In the Name of Love (28 page)

‘Don’t let Nicky catch you,’ Ruby warned when she noticed Darcy rushing in. Then she did a double take as she looked her up and down. ‘Weren’t you wearing those clothes yesterday?’

Darcy shook back her long hair, with its tousled bed head look, achieved because she had just got out of bed. ‘Might have been.’ Then she grinned and added, ‘But it was worth it. Let’s just say that it was a very satisfying night – and a pretty satisfying morning.’

Charlie walked past at that moment and overheard the comment.

‘Too much information, Darcy,’ she muttered, glaring at her.

‘Sorry,’ Darcy said breezily, not sounding sorry at all. ‘Anyone
want
a coffee? I’m off to the canteen. I need a caffeine fix, I’m completely shagged.’

Charlie didn’t say anything but sat at her desk with a face like thunder. Darcy smiled radiantly all the way up to the canteen.

Charlie’s mood didn’t improve when she saw the day’s tabloids which all had the pictures of her and Felipe taken on Sunday. But worse still was the exclusive carried by the
Sun
which went into detail about her relationship with Felipe, and contained quotes from ‘a friend’ who said what a strain Charlie’s phobia about riding was putting on their romance.

‘Ouch!’ Aidan commented, catching sight of what she was reading. ‘Are you okay, Charlie? You mustn’t take it to heart, you know, it doesn’t mean anything.’

In fact Charlie was having to blink back tears of outrage at seeing her private life dissected like this.

‘Why can’t they just leave us alone?’ she said quietly. ‘And who is this “friend”? Some friend who would say those things.’

Realising how upset she was, Aidan put his arm round her. ‘You know what the press are like. Say nothing, keep calm, and they’ll move on to someone else.’

‘But it’s true, isn’t it? They don’t even have to make anything up. My phobia is putting a strain on my relationship with him.’

‘You’re having therapy; you’ll get through this.’ Aidan sounded confident, but it was a confidence Charlie didn’t share. She had let him assume that she was having therapy. She hated to think of Felipe finding
out
about the news story; he didn’t need that kind of stress now. Though she imagined his mother would be pleased. Yet more ammunition for her to use to prove what an unsuitable and bad girlfriend Charlie was.

Chapter 19

‘LOOK AT HER,’
Charlie whispered to Zoe when they walked into the courtyard garden of the Sanderson later that evening and saw Kris and Darcy sitting at one of the tables. ‘I don’t know why she’s even bothering to wear that skirt, it’s so short. It’s a pussy pelmet!’

Zoe snorted with laughter. ‘What’s happened to you? You sound like my nan.
You
wear skirts as short as that.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Charlie replied sulkily, unwilling to concede that Zoe was right.

‘You are going to have to take a massive chill pill and deal with this. Kris likes her, which means she can’t be that bad. And the two of you are going to have to get along, for his sake.’ Zoe smiled, and patted her friend’s shoulder. ‘Cheer up, it won’t be so bad. And at least you’re not sitting at home worrying about what those wanker journalists have written.’

Kris gave her a big hug when they joined him and Darcy and asked Charlie if she was okay. Not wanting to talk about her feelings in front of Darcy,
she
side-stepped the question. ‘Let’s not talk about it now. This is supposed to be a celebration for you.’

But from the moment she sat down, Charlie found it fiendishly difficult to be nice to Darcy. The woman was so annoying – everything about her put Charlie’s back up. True, it probably wasn’t Darcy’s fault that she sounded like a stuck-up cow with a plum in her mouth, but it
was
her fault that she was such a snob. When Kris suggested that he buy a bottle of house champagne, she immediately said, ‘Oh, can’t we get Krug? It’s so much nicer.’

‘It’s also over twice the price,’ Charlie couldn’t stop herself from muttering. She knew Kris was broke at the moment.

‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘It is a celebration and what else are credit cards for?’

Charlie raised her eyebrows at Zoe, who mouthed, ‘Chill.’

While Kris ordered the champagne Darcy turned to Charlie. ‘I was really sorry to see that story about you and Felipe. How’s he taken it?’

‘I haven’t told him yet. I don’t want to worry him. It was all made up crap anyway,’ Charlie replied, somewhat abruptly.

