Beating the System

by E V Darcy

  He almost dropped the frame in his desire to get the thing away from him. He held his face in his hands as he allowed the realisation to sink in.

  Jensen had loved Hattie.

  Why hadn’t his brother told him? Why hadn’t Jensen confessed his feelings?

  Because I know you love her too, Jensen’s voice whispered in the back of his mind. Because she loves you.

  Roman shook his head as he quickly stood and hurried to the door. He paused, hand on the handle as he glanced back to where the photo had landed—face up and taunting him.

  He marched back around the bed and picked it up once more, double checking he had definitely seen what he thought he had; Jensen’s clear love and adoration for Hattie written all over his face.

  ‘You bastard,’ he told his brother, before slamming the photo face down.

  Roman leaned against the door jab, hands tucked in his trouser pockets while he watched Hattie frantically run her hands over the locked door. Her fingers traced along the seam between the door and the frame, trying to pry the door open, before she grabbed the handle in both her hands and began jiggling and pulling it furiously as if that would somehow magically open the door and set her free.

  Like an animal caught in a trap.

  His finger ran over the worn key nestled deep in his pocket, safe and secure. He wished Hattie would realise she was just as safe, just as secure with him. That when they met she wouldn’t shut down, wouldn’t turn away from him. That she’d look at him again the way she used to. He knew he couldn’t have her, that he’d lost his chance all those years ago, but didn’t she understand that he’d never hurt her again?

  Please let go. You’re hurting me.

  He frowned as words she’d whispered just a few minutes ago reminded him he was a still a liar. He’d broken that very same promise he’d made when they’d first met years ago, and here he was making the same mistakes. He shook his head as part of him tried to reason that he hadn’t meant to hurt her arm, but the other part answered, he hadn’t meant to hurt her all those years ago either. He had a knack for not meaning things when it came to her, it would seem. She was right to close herself off to him, for her body to tell him not to even try and break down the barriers she’d erected between them.

  He sighed.

  ‘Why are you still here?’ he asked, knowing full well it was because he’d unintentionally locked them in the suite. She gasped, her body freezing at his words, before she spun on the spot and she flattened herself against the door behind her. Roman knew if it opened in that moment, she’d flee without another word to him. He hated himself for being able to instil that look within her, that he garnered such a reaction.

  He wanted her in ways he wanted no other, but he didn’t want her to fear him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ her voice was high, the panic clear within. ‘But I can’t get out. I don’t know why.’

  He pursed his lips as if considering her words, trying to figure out the solution to their problem. He stood up from where he leaned and stepped towards her, slowly drawing his hands from his pocket along with the old brass key.

  Her eyes watched, mesmerised, as he held the key up for her to see.

  ‘Maybe this is what we need?’

  ‘You… You locked us in.’ It wasn’t a question.

  He shrugged, unapologetically. ‘I had no idea you were in here. I came looking for some solitude. Locking the door behind me ensured I’d get some, but I see I should check for occupants first.’

  She swallowed as he got closer to her, her little pink tongue peeking out between her lips, moistening them ever so slowly before it disappeared back inside, pulling her lower lip with it. He swallowed his groan and his desire to want to chase after it. To hold her close to him as he branded her with his kiss.

  Her scent tickled his nose, that smell of apples and cinnamon, of Christmas even though it was the beginning of March. He’d forbidden the staff from serving apple pies or strudels, anything that evoked the scent that was his Henrietta. But breathing in her perfume now, of being enveloped, surrounded, and swaddled in it reminded him of Home. Not his apartment overlooking Wessex Shores, not the monstrosity they stood within now, but being wrapped in her arms, his skin against hers, her lips upon his…

  Her cheeks flushed, her chest rose and fell quickly, speeding up the closer he got. She dropped her gaze from his, her little nose scrunching as she closed her eyes tightly to calm herself, to regain control. But he didn’t want her to. He wanted her out of control, her emotions as wild and free as they used to be. He wanted the fire that smouldered within her to burn brightly once again.

