Baby and the Beast

by Taylor Holloway

  My bosom heaved as I replied. I was panting from the force of his kiss. Even after slicing a man’s throat and exploding a submarine, it was Steve’s expression that scared me most of all. I wanted him so badly. “I’m fine. I’ll probably be stiff tomorrow,” I managed. My accent was exotic.

  He smiled down at me, plucking one spaghetti strap off my shoulder. Then the other. The dress slipped down another two inches, barely concealing my nipples. I arched my back, wanting to display myself for him. “I’m stiff right now,” he growled.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” a familiar baritone voice snapped. I froze. My dirty fantasy was shattered in an instant. As the scene cut to black and the credits rolled, Connor advanced on me up the dusty aisle. “There was one place in this whole house you weren’t supposed to be,” he said. His voice was furious. “What are you doing in here? And why are you watching my movie?”

  14

  Connor

  The Rulebreaker

  “Oh, hi Connor,” Isabelle said. Her voice was innocent enough, but she wasn’t. She smiled nervously at me. “I hope I didn’t wake you up with the movie. The explosion of the submarine was kind of loud at the end, huh? My bad.”

  It was her bad. It was definitely her bad.

  I swallowed my fury. Of course, she’d woken me up with the damn movie. My movie. At three-thirty a.m. My bedroom was directly above this movie theater (in hindsight, a poor design choice). But it shouldn’t have mattered because Isabelle wasn’t supposed to be in here.

  My expression and speechless fury somehow compelled Isabelle to keep talking. She cleared her throat delicately before continuing.

  “I was just watching a movie,” Isabelle stuttered. She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. She stared at me bearing down at her down the aisle with wide eyes. Her little pale hands picked at the edges of her silky sheep-covered pajama top. “My laptop screen is really small, you know. And I was bored, and I couldn’t sleep,” she licked her lips nervously, “so I thought I’d just come down here and—”

  “Break the rules. Again,” I finished for her. I was so angry I could scream. Somehow I managed not to. “There was one area in this entire house I wanted to keep private. One. You have the run of the entire rest of the house. But that wasn’t good enough, was it?”

  Isabelle blinked at me. “I just wanted to see what was in here.” Her voice was small, but not chastened. She lifted her chin and regarded me seriously in the low light of the rolling credits. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t let me come in here. It’s interesting. I like movies. I like all the props.”

  “You like the props?!” I was nearly apoplectic. Somehow, I was keeping my voice even. I suspected it wouldn’t last. “Isabelle, this is my space. Mine.”

  “You clearly don’t use it much,” she babbled. “I don’t see what harm—”

  I took a deep breath and counted to five in my mind. I only made it to three.

  “It’s dangerous in here! Do you see how much crap is in here! I should have burned it all years ago. You could have tripped. Or you could have been crushed by a box. Or—”

  She giggled. Giggled.

  “Connor. That’s not the reason you didn’t want me in here.” She cocked her head to the side like she had me all figured out now. Now that she’d seen one of my movies. “You didn’t want me to see what you used to be like, did you?”

  Oh god. That tone of voice she was using. That condescending, insolent, know-it-all tone of voice. My hands balled up into frustrated fists.

  “Dammit, Isabelle!” I yelled. “What is wrong with you? I tried. I really did. I tried to make you comfortable. I tried to make you happy. I wanted to have dinner with you tonight, just to make sure everything was okay, but you—” I sucked in a breath to continue my tirade. “You had to throw it all back in my face. And now you think that you get me?”

  “I—”

  I was right up in her face now. “Don’t talk. Don’t say a word. I’m not interested in what you have to say. Get back to your room and—”

  “Don’t you order me around!” Isabelle snapped back at me. “Don’t you even take that tone with me.”

