She turned in her seat, “displaying her wares” as he had once described her body art and revealing clothing. Petty satisfaction warmed her gut at watching his lips form a grim seal.
Tall and urbane, with graying hair winging his temples, her father had aged exceedingly well. Tori, his third wife, was a health nut and she made sure to keep him active, both in the gym and in the bedroom. A between-the-sheets exercise regimen with women who weren’t his wife had always been his go-to before the latest Mrs. Cochrane.
He had married Darcy’s mother, a former beauty queen and daughter of a wealthy man, for seed money. And then he left her to a boozy rot in their Gold Coast mansion while he screwed his secretaries and figured out ways to contort everyone around him into knots. Darcy had seen the effects of her father’s manipulations on her mother. It dragged her down, made her small. But she had eventually wised up and was now happily remarried, living in South Beach.
“Well, Grams, I’ve got to go seduce that man. I’ll check back in later.” Darcy sprang up and gave her grandmother a kiss good-bye along with a gentle squeeze, netting for her trouble a disapproving hmph at her mawkish display.
Bypassing her father, she headed to the corridor with a parting nod of acknowledgment. “Dad.”
“Darcy,” he said, following her out. “Stop behaving like a child.”
She halted and let the fury work through her body for a gratifying moment before she spun on her boot heels and drew herself taller. He made it so easy to hate him. “In another two weeks, I’ll be out of your hair. I’m only here for Grams.”
“What about the fund-raiser?”
“Like I said, I’ll be there for her. Not for you.”
“Dressing appropriately, I hope,” he said, his dark gaze skimming her outfit. “Your stepmother would appreciate it.”
Instinctively, she drew the lapels of her jacket together, hiding what made her individual, different. Not Cochrane. Her ink felt like a huge X over her heart, an invitation to her father to take his best shot. Every battle in this war between them left her diminished and bruised, and now she dug deep for ammo.
“Dad, do you still have it in mind to trot me out as meat for one of your screw-someone-over schemes? Who is it this time? The scion of a Swiss banking dynasty? The geek founder of some start-up you want to buy out? Or is Preston Collins back on the market looking for Wife Number Two?”
Her father scoffed. “Well, now that you’ve made yourself look like a barrio mural, no one of use to me would want you.”
Shock sliced through her, not at his words, but that they could still sting so much. Her usefulness to him had vanished with every screw you she embedded in her skin. She could feel her body curling up, her heart shrinking in his outsize presence.
“I’m more than what you choose to see, Dad. I always have been.”
Subtlety was not part of her father’s skill set, but in that moment, he seemed to realize his faux pas in cutting her so deeply. His mouth softened.
“Darcy, you’re still my daughter and I love you. Come home.”
“It doesn’t feel like home anymore, Dad.”
“Even with one of the city’s finest at your beck and call?”
Rage boiled up. “For God’s sake, Dad, have you been following me?” His keeping tabs should not have surprised her. Given some of his past stunts and his preference for gold jewelry, he had more in common with an old-school Mafioso than with the upper echelons of power he so wanted to control.
“He’s not worthy of you, Darcy. He never was.” He stared her down for a moment, then turned and walked into Grams’s room.
“Keep your fists up,” Wyatt said.
Shoulders back, Beck adjusted his stance, putting more weight on his back foot, and delivered a one-two to the bag with his chin down and fists proud. Only three weeks since he’d started his leave, and his muscles bitched at every unfamiliar motion. Sweat rolled off his neck, soaking his tee, the impurities of his body sloughing away with every punch. Not the impurities of his mind, though. He held on to those like a drowning man whose life flashed before his eyes in bursts with each desperate second above water.
Darcy writhing under him, encouraging him to take her harder, do her right. Darcy’s hands exploring his chest and rasping his nipples. Hell, sexy shit she hadn’t even done!
The bag hit his head so hard that his ears popped and rang.
“The fuck?”
“You’re distracted,” Wyatt said as he steadied the bag he had just used as a weapon to usher Beck back to reality. If reality meant the cramped gym at Engine 6 on Chicago’s North Side, he’d take his fantasy life, thanks. The old quarters could do with a face-lift, which given the city’s budget woes and the fact CFD came last on their good mayor’s list of priorities, would not be happening in any Dempsey’s lifetime.