  ‘Henrietta, look at me.’ He whispered the words as he stood before her. She shook her head. He reached around her, his wrist brushing her arm, making her jump and gasp as he put the key in the lock. With his other hand, he gently tipped her chin up with his fingers.

  Her mouth parted ever so slightly, and she stared at him through her long lashes. He was so close, so near to what he really wanted, to what he could never have. Yet, she wasn’t pulling away, wasn’t trying to push him back or screaming down his ear to leave her be. No, she gazed back at him with as much desire and longing as he believed was mirrored in his own eyes.

  ‘Henrietta.’ He murmured her name as he slowly lowered his head to hers, giving her a chance to say no, to push back and demand he allow her to leave. He turned the key and the sound of the lock falling back into its chamber sounded loud in his ears, but it caused a whimper of distress to fall from Hattie’s mouth.

  Every part of him cheered. She didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to abandon this moment. She wanted this as much as he did. She wanted his touch, wanted his kiss. He searched her eyes, silently begging her to tell him to stop—he’d do it, even if it killed him—but her lashes fluttered closed as his warm breath entwined with hers.

  He cupped her face with his hand, his other finding the small of her back and bringing her closer to him.

  ‘Roman,’ she breathed as she angled her head to his. His breath caught in his throat and he moaned with need as he finally closed the distance and—

  ‘Roman, are you up here?’ Fiona’s high, nasal voice was like a bucket of ice-cold water being thrown over them. Hattie’s spine stiffened under his fingers and her eyes flew open, horror and mortification replacing the urgent need and desperate hunger that had been there only seconds ago. She slowly shook her head, swallowing hard as she pulled away from him, and Roman knew what was going on in her mind; knew she was thinking back to that morning all those years ago when—

  ‘I’m not a slut,’ she whispered as she flattened herself against the door again. He groaned, hanging his head as his shame ignited once more inside him at what he’d called her that morning as he’d scrambled to get his clothes and his thoughts together.

  ‘I’m not a whore for you to play with!’ she told him more firmly, shoving him away from her. He stepped back willingly. One step, then another, until she had enough space to flee from him. ‘I won’t let you use me. Not again.’ Her voice broke as she opened the door and ran.

  ‘Hattie what are— Oh!’

  Roman ran a hand over his tired face, slowly counting the seconds until his fiancée appeared.

  ‘Really?’ Fiona’s cool voice came from the open door. He sighed and dropped his hand from his face. She looked unimpressed, but there was no anger there, no rage at catching her future husband with another woman. Hattie’s perfume, the apple and cinnamon that made his mouth water and his libido flare whenever he caught such a fragrance, hung in the air. It turned his stomach sour at smelling such a divine scent while staring at Fiona. ‘At your brother’s wake and with her! Of all the people you could have shagged today, why her?’

  ‘Leave it alone, Fi. It’s not like you weren’t eyeing up some of the waiting staff.’ He turned and headed towards his old bedroom door. ‘I need a nap; go away.’

  He heard her mewl of protest as the door closed behind him. It wasn’t one of hurt and
suffering, but one of indignation at being dismissed. She’d run off in a second, scurrying after Hattie to give the other woman a piece of her mind just to vent her frustration at his lack of emotional response. He just hoped Hattie had already made it out the door before Fiona got to her. Or that one of her royal guards put his fiancée in her place.

  God, he prayed it was the latter.

  Chapter Five

  ‘You’re pregnant.’

  Hattie stared at the man across from her, her mouth hanging open slightly as she tried to process those two little words.

  Hattie was someone who worked with data and charts, who compiled information, looked at it from every angle and weighed it before making decisions. She’d predicted the stock market crash of 2008 the year before it had happened and had saved her father and Pippa a fortune when they’d listened to her. Others hadn’t been so lucky. Despite how clever she’d been, how smart she was, she had only been seventeen. A child. Not someone to be taken seriously. She’d rather enjoyed the suffering of those who’d snubbed her. Not so much for the people below them, those who’d entrusted their hard-earned money to them or relied on the markets for pensions on either side of the Atlantic.

