The Wrong Mr. Darcy

by Evelyn Lozada

  After having everyone up in her business, the decision had been made for Naomi anyway. Poor girl.

  “I’m going over there.” Hara put her coat on. “Should we wake Charles? He’ll want to see her, right?”

  “Good question.” Derek shrugged. “Where’s he stand with this girl? He just told Naomi he wasn’t going to see her anymore. Maybe the best thing for her is if he stays away.”

  “He’s your friend.” Hara thought she knew what Naomi would want, but what did she need?

  “He did this. He’s made all these messes and he’s not cleaning up any of them.” Derek stopped and folded his arms. “Besides, he’s too drunk.”

  She picked up her satchel, made sure she had her phone. “Well, I’m gonna go. And I know you’re worried, but I’m not going to print a word about any of this. It’s personal and painful and the public doesn’t need to see this side of their favorite Fisher. More so, Naomi deserves privacy.”

  Derek nodded and then picked up keys off the counter. “Fine. I’ll drive. No need to wait for a car to get here.”

  The first few minutes of the ride were quiet, slightly tense.

  Derek finally broke the silence. “Why does life have to be so messy? People are so goddamn irritating. Charles, Naomi, Tina, that whole thing—irritating. So unnecessary. And O’Donnell. I really hate that guy.”

  “Your biggest defect is that you hate everybody.” She was only half teasing him.

  Derek raised an eyebrow at her, then turned back to driving. “And yours is that you willfully misunderstand people. You decide whether or not you like them in the first five minutes, and then despite evidence to the contrary, you stick with it.”

  “You are challenging me about not giving someone a chance? That’s rich.”

  They rolled into the hospital’s parking garage, and the tension was broken by the excited lot attendant when he realized who he was handing a ticket stub to. “Mr. Darcy! Oh my gosh! Will you sign this?”

  Derek was sweet, taking the time to write a message to the man’s son. But as they drove through the enormous lot, Hara couldn’t let it go. “That other ‘Mr. Darcy,’ the one who was kind to a stranger—you should let that guy out more often.”

  “I gave you a chance. I’m glad I did, Hara. I don’t regret having met you.” Parking, the ballplayer turned to her and said, “Do you think I should come up? Probably not, huh?”

  “It’s nice of you to offer. I’m not sure she’ll want to see either of us. I’m going to pop in, give her a hug, see if she needs anything, and then stay only if she wants company.”

  Derek got out of the SUV, tugging on a baseball cap. Pulling the brim low, he said, “I’ll walk you into the lobby.”

  Hara didn’t argue. It was dark and she didn’t want to walk through the garage by herself. Ha! That’s not really it, is it? she chided herself. No. She wanted to eke out as many minutes with this complicated man as she could, make the stroll through the dark lot count. When they parted ways here, it would probably be for good.

  She wanted to work things out, to find a way she and Derek could bypass the issues, just be together, just for this short time, even if it was unrealistic that the famous athlete would ever want to be with someone like her long-term. But, in reality, he had too many problems with his teammate, and something going on with the team owner, and he had his own goals. For obvious reasons, he saw her, a reporter, as a liability. And, frankly, yeah, Derek was getting in her way, making her care about Charles more than she should, when maybe he didn’t deserve it. Hara frowned. Too much of who he was most of the time—well, it was the wrong Mr. Darcy.

  She wanted to figure out what she wanted. What was best for her. Not Derek, and certainly not Charles.

  If she had to pick her career, make it front and center, wasn’t that the sane choice to make? The one night with Derek had been fun but it was clearly going nowhere, fast.

  He took her hand, swinging it as they walked under the buzzing fluorescent lamps.

  Her heart clenched. He seemed to be just as conflicted as she was.

  “Is this okay?” he asked, his face sincere.

  Her heart melted, whether she wanted it to or not. He was always asking permission before touching her. Like he respected her. Hell, like he wanted to touch her. Her, Hara Isari.

  Derek Darcy. She just couldn’t figure him out.