  “My tone?!” I roared. “Don’t talk to me about my fucking tone, you little—"

  “Shut up,” she said, rising so she could come up all the way to nowhere and try to stare down her nose at me. Her brown eyes flashed with excitement and anger in the low light from the sconces. “Your tone. You’re so incredibly rude I can’t even describe it. Before I met you, I couldn’t imagine someone as unpleasant and horrible as you. I bet you just don’t want me to see what you were like before you decided to become a creepy ass shut-in that yells at anything and anyone that doesn’t obey him. Back when you lived in the world with normal people and knew how to treat other human beings. But you know what? I’m glad I saw it. Because now I know just how far you’ve fallen. How deeply fucked up you are. And now I get it. You’re insane. Actually, totally, incurably insane. Like certifiably insane and needing to be locked up like the animal you’ve become. And I’m not going to stay here and be verbally abused, or ordered around, or manipulated by a crazy man. I’ll take the half-price deal rather than stay here another second. Bye-bye, Connor Prince. See you when I deliver.”

  She started to stomp past me, and I shot out an arm to stop her on instinct. She bumped into my arm. Her eyes flashed up to mine. Just for a fraction of a second, I saw an emotion flash over her features. It was fear. Fear of me. Like I was going to stop her. Hit her. Hurt her.

  God no.

  A gut punch would have been less painful. As I was trying to find my breath again, she was pushing my arm aside casually and I was letting it happen because I was so shocked and disgusted with myself that I couldn’t think. Isabelle was stomping out of the theater and off to God knows where. And I was frozen.

  I couldn’t breathe. I could barely think. My mind was reeling.

  What had I just done? That was Isabelle I’d just been screaming at. The woman carrying my unborn baby.

  I’m not sure how many minutes elapsed while I stood speechless and stunned in my ruin of a home theater. It could have been twenty minutes. It could have been an hour. But when I came back to my body, three things were clear.

  The first thing was that Isabelle was right. She was one hundred percent correct. About me. About everything. I didn’t want her in here because it reminded me of who I used to be. It reminded me of a life that got taken from me for reasons I still didn’t fully understand and hadn’t dealt with. It reminded me of a man I used to be. A man I’d been proud of being. Not this useless husk that I’d become. Someone worth being. Having her in here, exposed to that other Connor Prince, it was painful and humiliating. And because I’d been hurt and humiliated, I’d lashed out. She’d just been the first thing in my way.

  Which brought me to the second thing. Isabelle had just run away. She’d run away from me in a huge hurry too, probably not realizing that the first blizzard of the season was hitting outside. She was from Los Angeles with a short stint of her short life spent in Texas. She didn’t know jack shit about snow. And she was about to get lost in it. She could die in it. Out here in the middle of nowhere, exposure was a real possibility. I was willing to bet Isabelle didn’t know how to survive in snow. She’d probably never seen real snow before.

  And the third thing? When she’d bumped into me, she’d stolen my keys and mobile phone. I’m sure she’d figured out by now that the WiFi and mobile reception in a castle with three-foot-thick stone walls was horrible. She’d probably figured that my phone would have better reception, and that I’d have loads of keys to all the cars in the garage. She was right about the second part, but not about the first part. My reception was godawful because the whole property was in the middle of an honest-to-God dead zone. But at least if she had my phone, I could track her with my watch.

  I took off sprinting toward the garage. I had to find her before she got herself, and my baby, killed. What I was going to do when I fo
und her, I didn’t know. Apologize. Throw myself at her mercy. I wasn’t exactly sure. I’d figure that out on the way. But first, I had to find her before it was too late.

  15

  Isabelle

  The Change of Heart

  The jeep SUV that I stole wasn’t built for snow. Not remotely. It thankfully wasn’t one of the Jeeps that didn’t have doors or a roof—it was more or less a real vehicle—but it wasn’t a snowmobile and we were in the middle of a blizzard. I only made it about three miles before it sputtered over a snowbank and got stuck.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit,” I mumbled to myself. I hopped out into the bitterly cold, windy night. There was a flashlight in the glove box, and I turned it on the bumper to realize that I would have to dig the Jeep out. The only problem? I was still wearing fuzzy sheep pajamas and I didn’t have a shovel. I was also lost, cold, and still somewhat shaken.

