Seeing some stranger with his hands on Darcy unleashed a violent urge I never knew I’d carried inside of me. When I recognized who held her, I wanted to peel the skin off him, then shred every fiber of what lay beneath, with my bare hands.

He had no right to touch Darcy. That was my right. Not because I’m some obsessed prick who thinks he has exclusive rights over the woman he’s committed to. She was mine to touch because she gave me that permission. She certainly didn’t give it to an asshole like him.

I was still so close to blowing I had to step back from him. “Tell me you’re okay, Darcy. Tell me again.” I searched her face to find something that would confirm that.

“I’m fine.”

She wasn’t. Her voice cracked and her face was the color of pumice.

I focused again on the scum sitting at the table. “Did Annabelle send you?” It was all I could think. Had she somehow found the drug dealer we’d dealt with in Auckland and sent him to add weight to her blackmail threats?

“Don’t know any Annabelle. You need to leave, dude. I’ve got business to sort out with my ex.”

Ex? Fuck. The word struck me like a blow to the chest. He had to be lying. My jaw ached and my teeth were clenched so hard trying not to scream at him, trying not to say the wrong thing, trying not to give anything away. I’d already given him Annabelle’s name. Could he track her from that? Did he want to? Darcy could wait. Darcy I could talk to later when I got her home. I had to ignore the part I wanted to know the most about, find out what this guy wanted, and get him out of Darcy’s life forever.

“You can talk, now, because I’m not going anywhere.” I said.

He rolled his shoulders, shrugging on his newfound confidence like a favorite coat. “Look at you, man.” He sniggered. “You had no idea that hot pussy of yours had a dirty past.”

A muscle in my cheek twitched.

“Stop it, Rob,” Darcy said.

I held my hand up to silence her.

“Did she tell you she was arrested for drug dealing in Australia? Whoops, no? Don’t worry, she lied to the cops, too, and put me away.”

“Yeah, whatever.” I discovered I could shrug, too. “What is it you want?”

“Money. Her testimony gave me two years of grief. Here’s a bit of advice for you. There’s no loyalty there,” he said, stabbing his finger at Darcy. “I can add a lot of ugliness to this perfect life you have, but twenty grand will make me vanish.”

“No, it won’t, because you’re not getting a cent. You’re getting the fuck out of town. You can either do it on your own, or I can get a couple of very unfriendly cops around here in minutes to help you on your way. And I’m just going to make you one promise. If you come near Darcy again, if you so much as send her a text message, or even fucking think about her, I’ll make your life such hell you’ll wish you were back in prison.”

“Well, aren’t you the big guy.”

“Glad you understand.” I pointed at the door. “Time to fuck off, and to be perfectly clear, that means out of town, off the Coromandel Peninsula, and out of our lives.”

I jerked him from the chair and gave him a push down the hallway. He paused at the door.

“I’m not fucking done, Sackville. You’re going to regret threatening me.”

“No, I won’t.”

He responded with a smirk.

I used the barrier of the door to usher him out and watched through a window as he climbed into his shitty car and drove away.

Somehow I had to make sense of this. Even more, I had to get the image of that guy with Darcy out of my head.

I returned to the kitchen. Darcy hadn’t moved. Her shoulders rose as she drew a deep breath. “I need to tell you a lot of things. First, thank you—”

“We’re not doing this here. Grab whatever you need, we’re going home.”

She took a step back. “I think we should talk here.”

“No.”

“You might not want to be with me once I tell—”

I was like a contained explosion. Outwardly, my body felt like an impenetrable casing keeping my emotions, my rage, my confusion, my gain, my loss from escaping. Inside, though, was chaos. Darcy’s laptop and handbag were on the table. I picked them up. “Anything else?” I asked.

She glanced around, reaching for a sweatshirt from the back of a chair. I took her hand and led her from the house. We never spoke on the short walk, and I didn’t release her hand until we were inside my house, and the door was shut.

I was frustrated, and determined whatever this was about wouldn’t break us. It was in the past. I couldn’t believe Darcy was any different now than the person I’d left in my bed two mornings ago. I pulled two bottles of water from the fridge, unscrewed a cap and handed her one. Under my gaze, she knocked back a good third of the bottle, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and set the drink back down on the kitchen island that took up too much space between us.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Physically, no. Emotionally? Well, I’m furious he’s tracked me down and thinks he can blackmail me. I’d have to be hiding something for that to be a success, and I want you to believe me, Oliver, I had every intention of telling you about Rob.”

“I believe you.”

“I wanted to tell you the other night.”

“I know you did. Tell me now.”

She gazed out the window, and I waited.

“Rob and I were together three years. We met at university. I was in my last year, and he was doing his Masters. He’s brilliant, and stupid. He does computer stuff, works in the banking industry doing all kinds of complicated things with analysis and encryption. He got an amazing job. They demanded a lot from him, and he kept giving. Eventually, he started using drugs to help him stay awake. Well, that was his excuse. He ended up losing his job after failing a workplace drug test. Of course, I should have left him then, but he promised me he’d learned what he had to lose, and he’d stop using, so we decided to make a clean break and go to Australia. I didn’t know he was dealing, Oliver. I’d have left him right away if I knew that.”

“Annabelle’s video must have been a shock.”

She nodded, took another long swallow from her water bottle.

“Australia started out okay. I got an amazing job, and Rob got work in the banking industry. We kind of drifted apart, though. My work was social, and Rob wasn’t that fond of the people or the scene. He’d become surly, withdrawn. Nothing was good enough for him. He started hanging out with a crowd of guys I didn’t like, and I was sure he was using again. If I asked, he lost it, shouting at me, accusing me of not trusting him. So, I tried harder to make him happy. And the worse he got, the harder I tried to make life better for him so that he might love me again. I bit back the questions to keep the peace. In no time, our relationship was toxic. I came home one day and that sweet, sickly smell was all through the house, and there was a group of strangers in my living room, all high.”

She looked off to one side, then directly at me. “I told them all to get out, and threatened to call the police. I told Rob he had to choose between me and the drugs. High, he told me to fuck off.”

Inside, I was breaking for her. I wanted to hold her. To ease her anguish but when I stepped toward her she held up a hand to stop me. Something passed between us. It was a feeling, an idea that she didn’t want me touching her, she didn’t want my comfort while she was still talking about her relationship with Rob.

“Are you sure?” I asked gently.

“Yes. Thank you.” She coughed. “He was…” Her face screwed up like she was going to cry. “He was so careless with my love. He didn’t want it, and I kept offering it, putting different packaging around it, trying so hard. The thought of it now makes me sick. No matter what I tried, he chose drugs over me. He lost his job again. I had no idea. He just said he got some contract, and was working from home. Then, one day, he told me I had to go away for the weekend. I asked why, and he said he’d got in trouble. He owed money to whoever it was he was getting drugs from, and the only way out was to let these guys come to the house to cook.”

She pressed her lips together, gazing at the ceiling, composing herself. “I told him…” She stopped and rubbed her eyes, then started again. “I told him I’d give him the money, and that’s when I learned our bank account was overdrawn. He’d always taken care of the money. When I’d noticed sums going missing he said he’d shifted money into high-earning investments. You must think I’m an idiot.”

“I don’t,” I told her gently. “I don’t think that at all.”

She took another deep breath. “I flat out refused to have our home used as a drug lab, and he ranted and said how could I possibly say I loved him if I wasn’t prepared to support him when he was in trouble. That was the first and only time he hit me. I just grabbed some stuff and went and stayed with a girlfriend. The cook-up went wrong. That stuff is volatile and there was an explosion. The house was destroyed in the fire, and that’s how I lost everything.”