  He left her at the front entrance, with a soft kiss on the cheek.

  “Goodbye.”

  * * *

  A low light filtered out from Naomi’s room, through a cracked door. The hallway on this floor was silent and empty, except for soft beeps and whirs from the surrounding rooms and a few nurses down at the entry desk. Hara knocked softly.

  No one answered. She pushed open the door and poked her head through. The bed was empty, the blankets tossed back. She almost withdrew when a weird, heavy smell hit her in the face. Hara held her breath.

  What is that?

  The bathroom door was shut. Naomi was either in there or they’d taken her for tests.

  To give Naomi privacy, Hara waited in the hall for a few minutes, but no nurses came by. Impatient, she decided it would be okay to knock on the bathroom door. As she walked back into the room and around the bed, though, her foot slipped on something wet.

  Looking down, Hara’s vision wavered and the room spun in a lazy circle. “Na—Naomi?” she whisper-screamed.

  She’d stepped in a pool of blood seeping out from under the bathroom door.

  CHAPTER 18

  You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it!

  —Pride and Prejudice

  The doctors pumped nearly half a gallon of blood into Naomi before they were sure they had her back.

  “This girl wasn’t messing around,” one of the nurses said to Hara, coming out of the room after changing the bandages on Naomi’s wrists. “She lost almost forty percent of her blood. She’d turned off her monitors, so if you hadn’t gone in there when you did, she would only have lasted maybe a minute longer. Maybe.”

  Hara hadn’t been allowed back in the room, but they’d let her sit in the hall. She was too freaked out to make it any farther than the narrow, hard bench a few feet from Naomi’s door. Hara couldn’t remember how to use her legs, much less figure out what she should do next.

  The sight of Naomi, slight and childlike and curled up in a fetal position on the white tiles, would likely stay with her forever. The copious amounts of dark red blood pooling around her, even in her hair, and the slackness of her petite features …

  Hara wanted to dislodge the slideshow of horror via whatever means necessary. Heavy drinking, lobotomy, whatever.

  The girl had people in her life who loved her. Why would Naomi try to kill herself? She’d only known for a short time she was pregnant, and she hadn’t even been sure she wanted it. A miscarriage was definitely an occasion to be sad and confused, depressed, but to want to end it all? Naomi was so young and talented and beautiful. She could have more babies, when she was ready. Why throw in the towel for good?

  It blew her mind. Naomi had seemed like a girl who walked in and took what she wanted.

  Having a relationship with a professional athlete was just too dangerous for normal people.

  Hara suddenly, desperately, wanted to talk to her father. He was her touchstone, the man who listened to her, encouraged her, consoled her. He was also out of reach, as usual. When it came to emergencies, he wasn’t there, hadn’t been since she was a child. And Hara had never learned to rely on her mother, not unless she wanted to be treated like an incapable imbecile who needed her decisions made for her.

  She yearned to have a partner to lean on in times like these. Hara almost broke down and called Derek, but restrained herself. She could not push a relationship into existence after a one-night stand.

  So, do what you always do, Hara Isari. Fight your way through this. Buck up. It’s Naomi who is suffering, not you. What needs to happen next? Le
t’s get going!

  Naomi’s dad was on his way, so Naomi wouldn’t be alone. But how about Charles? Should he be there? Or not?

  She’d go back to her hotel, Hara decided. Focus on her job. She needed to work on the story about the arena’s power outage and the flood, write it up as a feature this time, since a simple recap wouldn’t do a day after the game. Then she could try to find contacts from Charles’s past. Tomorrow, there was an early game, the last before the team went on the road. She’d go, sit in the press row with Eddie, and see if he knew anything about Butler’s time in high school and college—without tipping him off, of course. Shouldn’t be hard to keep Eddie in the dark; the guy was a worker bee but didn’t have the sharpest stinger.

  Hara messaged for an Uber. Then, unable to stop herself any longer, she texted Derek. Bad news. Naomi tried to kill herself. It was awful. She’s stable but you should tell Charles. I’ll be at the hotel tonight, if you want to talk. Or maybe I’ll see you at the game tomorrow. Good luck.

