Page 47 of The Marriage Mistake

I wouldn’t let him make a mess of this.

I met his gaze, lifting my chin. “You need to take a couple of slow, deep breaths right now, because if you tear that door off its hinges, you will do damage that cannot be fixed. And I’m not talking about physical damage to the house.”

He snarled, but no sound came out. Somewhere, in that whirling mass of panic and fear, he knew I was right. He shoved a hand in his hair and pulled, and a flash of real fear went through his eyes.

I slipped past him and put my face close to the door. “Darby, are you safe right now?”

A sniffle. “What?”

“Are you in immediate danger?”

“No,” came the sullen answer, followed by a choked sob.

“Are you having any chest pain?”

“Chest pain?” Even though the door was closed, I could see her sassy arched eyebrow.

“Chest pain, heart palpitations, trouble breathing? Something that might require immediate medical attention?”

“Oh my God, no.”

“Good.” I went through my mental catalogue of risks from most severe to least. The next on the list was, “Are you bleeding? Do you have an injury?”

There was a pause. While I’d been asking Darby questions, Jack had stood behind me with his hands on his hips and his gaze focused on the floor. The heat of him seared my back. That pause made his head snap up.

I held up my hand to stop him from talking. The seconds trickled by, and he vibrated with stress and worry.

But he didn’t speak.

Finally, Darby’s voice came through the door, small and scared. “I… Can you come in here?”

I blinked. “Um. Me?”

“Yes, you!” Darby wailed.

“Okay! Okay, yes! Fine.” It was my turn to look at Jack with panicked eyes. He scowled at me, then shooed his hands toward the door to hurry me in.

The lock on the bathroom door snicked, and I knew it was open. I took a deep breath, glanced at Jack one more time, and went inside.

JACK

I was not okay. I was very fucking far from okay.

It had seemed like yesterday when I’d held Darby for the first time, a little red, wrinkly bundle angry at being expelled from the womb. From that moment on, my life had changed. I was a father. I’d vowed to be the best father I could be, no matter what. No matter who. No matter when.

Darby was all I had, and I was all Darby had.

As I leaned against the wall next to the bathroom door, I forced myself to calm down and realized the tightness that had gripped my chest had eased more than I’d expected.

It was because of Ember; I trusted her. I trusted her with the most precious person in my life—my daughter—at a moment when I felt utterly lost and powerless.

TWELVE

EMBER

Darby sat on the floor with her back against the edge of the bathtub. Her forehead was pressed to her knees, and her entire body shook with each inhalation.

I closed the door behind me and froze. There was no calculation that could be made to make sense of this situation. The teenage girl crumpled on the bathroom floor in front of me was not something I could explain with a spreadsheet. There was no innate motherly quality inside me. I was completely out of my depth.