother and father and a few cousins had all come outside to see what the hell was going on. Of course. Of fucking course.
She looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears and rain. If the swelling around her eyes was any indication, she’d been crying for a while.
“You wanted to know why I didn’t come to meet you that night. Why I didn’t run away and marry you when I was eighteen,” she said.
He looked up at the audience across the way, they were clearly not going anywhere. “We don’t have to do this now. Not out here in the cold.”
She glanced at the people gathered on the porch. “No. People want to know. You wanted to know. It’s time it all came out,” she said with a sniff. “The day I was supposed to meet you, Samuel told me that my mother’s accident was my fault. That on the night she crashed her car, she’d been out looking for me while I was sneaking around with you.”
It felt like a punch to the gut. “Mia?—”
She held up a hand to stop him from speaking. “I need to finish this, Bennett. Please. If you stop me, I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to start it again!”
He didn’t like it, but he nodded.
A sound escaped her that was half sob and half laugh. “It was a lie. Why it shocks me that he lied about that when he’s been lying about everything else for years is something I just don’t understand.”
Carter had vanished into the house long enough to return with a blanket which he handed to Bennett. Bennett draped it over Mia’s shoulders, but he wasn’t even sure she’d noticed. Her gaze was distant, focused on the events of her past.
“She didn’t leave to look for me,” Mia said softly. “She left because she found out he was cheating. I know she knew before that. Everyone knew. But this one was different. It was someone she knew, someone she’d trusted. So she left the house, crying, screaming and upset and all this time, he let me think— no —he made me think it was my fault. That because of what I had done, I was responsible for taking care of her.” She paused there for a moment, drawing in a deep shuddering breath. “So I did. I stayed. And I never told anyone because I felt so guilty, so ashamed of what I’d caused!”
It was diabolical and cruel. And it was typical Samuel Darcy. “I’m sorry, Mia. I’m so sorry for that.”
“I found the letter today. The one that Mama’s friend wrote to her confessing everything. Elizabeth Masters, née Shelby, the caregiver was sent there by her whore of a mother to find it.”
He closed his eyes. “The woman who almost killed you was in your house?”
“Yes. I don’t blame her. I don’t like her much, but I get it. She said the same thing to me last night. The one thing we had in common was a toxic fucking parent.”
She looked up at him then and her gaze was focused and sharp. “I told him that I was done. That I was leaving. I didn’t know where I would go. I thought Clayton and then maybe, if I was brave enough I’d try to talk to you. But then he got so mad because I wasn’t bending to his will that he threw me out. I don’t even have my driver’s license. Or shoes.”
Bennett glanced down at her bare feet. They were shredded and bloody from her walk. “Come inside, Mia.”
“It was never because I didn’t love you,” she went on. The words just tumbled out of her. “I loved you more than anything, but he said that if I left, he’d put her in a home and that I’d never see her again. She would have died in one of those places, Bennett. I thought she was in that state because of my selfishness and if I left with you like I wanted, it would be even worse. She didn’t deserve that. To be locked away and forgotten just because he couldn’t be bothered to care for her, because I was selfish enough to put what I wanted ahead of her. There’s no one to protect her, no one to make sure that she’s taken care of if I don’t do it!”
“No,” he said. “She didn’t deserve it. But neither did you.” He didn’t ask her to come inside again, but swept her up into his arms and carried her up the steps and into the house. Carter had already vanished, making himself scarce in the wake of big emotional scenes was right on target for him.
Bennett carried her to the bathroom and set her down on the edge of the tub just long enough to turn on the taps and let the water warm. “These grand entrances are making me an old man, Mia.”
She chuckled, the sound watery and weak, but it was what he wanted to hear from her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“For being dramatic?”
“For everything,” Mia answered.
Bennett kneeled in front of her. “If it had been me, if I’d been sinking under the weight you’ve carried this long—I don’t think I could have done it. But, Mia, I would have helped you.”
“And then it would have been your guilt too. Do you honestly think that either of our eighteen-year-old selves could have lived with it and not turned on one another?” she demanded.
No. He didn’t. There was nothing else to say to that. “Get those clothes off and get in the tub. You’re half frozen. Savannah’s got some clothes stashed around here somewhere. I’ll find you something.”
“I’ll go to Clayton’s once I can call him. I’m not here to put you on the spot. After last night?—”
“You’re not going anywhere tonight. You’re going to take a bath, get warmed up, we’ll take care of your feet, and then you’re going to sleep. For as long as you need.”
“I have to talk to Clayton. He’s got to get Samuel out of that house and make sure that someone is there to take care of?—”
“Mia! For fuck’s sake! Get in the damn tub, and for once, trust me to take care of it…to take care of you.”
She wilted in front of him. There was no other way to describe it. “I know you will,” she finally said.
“Do not apologize or I will lose my shit,” he said. “Bath. Now.”