  “Think, Izzie,” I said aloud. “Think before you make things worse again.”

  I’d made a horrible, terrible mistake. The biggest mistake of my life. And I don’t mean running away into the snowy California mountains at three a.m.

  I meant coming here in the first place. I agreed to something life-altering without knowing what it would mean. I thought I could handle nine months of massages and pedicures in a castle. For a million dollars, I thought I could handle just about anything. Even having a baby and walking away from it.

  But after two weeks locked up in a gilded cage, I was about to lose my damn mind. I’d been fulfilling my end of the bargain. I was eating the goddamn kale and salmon salads and quinoa bowls the chef sent up. I was going on daily walks as recommended by my new personal trainer. I was even doing yoga. But outside of the two or three daily activities that were planned out for me, I was utterly bored.

  I was pregnant, sure, but there was nothing happening yet. It was too early. At this point in most women’s pregnancies, they don’t even know they’re pregnant. But I was being treated like I was nine months pregnant and mentally deficient to boot.

  There were so many rules that weren’t even in the damn contract. No nail polish remover. No sushi. No running, or jumping, or riding the beautiful horses that lived in the amazing barn right next to the house. No binding clothes. No hot showers lasting more than twenty minutes, but also no cold showers. No high heeled shoes. No touching dangerous chemicals, like paint or hair dye. Limited salt intake. I couldn’t even go swimming more than twice a week.

  Mostly, I just sat around, drawing, reading, or playing on the internet. It might sound fun, and for maybe two or three days, it was. But after weeks? It was hell. And it got more hellish every day.

  I’d reorganized my closet, learned to play solitaire, and even dabbled in dominos. But it wasn’t enough. I needed something to do.

  I’d been working a job steadily since I was sixteen. I liked working. It gave me purpose. I didn’t know how to be idle. And the WiFi here sucked. Every time the snow started, and it was snowing more and more now that we were in late November, my mobile service went out, too. When both the cell service and the WiFi were down, I felt trapped, alone, and ignored. Luc was largely unavailable, Jimmy was avoiding me, and the chef and maid only spoke Spanish.

  I’d been praying that Connor’s return would change things.

  I’d been sure that when Connor got back, he would have a really, really good excuse for why he wasn’t replying to my emails. I hadn’t thought it was possible that he’d show up and not care that I was miserable. But when Luc had delivered my dinner summons this afternoon, it had pushed me over the edge.

  And then to be yelled at about watching a movie? A fucking movie? I’d been bored. I’d always wanted to see it. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to anyone about anything. It was ridiculous, degrading, and hurtful.

  I was so done. He couldn’t just come into my room and interrogate me or yell at me because I broke his little rules. That was too far.

  Contract or no contract, he couldn’t keep me here against my will. I wasn’t a prisoner. I wouldn’t get paid nearly as much if I took off, but I’d still get paid. At this point, getting paid only half as much was a price that I was very willing to pay. A half million dollars was still a shitload of money. I’d be fine.

  “Eat shit, asshole,” I’d whispered as I drove off into the snowy, dark night with no direction. “See you in nine months. Or hopefully not.”

  Now, however, here in the snow, in the dark, I wasn’t sure my escape plan was so smart. I’d looked for my Hyundai in the garage, but I couldn’t find it. Maybe they hid it so I couldn’t run away. Maybe they’d junked it because they thought they could keep me here forever. Well, it hadn’t worked. Because the key that Connor had on him started up this stupid Jeep, and at least it had four-wheel drive.

  Only now I was stuck in the snow. If I looked over my shoulder back the way I came, I could still see the castle’s dark shape. I’d gone down a winding, twisting road that I’d hoped would lead me back to the main artery that would lead me to civilization. Only now I was stuck in a snowbank.

  It was also very, very cold.

  My fingers were starting to get numb. My nose was burning. My glasses were all fogged up and I hadn’t even been smart enough to go back to my room and get a damn jacket. I cursed my stupid sheep pajamas. I could have at least worn the flannel ones.