  Hitting send, she prayed she didn’t sound desperate. Only open to possibilities.

  * * *

  Derek was just walking into his apartment when his cell pinged. Reading the text, he cringed and slid the phone into his pocket. He’d call Hara later, make sure she was all right, but first he had to deal with Charles. Even through a shut door, Derek could hear him snoring.

  Before he made it down the hall, Charles’s phone rang, still on the kitchen counter. Derek jogged over, saw it was O’Donnell. His hand hovered, undecided, until the ringing stopped. But then it immediately started up again. His boss again.

  “Hello, sir, this is Derek. Charles can’t come to the phone right now.”

  “Unacceptable. You go get him. Now.”

  “To be honest, he’s sleeping.”

  “Are you telling me you two are a couple?” The old man then made a slurping noise that made every hair on Derek’s body stand up. “By God, that makes sense. Maybe it was you that got this Naomi girl pregnant, during a three—”

  “No.” Derek was too shocked by this crazy leap to say more. O’Donnell’s lascivious tone was worse than the implication. The paintings behind the owner’s desk obviously represented a frame of mind. Derek finally kicked out some words: “Besides, you’ll be happy to hear Naomi isn’t pregnant anymore. She miscarried.” He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

  “One less abortion to worry about, then—”

  Derek cut him off. “However, she did try to kill herself. Sliced her wrists. Pretty bad.” He didn’t know why he was telling O’Donnell, except maybe to pry some empathy from the old bastard.

  “But she didn’t die? Too bad. One less whore on Butler’s scoreboard wouldn’t be a bad thing. He’s got enough problems.”

  “You don’t mean that.” Derek shouldn’t have been shocked but he was.

  “Son, I did not get to where I am by being softhearted. Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but you and your teammates are commodities. I protect my commodities.”

  He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “We are also human beings. Naomi is a human being.”

  “Fine, fine. Whatever you say. Get Charles up, tell him to call me. I need to talk to him before the game, make sure he stays away from that reporter Isari. She’s become a problem, obsessed with Butler. If she tries to come to the next game, I might have to do something about it. Let me know if you run into her, Mr. Darcy.”

  He wanted off the phone, desperately. “Yes, sir.”

  “And you’re ready to be a team player tomorrow? Support Charles? If not, you’ve got a knack for riding the bench.”

  “Yes, sir.” Derek spoke like a robot.

  “Good night, then.”

  “Good night, sir,” he said automatically. He swayed on his feet in his apartment, though his mind whirled and stormed, far away. What in the fuck? I mean, what in the fuck? Am I stuck in a bad cable movie?

  Had O’Donnell just threatened Hara?

  Derek tried to wake Charles, to get him up so he could go to Naomi. The big drunk only groaned, rolled over, and fell into a deeper stupor. He didn’t bother trying again, not even to tell him that O’Donnell wanted to talk to him. O’Donnell was a douche and Charles could do without him for a while.

  However, Derek did text Hara back. I think it best if you don’t come to the game. I think things are too complicated. He knew this would hurt Hara. It hurt him to type it. But what was he supposed to say? That he thought maybe the owner was crazy and might hurt her if she showed up? Who would believe that?

  The basketball player hated it when he felt out of control, when the usual rules didn’t seem to apply to his day-to-day life, the one he’d so carefully carved out for himself, away from his family. Yet, here he was, helpless against the wave of events washing over him.

  What can I do?

  He could stop worrying about himself. He needed to focus on something else, anyone else. Except Hara. Thinking about her made him ache for something he had never realized he was missing.

  * * *

  Hara woke up in the hotel the next morning feeling hungover and dead tired. She had dropped into sleep a number of times, only to wake clutching at her chest and gasping, terrified by graphic nightmares about blood and corpses. Always it was Naomi, dead in a river. Dead in a car. Dead on a hospital room floor.

