Trapped (2 page)

“How can it not? Even if the baby is legally his, it might actually be mine. How can this situation not come between us?”

“What if I’m pressured into having the baby, and everything that I predict comes true? Nottingham gets custody, and proceeds to make the child’s life hell. I’ll be dealing with that for the rest of my life. Won’t that come between us, too? You’re going to resent me for terminating, but I might resent you for talking me out of it.”

I sat down, and put my head in my hands. Another impossible situation we were in. Damned if we did, and damned if we didn’t.

I wished so much that I had a crystal ball that would tell me how all of this was going to shake out. She was absolutely right – there was a chance that this baby was going to cause an interminable amount of grief. I foresaw a heated custody battle, and Nottingham doing his best to screw up the child. Dalilah was going to go through hell, and so would I. There probably would be no way around it.

So, I blurted out the first thing that came to my mind. “We run. We go and live in another country, and Nottingham won’t find us. We change our names and our identities, and we run. That’s what we do. That’s what we do, Dalilah. We run.”

To my surprise, Dalilah actually looked hopeful. “That could work,” she said. “I have some Irish relatives. Distant ones, for sure, as they’re the descendants of my grandma Maggie’s cousins. At least one of those descendants is living in London as we speak. His name is Liam. I don’t know much about him, but maybe my dad could get in touch with him and see if he could put us up for a spell. Just until we can get used to that city and find our way around it.”

I nodded my head. London actually sounded like an awesome idea to me. The art scene there was thriving, especially for my kind of cutting edge works, and Dalilah’s, too. And Paris was just a train ride away. “London,” I said. “I love that idea. But what if Nottingham tracks us down there? I was actually thinking of something more like Siberia or Bora Bora.” I was only half-joking, really. London sounded like a heavenly idea, but it wasn’t exactly the most inauspicious place. Nottingham Industries was international, which meant that Nottingham would be doing business in London. The chances of us running into him would be slight, but still a problem. And if he runs into us and sees that there’s a child…I shuddered to think such a thing.

“No, Luke,” she said. “We’ll just have to do a good job of covering our tracks. Living like two people in the witness protection plan. I don’t quite know how we’re going to be able to change our identities, but perhaps that won’t even be a problem. London is a big place, Luke. We could get lost in there. Nottingham won’t know to look there for us, either. And, best of all, we’d both have a fresh start with our art. I’ll be sad to leave my family, of course, but Nick owns a house in Italy, and my dad has a winery there, too. They go to Europe all the time. We’ll still be able to see them.”

Was this going to work? It didn’t matter, it had to be done. Even if it didn’t work, we had to at least try. It was a plan, which was better than the other plans that we managed to cook up. It was infinitely better than terminating the child, and also infinitely better than letting the child be ruined by Nottingham. Of that, I was sure.

Of everything else, I was less sure.

Chapter 2

Dalilah

So, we were going to run. Was it the ideal situation? Hell, no. The ideal situation would be that there wasn’t a baby at all. But it did seem to be the best solution, considering the circumstances.

I really didn’t see any way around it. That I would be charged with possible kidnapping if Nottingham ever found out about the baby and the fact that I ran to keep it from him, was not even on my radar. Luke and I were going to have to take a chance that we would never be found.

But, deep down, I knew that it was fruitless. Nottingham was going to track me down. If he had to send private investigators to every part of the globe, he was going to do it. Even if he didn’t know about the baby.

I had to try, though. At the very least, I had to give Luke and me some distance from the whole Nottingham situation, so that I could think about my next move. There was a way out of this, I knew it, that didn’t necessarily involve Luke and I running from place to place for the rest of our lives, like fugitives. I just didn’t see it, but it would come to me.

In the meantime, though, I had to tell my mom and dad about all of this mess. Like it or not, I was going to have to tell them. If nothing else, dad might be able to contact Liam and see if I could stay with him. I didn’t know much about Liam, except that he was some kind of mogul over in London, and was very wealthy. He was young, only 27, and had made a fortune in the music business, representing some of the hottest acts in the world, before establishing his own record label. Last I knew, he was literally a self-made billionaire.

I personally had never met the guy, which made it strange that I was going to try to see if I could stay with him for the time being. But he was the only relative that I knew who lived in London. All the other Gallaghers were scattered around Cork, Drogheda and Dublin. As much as I had always wanted to live in Ireland, secretly, I knew that London had a much hotter art scene. This would give both of us a fresh start, which Luke was desperately needing after the apparent rejection from all of the people he met at his premiere. I looked forward to getting a fresh start, myself.