‘It must be hard having a long-distance relationship,’ Darcy continued, appearing oblivious to Charlie’s mood.

‘It has its moments,’ she replied, thinking of the time she had thought Darcy was seeing Felipe.

Kris’s mobile rang then. ‘It’s Mum,’ he said, ‘I’d better speak to her,’ and he got up and went into the lobby.

‘So how Felipe’s training going? I watched a film of him on his website. He really is an amazing rider, isn’t he?’

‘Amazing,’ Charlie replied. What else could she say? Would Darcy shut up about Felipe now!

She frowned and mumbled, ‘Oh, sorry, I guess you haven’t seen him ride.’

‘Not yet, but I’m hoping to soon. And I’ll be watching him in the Olympics, of course.’ But even mentioning it made Charlie feel sick to her stomach.

Darcy looked slightly hesitant as she continued, ‘And I really hope that there aren’t any hard feelings between us because of that misunderstanding? I never told anyone that I was seeing Felipe, I swear.’

‘None at all.’ Charlie could hardly admit to her true feelings.

Darcy was falling over herself to make conversation but Charlie could only come up with monosyllabic answers. Fortunately Zoe took over and managed to steer the conversation away from Felipe. By the time Kris returned they were on much safer ground, discussing the Ryan Gosling film that they’d all seen.

Charlie and Zoe stayed for a couple of glasses, then Zoe had to go off and meet Nathan and Charlie took the opportunity to leave as well. No way was she going to play gooseberry to the loved-up couple. She had a pounding headache from the champagne and no doubt the stress of the day.

‘Don’t you want to come and have something to eat?’ Kris asked.

And spend any longer watching Darcy with her hands
all
over him, smoothing his hair one minute, caressing his thigh the next? Such blatant PDAs were enough to put anyone off their food even if they weren’t a close relative!

‘I ought to have an early night, thanks,’ Charlie replied, sounding as uptight as she felt.

‘Yeah, sorry we kept you awake last night,’ Darcy put in. ‘We’re going back to mine tonight, so it won’t be a problem.’

Somehow Charlie forced a smile.

It was only when they were safely outside that she let rip. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck!’ she exclaimed. ‘Can you believe her?’

She expected Zoe to back her up so it was a shock when her friend took a different approach. ‘Babes, you have got to calm down. She actually wasn’t that bad and she seems to really like Kris. She can’t help the fact that she sounds dead posh, just like you can’t help your Manchester accent.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting that she was nearly responsible for breaking me and Felipe up?’ Charlie was not in the mood for being reasonable.

‘No, I hadn’t forgotten, and she did apologise to you for any misunderstanding. Don’t you think Kris deserves to be happy?’

‘Of course I do. Just not with her!’

Zoe made a zipping motion across her mouth. ‘Enough! You’re winding yourself up.’ Then she stuck her hand out and successfully hailed a passing taxi, calling out, ‘Love you!’

Charlie waved back. Why didn’t Zoe get it? Darcy
was
bad news. And the only possible outcome was that her brother was going to end up hurt.

But for the next three weeks Darcy and Kris were inseparable, spending every night together. Kris made her feel so good about herself, which was an entirely new experience for Darcy. He was kind and thoughtful and wanted to know all about her. She found herself opening up to him about her childhood, the way she had always felt such a failure in her parents’ eyes compared to her two elder sisters, the terrible time when she was expelled from school for taking drugs. She skimmed over her disastrous relationships – she certainly wasn’t proud of those. They talked long into the night, after they’d made love. It seemed a waste to go to sleep …

She was lying next to Kris now, her head on his chest. She had lit tea lights on the mantelpiece and on her dressing-table which gave the room a cosy and intimate feeling. She suddenly wished they could stay in this room for ever and shut out the rest of the world. Darcy trailed her fingers along Kris’s arm, feeling the curve of his biceps, his strong forearms, and settled on his wrist. There she felt the raised bump of a scar, which was usually covered by his watch.

‘What’s this?’

Kris had been so easy to talk to a minute ago, but now he clammed up. ‘It’s nothing.’ He turned his head away from her as if the subject was closed.

‘It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.’