  However, Hara had spent the night more awake than asleep, thanks to her brain being unable to shut off. She’d thought about everything that had happened, everything that could happen, and everything that should happen. Like Derek knocking on her door and crawling into her bed at one in the morning. That should have happened. It didn’t.

  Instead, she’d received a text telling her not to come to the game. That Derek didn’t want to see her. I knew things were hard between us, she thought, but not that hard. What, he couldn’t be within a hundred feet of her?

  She shut her eyes, pulled the perfectly weighted white quilt up to her chin, and ran her feet over sheets that must have been made from million-dollar silkworms. While she could appreciate the exquisite comfort of the hotel bed, her body still suffered. Her head hurt, her stomach was a mess. She’d had two martinis delivered to her room last night. Maybe three. The queasy feeling should have meant something fun happened the night before. It didn’t.

  She dialed room service and asked for tea, toast, and eggs. A setting for one.

  Then she called the hospital.

  “Can you please transfer me to room 419? Naomi Martin’s room?”

  After a few seconds, the voice on the other end of the line came back. “I’m sorry, we don’t have anyone here by that name.”

  Panic rushed through Hara. “I know she’s there. Will you please look again?”

  “Room 419 has a patient by another name, and Naomi Martin is not listed in any other room. But let me check with a nurse on that floor. One minute, please.”

  One of the nurses from the night before answered the phone. “I remember you. Your friend is stable, don’t worry. Sorry for the confusion. But she has been transferred to another hospital.”

  “What? Why? Where?” Ever the journalist.

  “I can’t say.” But then the nurse’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I will tell you she is in a swanky private hospital with one-on-one, twenty-four-hour care.”

  “Oh my God. Are you saying she’s in a psych ward?”

  “No! I can’t give you any more information, hon, but she’s in good hands.”

  Hara breathed a huge sigh of relief. Charles must have stepped up, even if he was just throwing money at a problem. It was a lot of money. She left a message on Naomi’s cell for her to call when she felt up to it, or if she needed anything.

  The young reporter took her time getting ready for the game. She might as well enjoy the room while it lasted. She was not in a hurry to leave the comfort and safety of the swanky digs. What was waiting for her today? A tornado?

  Hara decided to ask the front desk if they had a flashlight
she could borrow. Maybe a helmet. A floaty. And an EpiPen. A few days ago, Hara had thought small, nipple-size Band-Aids were the most important items to have in her bag. How her priorities had changed.

  Her phone rang. It was her mother.

  Oh goody. More high drama.

  “Mom? What’s up?”

  “Hara.”

  The hackles on the back of her neck rose. Her mother’s voice was low, clogged.

  “What is it?”

  “Your dad. He’s in the prison infirmary. His roommate Jonas just called, said he’d found him unconscious in their cell. He says he was beaten pretty badly, Hara.” Willa’s throat clicked audibly. “Thomas is awake now. Jonas says he’s been asking for you, that you can call directly into the infirmary. I have the number.”

  It took Hara a second to find her tongue. “How bad is it?”

  “They had to intubate him while he was unconscious. Some broken ribs punctured a lung. That’s all they’ve said.”

  “I … I can get on a plane. I can be at the prison tonight. It’ll be late, but I can get there.”

  “Don’t bother. No one is allowed in to see him. But you can call, talk to his doctors. Here’s the number.”

  Hara’s shaking hand dropped the pen a few times but she finally got the number down. “But they kept him at the prison? Didn’t take him to the hospital? That’s a good sign, right?”

  “I don’t know, Hara. You call. I’ll have my phone with me if you want to talk again afterward.”

  Hara knew shit was real because her mother was calm. Hara, on the other hand, felt like she was about to spin out of control.

  The man who answered the infirmary phone introduced himself as an intern, but Hara knew she was likely talking to a prison worker, someone who’d probably been a junkie and was highly skilled with needles so they gave him a job in medical. That’s who was taking care of her father.

  “They’ve taken the tube out of his throat and he’s awake.”