  But she’d had oodles of data, back then. Had poured and struggled over it for months to make her conclusion. She’d certainly had more than two little words to process.

  ‘Pregnant.’ Her throat constricted around the word.

  She couldn’t be. Well, she could, she realised when she thought back on the only night it had to have happened; she and Jensen hadn’t used any form of protection.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered as she dropped her head into her hands. She was going to have a baby. The only one in the family that hadn’t wanted children was going to be the first to pop one out.

  Ah, crap. Victoria was going to be pissed.

  ‘If you’re able to tell me the date of your last period, we can estimate how far along you are.’ Doctor Greer pulled his desk calendar over and looked at her expectantly.

  ‘My cycle isn’t regular,’ she told him. ‘It comes when it wants, stays as long as it wants, and disappears again. But I don’t need to work it out, I know exactly when it happened.’

  Wednesday, the Twenty-fourth of February, around 11pm.

  ‘Is the father…’ He made a motion with his hands that seemed to want her to answer a question he hadn’t asked. Is the father a boyfriend? Is the father in the picture? Is the father even alive?

  ‘It’s complicated,’ was all she could manage. Shit, this wasn’t just her baby, this was Jensen’s baby. Jensen who wasn’t here anymore. Jensen who’d died in front of her. One of her hands dropped from her head to her stomach, her fingers absently caressing the area through her dress as if she could somehow feel it already. One of Jensen’s motto's in life had always been to leave a lasting impression on anyone you meet. Well, this time he’d left something that certainly would last.

  One last joke, eh? she thought. You bastard.

  ‘I understand your dilemma,’ Doctor Greer said, jarring her from her thoughts. She glanced up at him, wondering exactly how he could understand her racing mind.

  She was pregnant, the father of her baby dead and buried, and she had no one to turn to. She was utterly alone. This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted children; loneliness was all she remembered from her childhood.

  She’d never truly fitted in anywhere. Too clever for her own good. She’d been shunned by her classmates for being too smart, even for the accelerated programme at Highbourne. Of her family, only Philippa had even begun to understand what it was like to be so clever. Their father, who was the smartest adult young Hattie had known, marvelled at her intelligence. But Pippa had stopped talking to her when she’d been accepted onto the gifted programme at Guildford—nearly two years younger than all the other students who’d been considered. Pippa hadn’t even made the consideration list.

  Of course, her mother saying Hattie wasn’t going hadn’t helped mend that rift, and she’d felt it keenly. It hadn’t helped that almost immediately after her mother’s death, her father had thrown her out without a second thought. Banished her off across the country just days after she’d said her final goodbyes to her mother. And when she’d got there, being almost two years younger than the rest of them hadn’t helped her to make friends, initially. Roman had been her first, quickly followed by Julia and Jensen and then the others had fallen in line too. But it had been a hardening experience, one that had stuck with her all these years.

  If she had ever slightly entertained the idea of having children, it had been with a husband at her side. They’d be a family. She’d give up her work and ensure her child would never feel lonely, would never suffer the way she had. They would know how loved they were by both their parents, who would be utterly devoted to their children.

  But that couldn’t happen. Jensen, who she had no doubt would have whisked her off to somewhere like Las Vegas to marry her the moment she told him the news so he could make an honest woman out of her, was dead.

  Her stomach churned at the thought; he’d never get to hear the news, never smile that wide goofy grin of his at the idea he was going to be a father. He wouldn’t be there at the scans, marvelling at the fact it was his child inside her. He’d miss the birth, miss holding their son or daughter for the first time, miss their first steps, their first words. He was going to miss their whole lives…

  She didn’t realise she was crying until the doctor, who’d stood and stepped up to her side, handed her a tissue. He sat on the edge of his desk and looked down at her with a sad smile. She returned it with her own watery one as she accepted his offering and dabbed at her eyes.