So
,
a few days after Luke
and I had made our tentative plans to run away from the whole Nottingham situation, I found myself waiting for my mom, dad, Nick and Scotty to meet me for dinner at Wolfgang Puck’s. I dreaded talking to them, but I asked Nick to at least give mom and dad a heads-up on the topic of discussion that day. Mom had already called me, hysterical at the thought that I was thinking of terminating my child. I had to talk her down off the ledge, but I managed to get it under control when I reassured her that I wouldn’t be depriving her of a grandchild after all.

They met me, and we all sat down.

“Okay,” I said, addressing the four people at the table. The four people who, aside from Luke, meant the absolute most to me in the world. “I guess Nick has filled all of you in on the fact that I’m pregnant, and what that means, considering my situation with Nottingham.”

“Yes,” my dad said. “I’ve already gotten in touch with some of the best family law attorneys in the city. I’ve gotten a few lined up that will help you fight this one all the way.”

I shook my head. “You’ll be fighting fire with fire. Whoever you find to represent me, Nottingham will have better. You aren’t the only billionaire involved in this situation, dad. You can’t throw money at this and hope that it resolves itself.”

“I don’t understand,” mom said. “You assured me that you would keep this child. And you don’t seem to want to fight Nottingham in court. So, what is your plan?”

I took a deep breath. “My plan is to move to London and start fresh. Luke and I have already talked it through, and we know the possible consequences.”

My dad was shaking his head. “No, you can’t do that. That is essentially kidnapping, I hope you know that. You’re going to be acting like a criminal by doing that, and you will also be treated like a criminal when Nottingham finds out what happened. You have to face this. I didn’t fight enough when I found out that you were going to marry that man, but I’m putting my foot down now. You can’t do this.”

I sighed. I was prepared for this. “Dad, once again, it’s not a matter of my asking permission. I’m an adult. You can’t stop me. And believe me, I’ve thought about this situation eight ways to Sunday. I see no other solution. Yes, there could be devastating consequences if Nottingham sees what I’ve done, but I’ll just have to face them if it comes to that. The other solutions to this situation are untenable. Either I terminate or I let Nottingham ruin this baby. Neither of those are options for me. I mean, I admit, the first idea I had was to have an abortion. But Luke made me see that there was possibly another way. And I’m going to take it. The odds are against us living our lives in peace, but I like the odds of Luke and I getting away with this a helluva lot more than the odds that Nottingham won’t get custody of this child.”

Dad was still shaking his head. “I won’t see my daughter become a criminal.”

I took a deep breath, and looked at Nick, who, surprisingly enough, wasn’t saying a word.

I raised an eyebrow. “Sometimes, dad, you have to break the law if a situation is bad enough. I would think that you, of all people, would know this.” I looked at Nick again, pointedly, and he shook his head.

Dad looked over at Nick, and then back at me. “How did you know?”

“I just do,” I said. “I was a bratty kid, and wanting to learn how to do subversive things. I taught myself to hack, and I found out about Paul Lucas, and what really happened to him. And all that I can say is that Uncle Nick is in no position to…”

Scotty’s face got white, and I immediately felt bad. Nick looked like he was going to come over to my side of the table and strangle me with his bare hands. He turned to Scotty. “Scotty, honey, I need to speak with Dalilah alone.”

Scotty just put her hand on his, and said “no need. I know. I’ve always known what happened to that bastard. I’ve just never told you that I knew.”

I immediately felt terrible for bringing up this can of worms, especially since that was apparently some kind of secret between Nick and Scotty all of these years.

“Crap,” Nick said. “Then I guess I need to talk to you alone. Later, though.” He shook his head and addressed me. “When are you going to stop bringing this up, Dalilah? It happened, it was years ago, and he got what was coming to him. Let it go.”

It was my dad’s turn to look mystified. “Wait,” he said to Nick. “You knew that Dalilah found out about that, and you never told me?”

He shrugged. “I didn’t find it to have any relevance. Dalilah promised, on her word, that she wouldn’t let that whole sorry incident out of the bag, but, apparently, she’s not good with her word.”

“Listen,” I said. “I only brought that up to let you guys know that sometimes you have to make solutions that are not exactly legal, when you’re up against the wall. That’s what I’m going to do, here.”

Dad looked like he wanted to slap me, which is a look that I had never seen on his face. “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” he said. “Listen, I’ve made mistakes in my life. Nick has, too. Your mother has made mistake, Scotty too. We’ve all made mistakes. Some of them were pretty huge ones. But that doesn’t give you
carte blanche
to repeat the pattern.”

“That wasn’t a mistake, Ryan,” Nick said. “Paul Lucas wasn’t a mistake. He got what was coming to him, and you know it.”

“That’s not the topic of conversation, here,” dad said to Nick. “The topic is whether or not my daughter will commit a felony by doing what she’s planning on doing. Dalilah is the topic, here, not what you and I did 17 years ago to a pervert who didn’t really deserve to live.”