  “Come on, come on,” I said to Connor’s phone. It had all of half a bar of service. I had stolen his phone because I figured he would have super-expensive fancy satellite service or something. Apparently, he didn’t. He had a different carrier than me, but it was doing no better than my budget service out here in the middle of nowhere. “Please work.”

  I tried to dial my dad, but it didn’t ring more than once before puttering out. I tried a few more times, but it never connected. My little slippers were doing nothing to keep my feet warm in the snow, so I got back in the cab before I got too cold. I knew from my biweekly doctors’ visits that being either too cold or too hot wasn’t good for the baby. I was definitely too cold at the moment.

  I kept the engine running in the snow as I tried to figure out a solution. If I got out of the Jeep and tried to dig out, I’d freeze. If I tried to turn back and walk to the castle, I’d probably get lost and freeze. It was still snowing and even following my own tracks back to the castle would be difficult. Also, I had on slippers and pajamas.

  That left two options. I could stay here until someone found me, by which time I’d probably be an Isabelle popsicle. Or, I could try to make it on foot back out to the main road, which I knew had to be somewhere within a couple of miles. At least out there, someone might find me. And take me away. Far away. Anywhere but here sounded good right about now.

  As I was trying to decide what to do, the engine sputtered and turned off. I turned the key, but nothing happened. It was only then that I realized the fuel gauge was on empty. That made my decision a lot easier.

  I pulled together my courage and started out into the snow. My only hope was that someone would find me once I reached the main road. Because I wasn’t ever going back.

  16

  Connor

  The Runaway

  In another life, I’d been an army ranger. It took about ten seconds for me to figure out what Isabelle had done. She’d stolen my phone and my keys and bolted in the first vehicle she could get to start. I couldn’t blame her, but now, I had to find her before she got hurt. It was too dark and too snowy for her to be out there alone. I’m sure she had no idea how much danger she was in. Luckily, I had everything I needed to track her.

  I probably should have left a note for Luc or Jimmy, but I couldn’t waste the minutes searching for paper. I knew my phone had limited battery and the ‘find my phone’ function on my watch would only work as long as the phone was on. That meant there was no time to waste.

  The Jeep SUV was missing from the garage. The snow machine was right next to it with the key in the ignition, but Isabelle probably didn’t know how to drive one. Eve
n though the snowy mountains were only two and a half hours away from Los Angeles, most Angelenos don’t know the first thing about snow. At least Isabelle was thinking clearly enough not to try and drive a souped-up snow machine with no training. That thing was basically a motorcycle for snow. I’d bought it intending to learn to operate it, but never got around to it. That vehicle would get her killed faster than the snow itself. Which was also why I didn’t start it up. I ran to the stables, knowing that in the dark a smart, trained horse with winter shoes was a far safer choice than an idiot on a snow machine.

  Oil Slick Ebony Lightning, otherwise known just as Slick, was a prize quarter horse I’d purchased at the height of my fame and fortune. He was expensive, very expensive, but utterly gorgeous, and unlike most of my friends at the time, he didn’t give two shits when I went from America’s most loved actor to America’s most reviled former actor. He liked me just as much now as he ever had. He was a good boy.

  Slick was, however, not that excited about being woken up in the middle of the night for a snowy ride. He kept looking at me like I’d lost my mind, which only goes to show how perceptive animals are. I had lost my mind. I’d scared Isabelle so badly she ran away.

  I got him out and ready to go in record time though and followed the fading Jeep tracks out into the night. If I’d been twenty minutes later, the tracks would have been gone, and Isabelle, potentially forever, with them. My blood rushed in my ears as I rode. It was the only noise amidst the hush of the falling snow.

  “You did this,” I growled to myself as I rode. We weren’t going quickly; it was too risky. It was better to go slowly and over the snowpack that I knew was stable. “You brought this on yourself you pathetic, stupid sonofabitch.”