She nodded and he walked out of the room. He grabbed his phone off the table and called the only person he could think of. Matt answered after the second ring.
“Crawford.”
“I need a cell number for Clayton Darcy.”
“Am I a fucking search engine?”
Bennett closed his eyes. “Matt, this is not the time. It’s about twenty kinds of crazy here right now and I need to talk to that asshole.”
Matt sighed. “Fine.”
Bennett listened to the sound of tapping keys. At any other time, he’d be giving Matt shit about making someone a great secretary, but at the moment his heart just wasn’t in it.
Matt rattled off the number, and then added. “By the way, there’s a pretty blonde in the waiting area outside of my office insisting that she talk to no one but me. She looks a hell of a lot like the chick from that picture.”
“That’s her sister, Elizabeth Masters. Maiden name was Shelby,” Bennett supplied.
“Katherine Shelby. I’ll be damned,” Matt muttered. “She’s the baby sister.”
“She’s a goddamn psycho who tried to kill Mia and then wormed her way into the house as a caregiver for Patricia.”
“Right…so why’s she here?”
Bennett sighed. “Right now, I can’t tell you anything about the workings of a woman’s mind. You want to know, ask her. She’s apparently been in the mood to confess to a lot of things.”
“Okay, then,” Matt said. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“Thanks,” Bennett said and ended the call. Elizabeth was the last of his concerns at the moment.
He dialed the number Matt had given him. When a male voice clicked on the other end, he said, “Clayton?”
“Yes.”
“Bennett Hayes. Mia is at my house and will be for at least the next twenty-four hours. Your father is with Patricia, so you probably want to get somebody on that.”
Clayton was quiet for a second. “Is Mia hurt?”
“Physically? No. I don’t think so. But that son of a bitch is going to hell for the emotional shit he’s put her through.”
“That’s an understatement. I know what he is, Hayes. I’ve known for a long time. I’m working on that, but taking down someone who is a professional liar like Samuel isn’t easy.”
Bennett said nothing for a moment, just let that simmer. “What do you need?”
“Something damaging enough to kill his social status. If he thinks he’s losing that, he’ll come to heel quick enough.”
Bennett sighed. Mia wasn’t the only one who’d been keeping a secret. “I need you to meet me at my brother’s farm in an hour.”
“Will I be leaving it alive?”
Bennett wasn’t really sure how to answer that. Emmitt stayed to himself, practically a hermit. He liked it that way. And he hated the Darcys. All of them. “Alive, yes. Unscathed? Don’t get out of your car unless I’m there.”
“Fine,” Clayton agreed.
Bennett ended that call as well. Standing in the middle of the living room, his phone in hand and his mind whirling with everything that had happened, he took a deep breath. After a couple of minutes, his brain still fogged and enough fury rolling inside him to kill Samuel Darcy with his bare hands, he went to the guest room and gathered up a T-shirt and pair of yoga pants that Savannah had left behind before heading to the too-quiet bathroom.
“Mia?” he called out. She didn’t answer.
Bennett opened the door and found her sitting in the tub of water, half asleep. “Come on. Let’s get you out of there.”
“I’m not a child,” she said, smacking at his hands.
“I’m looking at your naked body—no, you’re damn well not. But you are asleep on your feet, or your ass at the moment anyway. So stop fighting me and let me help you.”
“I don’t think I know how,” she answered honestly.
“Figure it out. I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon,” he shot back as he hauled her to her feet. Wrapping a towel around her, he walked her to the bedroom, his bedroom and ushered her inside.
“Just get under the covers. You can put these on later,” he said. She was too tired even to dress herself. He could see her muscles trembling just from the effort of keeping herself upright. For once, she didn’t argue. She climbed beneath the dark blue comforter and settled her head onto his pillow. He was pretty sure she was asleep before her body was even horizontal.
Heading back to the living room, he found Carter stealing his bag of chips and what was left of his beer. “You dickhead.”
“Hey,” Carter said, “I’m just getting out of your way.”
“Don’t. I need you to stay here with Mia while I take care of something,” Bennett said.
“No. Oh, hell no. I do not deal with crying women.”
“You made that pretty clear by running like a whipped dog at the sight of her!”
“I got her a blanket!” Carter protested. “That was sensitive.”
Bennett closed his eyes and wondered, not for the first time, how many times Carter had hit his head on shit as a child. Since the things he’d hit the most had probably been Bennett’s own fists, there wasn’t much point in asking. “That was first aid, you dumb fuck!”
“How long?” Carter asked
“I don’t know. An hour. Maybe two. She’s going to sleep like the dead, she’ll never even know I left.”
“Fine. But you owe me.”
“You’ve been paid in chips and beer,” Bennett called back as he grabbed his keys and headed out. He had to beat Clayton Darcy to the farm or Emmitt might just put a bullet in him.