“Neala,” I breathed, and shook my head.
Neala swallowed. “Finish what you were saying; go on.”
I couldn’t move or speak.
Neala’s eyes began to well up. “Finish it. Tell our brothers how much you regret last night and how much of a mistake we are.”
Oh, Christ.
I was frantic. “Neala, please. You don’t understand—”
“I understand fucking perfectly! You promised we would be different . . . You promised we wouldn’t hate each other again.”
A nervous sweat broke out across my forehead. “We won’t—”
“Liar! Don’t fucking lie to me!” she screamed as tears streaked down her cheeks.
This was bad.
This was very bad.
I wanted to tell her how I really felt, but I clammed up, knowing Sean and Justin were listening intently. I didn’t know why, but I froze and couldn’t say the words she needed to hear.
When I didn’t respond to Neala, she angrily wiped at her face and shot me a look filled with so much hate it knocked me back a couple of steps. I felt sick.
“Please,” I managed to get out.
I didn’t know what I was saying please for, but I said it anyway, hoping she would have mercy on me.
“Please, what?” she hissed.
I blinked. “Don’t hate me.”
She looked at me for a long moment and said, “I don’t hate you, Darcy . . . I regret you. I regret the day I ever met you.”
I felt like I had had the wind knocked out of me by her words. I was about to reach out and go to her but she turned and stormed down the hallway and back into my bedroom. She slammed the door closed so hard the living room walls shook.
Sean and Justin stood idle by the doorway as they looked at me.
“Darcy . . .” Justin began, but I didn’t stick around to hear what he had to say. I followed Neala down the hallway. I stood outside my bedroom and swallowed down the bile that rose up my throat.
I’d only just had her, and in a matter of seconds I’d lost her.
I felt empty.
I felt like nothing.
I placed my forehead on my bedroom door and exhaled.
I regret you.
That was the worst thing she could have said to me. It fucking hurt. I squeezed my eyes shut, and for the first time in my entire life I wished Neala had just said she hated me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I was going to be sick.
I stumbled forward into Darcy’s bedroom with his bed sheets wrapped around my naked body and slammed the door shut. I grabbed my rumpled clothes from atop the dresser, and out of the corner of my eye I caught something pink in the top of Darcy’s slightly open top drawer. I opened the drawer fully and found the pink-wrapped, and moderately damaged, doll box.
I focused on not screaming. He was still trying to take the doll from me, after everything – that was his main priority. I steadied myself and bent over just in case I did throw up, but when nothing happened I straightened and began to pant. I used one hand to hold the bed sheet around me, and my free hand to press against my forehead.
This wasn’t happening.
Darcy regretted last night?
He regretted the sex we’d shared?
He regretted me?
“Neala?”
I choked back a sob, but could do nothing about the tears that freely streamed down my face.
“Leave me alone, Darcy. Please,” I said through my tears.
He was as silent as a mouse, because I didn’t hear him come into the room after me.
“I didn’t mean what I said.”
I sat on the side of his bed and reached down for my clothing. I didn’t have my knickers – they were in Darcy’s kitchen bin – so I grabbed my shoes and pulled my heels on instead. I stood up and uncaringly dropped the bed sheet from around my body. I wasn’t embarrassed; if anything I felt disgusted. Darcy had seen every inch of me last night, but he’d said it was a mistake, so it meant nothing to him, which meant changing in front of him would also mean nothing to him. I pulled my dress over my head and fixed it on my body.
“No.” I sniffled. “You did mean it; you just didn’t mean for me to hear what you said.”
Darcy moved closer to me – I could feel him behind me.
“That’s not true, Neala. I said what I did because—”
“I don’t care why you said it; I just care that you said it. Last night shouldn’t have happened, Darcy.” I put on my blazer and turned to face him. “You were right. I did wake up regretting what we did. It was a mistake.”
I lied.
I flat-out lied through my teeth.
I refused to let Darcy know that he had just broken my heart for the second time. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d pulled one over on me.
“This is the last time I’m allowing you to have the ability to hurt me. I never want to see or speak to you ever again. You’re a pathetic coward, and if by some chance you even have a heart, it’s not working; it’s frozen solid.”
Darcy’s face paled and his shoulders slumped.
“Neala . . . I’m so sorry. I feel horrible. Please, I care about you so much. I don’t even know why I said what I did. I swear I didn’t mean it.”
I walked forward, and just as I was about to pass him by I pressed the doll box against his chest. “This should make you feel better; it’s want you wanted after all, right? Well, lucky you, you got want you wanted. You win, Darcy. Congratulations.”
Neala: 1. Darcy: 2.
I let go of the box and walked out of Darcy’s bedroom; then finally, after days of being trapped, I stepped foot out of his house. I made a silent vow to myself that I was never going to return.
When I was ready to leave, I left Darcy’s house and found my brother was hot on my heels.
“Neala?” Sean said when I clumsily trekked the deep snow towards his truck. It was difficult to get my footing with heels on, but I managed it. I doubt I looked like anything except an idiot, but at least I didn’t fall.
“Take me home. Please,” I said as my body trembled.
Sean put his arm around me and quickly ushered me around his truck and to the passenger side. He helped me up, then shut the door. The heat in the truck from Sean’s journey up to Darcy’s house sent shivers up and down my spine. My skin tingled, and the pain that had taken up residence in my head eased slightly.
Sean shouted something to Justin who, standing in Darcy’s doorway, nodded. I looked away when Sean came around to the driver’s side of his truck and got in. He started the engine and slowly backed up until he could turn the truck around and get us onto the road leading down the mountain.
I think I managed a minute or two before I burst into tears.
“Baby girl.” Sean sighed and reached out with his left hand and rubbed my shoulder.
I lifted my hands to my face and shook my head. “I’m o-okay.”
Sean removed his hand and changed the gears on his truck, and then focused on driving down the slippery mountain roads.
“Did he hurt you?” Sean asked.
I glanced at him through my fingers and noticed his knuckles were gripped onto the steering wheel so tight that they were turning white.
“Not in the way you think.” I sniffled and wiped my eyes.
Sean glanced at me. “In what way did he hurt you?”
I looked down and shrugged. “He said we were a mistake, that we didn’t go together. He said he regretted me.”
The tears came again when I finished speaking and I hated myself for it. I wanted to be strong, I wanted to say ‘fuck Darcy,’ but my heart hurt so deeply over him.
“Is that all he did?” Sean asked, his voice venomous.
I cleared my throat. “Yeah . . . I mean, when we . . . had sex . . . it hurt and I bled a little, but Darcy said it was normal for me the first time.”
Things were silent for a moment until Sean growled low, deep in his throat, “I’m
gonna fucking kill him!”
I widened my eyes and looked at him.
He was furious.
“Don’t. It was c-consensual.”
Darcy had hurt me, but Sean would kill him if he thought he’d forced himself on me, and that was the furthest thing from the truth. Sean looked to me and softened his eyes before he looked back at the road and narrowed them again.
“If he wasn’t going to live up to whatever he made you believe, then he should have stayed the fuck away from you. I didn’t think you were a virgin. Fuck. A fucking virgin! I’m going to murder the little prick!”
Oh, shite.
“Sean, please,” I cried.
My brother muttered curses before he exhaled a large breath. “Why don’t you want me to hurt him?”
“Because I care about him!” I snapped, then sank low in my seat, bruised over my admission.
I wished I didn’t care.