  ‘I know the King will be disappointed with the child being out of wedlock.’ Hattie blinked at the man. ‘But I believe His Majesty—’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ she interrupted. ‘What the hell has the King got to do with my being pregnant?’

  ‘Well, you are his granddaughter.’

  ‘And would you go around making assumptions about the grandfathers of your other patients?’ Doctor Greer stared back at her, his brows lowered in confusion.

  ‘Well, no, but—’

  ‘Then why do you feel the need to mention my grandfather?’

  ‘Well, he’s the King and he runs the country, surely—’

  ‘He might run the country but he doesn’t run my life.’

  She stood up, grabbing her bag from the back of the chair and throwing it over her shoulder. The doctor straightened up at her action, staring at her with wide, distressed eyes. ‘And I’d kindly like to remind you that you are under doctor-patient privilege. If this gets out, I’ll know exactly where it came from. If the King hears about it, I’ll know who told him. I am represented by Cartwright, Daven, Mercer, and Associates, and I promise, you will hear from them if I get even an inkling that you’ve so much given a look to someone to indicate my situation. Do I make myself clear?’

  Doctor Greer dipped his head. ‘Yes, my lady.’

  ‘And the rest of my results?’ she asked.

  ‘All clear, ma’am. Your legs are fine, your feet are looking good, and your hip is so much improved.’ She nodded, but felt his hesitation.

  ‘Go on.’

  The doctor took a deep breath. ‘There looks like there’ll be some scaring on your arm. There’s a patch of skin just above your elbow… Have you suffered any additional trauma there?’

  Hattie’s face scrunched up as she tried to think of anything that could have happened. She was about to shake her head when the heat from Roman’s firm grip on her bicep came back to her. Her arm had burned afterwards and had been uncomfortable for a day or two. She’d used it as a reminder to herself that she needed to stay away from him, that he hadn’t changed. He would use her just the way he had back then given half a chance. She ran her hand over her mouth as she shook her head for the doctor’s benefit.

  ‘Not that I can think of,’ she lied.

  ‘Then that’s eve
rything. I’ll discharge you from our care now.’

  Hattie nodded and folded her coat over her arm as she turned to leave.

  ‘Oh,’ Doctor Greer added. ‘You’ll need to book an appointment with your own GP to discuss the’—he waved his hand towards her and nodded his head—’you know.’

  She gave him another curt nod before opening the door to his office and closing it behind her.

  She smiled at the receptionist as she left, but paid her no real heed. Hattie’s brain raced, but it was a jumbled mess. She needed facts, figures; she needed her data and charts. That’s what she did. She looked at charts and data and theorised on outcomes—most of the time she was right.

  So, she would go back to the hotel, she decided, and sit down and look at this logically. No emotions getting in the way, no feelings clouding her judgement. Just the cold hard facts and then she’d be able to come up with a plan.

  And as long as she had a plan, she’d be fine.

  She was not going to be fine.

  Hattie stared at the printed emails and online bank statements. All her paperwork had been destroyed in the “gas explosion” and so she’d had to wait a day for people to get back to her. For the first time in her life, she’d purposefully used her royal influence just to get everything she needed quickly. She couldn’t wait, she didn’t have time to wait. She was already five weeks pregnant.

  And now that it was all here, everything spread before her on a table—a weird puzzle only she could fit together—she saw she was well and truly screwed.

  Her home, the one she’d been so proud of, where she’d been so happy, had never really been hers. Her father had given it to her as a gift and she knew he’d used some tactics to keep her address a secret, keep her name from appearing on the land registry, but she hadn’t known it had been held in trust. She’d never owned the deeds, and only her query into the insurance pay-out had revealed to her and the vultures holding her and her sisters’ inheritance that the deed had never been signed over to her. They’d actually thanked her for bringing it to light and then told her she wasn’t going to get a single penny of the insurance pay-out as it belonged to the trust again. She could have it when and if she satisfied the stipulations of the will.