“Huh, dad,” I said. “Nick made himself judge, jury and executioner of that man. And you’re going to lecture me on what I’m about to do?”

At that, my dad slapped my face, hard. I put my hand up to my cheek, and looked at him. He had an expression that I had never seen in my entire life. His face was red, his eyes menacing, his mouth turned down. “You will never talk to me like that again,” he said. “How did you turn out like this? So devious, so underhanded. I didn’t raise you to be a criminal. And you will never bring up Nick’s past to try to justify your shitty actions. You will face up to what you wrought by doing what you did with Nottingham – using him, getting trapped by him, and marrying him for the wrong reasons – and you will do it within the bounds of the law. Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” I said, thinking to myself that I was just going to have to run away with Luke without his blessing. I looked over at my mother, who wasn’t saying much. She at least seemed to have a little bit of humility, considering all the devious things that she did in her own youth. Namely, running away from my dad when she was pregnant with me. She, essentially, did what I was proposing to do in this situation, only my motivation for doing so was much, much different than her motivations for running away all those years ago.

Ironic. For once, my mom really seemed to understand me. At least, if I read her expression correctly, she understood me. It seemed that she was furtively trying to give her non-verbal approval for what it was that I was going to do. 

My mom put her hand on my dad’s. “Calm down, Ryan,” she said. “Listen, you and I have to talk about this later.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” dad said. “I know what you’re thinking, beautiful, and it’s not the same thing at all. You running from me when you were pregnant with Dalilah wasn’t the same thing as what Dalilah is proposing to do.”

“It’s not?” mom asked. “What’s the difference?”

“For one, you knew that I wouldn’t press charges for kidnapping. At least, I hope that you knew that.”

“Regardless, it’s the same thing,” mom counteracted. “If you’re going to call Dalilah a felon, then you’re essentially saying that I’m a felon, too. Really, if you get to the heart of the matter, that’s true.”

Oh, god. Now, I was turning everybody against each other. I never wanted to drive a wedge between my parents, let alone Nick and Scotty, yet it seemed that everybody was angry with one another all of a sudden.

I dug up their pasts in a way that I probably shouldn’t have. I essentially opened the long-festering sores that lay deep underneath two seemingly rock-solid marriages. I immediately tried to put a lid on it, while telling them that I was still going to run, and they couldn’t stop me anymore than they could have stopped me from marrying that bastard in the first place.

I put my hands in the “time-out” position. “Listen, let’s focus, here. I’m really sorry that I’m bringing up sore subjects. I never meant for this meeting to result in there being hard feelings between all of you. But I also want to let you guys know that you should empathize with my situation. You guys have been in impossible situations before, and you took care of it how you saw fit.”

I looked at my mother, and took her hand. “Mom, you ran from dad when you were pregnant with me. I understand why, too, considering that whole Natalie mess. Dad forgave you, and you two moved on.”

Then I looked at Nick. “You plotted the death of the man who was doing horrible things to Aunt Scotty. I’m quite sure that you didn’t want to do that, but you did. You did, because you understood that doing that was the only real solution to an impossible knot of a problem.”

My father shook his head. “What kind of an example have I set for my own daughter?” He no longer looked angry, but, instead, looked extremely sad. “Dalilah, please understand. Everybody at this table has done terrible things. With the possible exception of Scotty. But, please don’t repeat the pattern. I know it sounds hypocritical and like I’m telling you to do as I say, not as I do.”

I felt sorry for him, because he looked so defeated. I saw in his face that he was beginning to understand that nothing that he could say or do would stop me from doing what it was that I felt was necessary. I also saw in his expression the shame and guilt over his own actions in the past, and the apparent effect that these actions had on me. He knew that he had little moral ground to stand on in lecturing me, and this devastated him beyond measure. I knew that, just by reading his facial expression and body language.

Of course, I had no idea exactly what role my dad played in the Paul Lucas affair. I did know that he at least knew about it, and probably approved of it. This made him as guilty as Nick in my book. This would be why he was coming across as so guilty.

“Dad, don’t blame yourself,” I said. “Truth be told, I’ve always at least tried to be a good girl. I haven’t succeeded by any stretch of the imagination. I keep getting myself into these impossible knots, and, when it comes to this one, I see no way out of it except for to try to run from it. If you can tell me a truly viable solution to my problem, I’m all ears. And, no, telling me that we’re going to fight Nottingham in court isn’t a viable solution to me. Because you and I both know that the chances of prevailing on this will be slim at best.”

Dad just looked at me with those sad green eyes. I felt depressed just seeing that expression on his face. So much regret, guilt and shame in those eyes…my mom had a similar expression, but hers was more sadness for knowing that I, once again, had screwed up my life. And that I, once again, was about to do something to possibly screw it up even further.

Finally, dad just sighed. “What’s your plan?”