For a few moments there was silence then he spoke. ‘There was a time in prison when it really got to me and I didn’t think I could take it any more.’ He hesitated. ‘I managed to get hold of a razor blade and – well, my cell mate found me.’

Darcy felt overwhelmed with sympathy for him. She raised his wrist to her lips and kissed the scar. ‘My poor darling, but it’s all going to be all right now.’

‘Yeah, it feels like it is.’ He paused. ‘And what about your scars?’

Darcy had a series of pale criss-cross slashes on the inside of both arms and on the tops of her thighs. She was self-conscious about them and always tried to cover them up. If her past boyfriends had ever noticed them they had never commented.

Now she sat up and pulled the duvet around her. She had never talked about the period in her life when she had self-harmed, it had been her shameful secret … known only to her and to her family, though they had never mentioned it. She had always feared that people would be disgusted by it and end up loathing her as much as she loathed herself.

Kris reached out and gently stroked her back. His touch felt warm and comforting. As if he knew what she was thinking, he said, ‘It won’t change how I feel about you.’

Darcy had one of those now or never moments. Kris had confided in her and told her something deeply personal to him. She knew, even after this brief time they’d had together, that he was a man she could trust. ‘I used to self-harm. It was just after I was expelled
from
school.’ Her words were coming out in a rush and she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. ‘I felt like such a failure … everyone thought I was a failure. When I cut myself it felt like a release from all that. Sometimes I’m tempted to do it again, but I’ve been trying really hard not to.’

She tensed up, waiting to hear Kris express shock and disgust, but instead he sat up and put his arms around her.

‘You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met and I can’t believe how lucky I am that you’re with me. Don’t ever think that you’re a failure.’

Darcy put her head on his shoulder, overwhelmed that he could be so accepting of her. They stayed like that for a while before he said, ‘We should get some sleep.’

As they curled up next to each other, he said, ‘You’re the only person who knows about what happened in prison. Please don’t tell Charlie, I know it would really upset her.’

‘Of course not,’ Darcy replied. Just a few weeks ago she would have revelled in knowing something that Charlie didn’t, but now she only felt sympathy for Kris, a shared connection.

The following night she was due to meet her parents and sisters for dinner. She was running late, partly because a meeting over-ran and partly because she had taken too long getting ready, wanting as always to make a good impression. She was the last person to arrive, which earned her a disapproving look from her father, Gerard, who loathed unpunctuality.

‘Last-minute script to type up?’ Bunny enquired. Both of her successful sisters seemed to enjoy the fact that Darcy was the failure of the family. Maybe it made them feel more secure in their own Golden Girl status.

‘No, a planning meeting on the Olympics over-ran.’

‘Are you going to be on camera?’ That was Mummy, ever hopeful that finally she might have something to boast about where Darcy was concerned. Her parents were hugely snobbish about the media and didn’t think that she had a proper job at all.

Darcy shook her head and willed someone to change the subject. She picked up the leather-bound menu. She hated the food here; it was a carnivore’s paradise, so meaty and rich. Her parents never seemed to remember that she was a vegetarian, or if they did, they didn’t seem to care. They always booked a table at this French restaurant when they came up to London.

‘Have you decided?’ her father demanded. ‘Because I’m keen to order. I don’t like to eat after half past eight.’

Darcy might have been wearing a sack for all the interest her appearance seemed to generate in her parents. She had bought the new pearl grey fitted dress from L. K. Bennett, along with the black kitten heels, specially because it was the kind of thing her sisters wore. It had been a complete waste of money. She should have worn her leather trousers and to hell with it.

Why had she agreed to meet up? She might have known it would be like this. Her sisters raving about their work, her parents hanging on their every word, while she felt like the perpetual outsider. But she couldn’t
help
clinging to a sliver of hope that one day she would be accepted, and then her parents would look at her with the same adoration that they lavished on Bunny and Perdita.

‘I bet Darcy will have the asparagus tips in butter and then the goat’s cheese salad,’ Perdita put in. ‘It must be so tedious always having the same thing. I’m going to have the escargots and then the braised lamb. They sound yummy.’

‘Still veggie then?’ her mother Eleanor said. ‘It’s such a bore having to cater for people who don’t eat meat.’ She was currently planning the wedding breakfast for Bunny, who was getting married in June.