Baby and the Beast

by Taylor Holloway

  “He was moving the drugs,” Quin was telling the newswoman when I tuned back in. “I was working in my office one night when I heard something. I walked over to where we’d secured some of the drugs that we’d recovered from Saddam’s palace. Saddam had whole stockpiles of the stuff. Mostly heroin. Anyway,” he paused, shaking his head dramatically and like it hurt him just to remember my crimes, “I came in and found Prince loading the pallets. I asked him what he was doing, and man, he just broke. We’d never had an issue before, but he had some kind of psychotic break. He just attacked me like an animal.”

  They trotted out the depositions from my trial next. I’d admitted to everything, of course. There was so much to sort through they probably could have spent the whole hour on my so-called crimes. But that wasn’t the focus of the program.

  “What do you think should have happened to Connor Prince?” the newswoman asked Quin.

  He looked pained. He shook his head back and forth slowly before answering, really milking his moment for all that it was worth. “I think he should have gone to jail. If he were anyone else, he would have had to pay for his crimes. I haven’t been able to keep a job since I got home. I have good medical care from the army, but it’s not enough. If this had happened stateside, I could have sued him. I could have gotten financial justice for myself. My wife left me. She took the kids. I lost my house. I can’t work. Now I have nothing. And he has everything.”

  The interview ended and the newswoman came back on, alone. Her expression was somehow even more serious than it had been before. “What I want viewers to understand is that Connor Prince has been thriving for these past thirteen years.” Thriving? What the fuck? I’d been living under a rock until the last month or so. “He’s been operating under his legal name, Connor Palczynski. He’s produced a dozen movies, many of which have been financial successes. He’s even been acting under makeup and doing stunts in some of those movies. Connor Prince has managed to avoid any of the consequences of his actions. You tell me if that’s fair.”

  The program ended with an invitation for her viewers to tweet, email, and Instagram her their opinions. She also invited me on to tell my side of the story, which was never going to fucking happen. Then the screen faded to black. Luc, Isabelle, and I stared at the laptop, and then at each other.

  “What happens now?” Isabelle asked.

  Someone knocked on the door. I looked out the window to see news vans starting to pull up to the curb. Paparazzo’s were with them, easily identifiable by their lack of business formal clothes. The sharks smelled the blood in the water and were assembling for the feast. In just the time that we’d been watching the video, a small crowd had assembled outside my door. Everyone would want a piece of the response now.

  So much for my plan to go on a walk through the park with Isabelle today. The entire fucking news media was on my front lawn.

  “It’s all happening again,” I said, thinking that going through this media circus was my absolute worst nightmare. “This is actually happening again.”

  Only this time, it wasn’t just me that would be in the crosshairs. Isabelle was here. The baby was coming. I had no idea what to do.

  “We’re also going to have to talk to the underwriters,” Luc added. “This will cause them to panic. They’re going to pull out of Night Stalker. We have to prepare to lose that film.”

  “What do you mean, lose it?” Isabelle stuttered. “We’ve been working on it for months. It’s almost done. I don’t understand.”

  Luc shook his head back and forth slowly. He looked as stressed out as I’d ever seen him, and I hated that I was to blame for it. He’d always been such a good friend to me. “I’ll explain on the way. I’m going to take you out the back door, Isabelle,” he told her. “We need to get you out of here. Jimmy is waiting at the helipad. We’ve got to move.”

  “Connor?” Isabelle asked. “What does he mean? Why do I need to go? What’s happening?”

  I was paralyzed. I wanted to comfort Isabelle. This was going to be too much for her to handle alone. She had no idea what a media feeding frenzy looked like. “I’m going too,” I told Luc. “We’ll go back to the castle together. Weather this. Ride out the worst of it and then deal with the press through proxies. I should go with you.”

  Luc shook his head. “No. Connor you have to fight this. You, personally. We can’t hide from it; it makes you look guilty. Your publicist will be here in fifteen minutes. You should go shave and get dressed. You should really be clean shaven and wearing a suit for this. They need to see you.”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  “We’re going to fight this, aren’t we?” he said, looking confused. “You can’t just let them—”

  I shook my head, still feeling weightless and confused. “I don’t want to fight this. I tried fighting this thirteen years ago. And look how that turned out.”

  I was tired of fighting. So tired. Why did everything have to be a fight? There was never any point…

  Isabelle leapt up, perhaps reading my face. “You have to fight this.” Her eyes were huge. She pressed her hands against my chest and stared up at me furiously. “You were just slandered on national TV. Luc, I’m right, tell him I’m right. This is finally your chance to tell the truth.”

  Her expression was resolute, and it made my heart hurt. She was so convinced that the world was a good place. She believed that most people were kind, just, and fair, and it simply wasn’t true. The world was a shit place populated mostly by shitty people. There were a few good ones, sure, but they were the extreme minority. This was going to open her eyes to the way the real world worked. I hated that it was going to happen because of me. I liked her innocent like this, it gave me optimism, and God knew I could use all I could get.

  Luc, who I’d always believed was a pragmatist like me, seemed to be on her side though.

  “She’s right, Connor.” His expression was earnest. “We don’t have time to discuss it right now, but Connor, she’s right. Your time hiding as Connor Palczynski is over. You have to fight this now or there’ll be nothing left. You’ll never be able to work again.”

  I’d fought last time and failed. It felt pointless to try, to put myself through that hell again when the outcome would be the same. But I wasn’t going to argue with Luc. He needed to get Isabelle away from the media storm before all our access routes were cut off and she was trapped here.

  “Take Isabelle and get out of here,” I told Luc. “I have to get ready for… whatever this is gonna’ be.”

  48

  Isabelle

  The Waiting Game

  “I know who did this to Connor,” I said to Luc as we drove to the helipad. “I know who drummed this all up.”

  He looked over at me. “What?”

  I took a deep breath. This was all my fault. “It was Ashton Radley.” Luc looked skeptical, but I plunged forward. “I know you think I just want to blame everything on Ashton Radley,” I told Luc, “but it was him. The other day he came into the prop workshop. He invited me to some horrible Instagrammer party. I guess he needed arm candy and thought for some reason that I would jump at the idea.”

  “Isn’t this the guy who tried to physically assault you?” Luc said. “That you kicked in the balls? He came back for more?”

  I nodded. “Oh yeah. It’s him alright. But he apparently didn’t get the message because he did indeed come back for more rejection. Which I gave him and explained that I was pregnant and seeing someone.”

  My body felt like it had just run a marathon. Adrenaline and fear were making me weak and shaky. I was sweating. Or maybe the sweating thing was from the pregnancy. It was hard to sort out all the weird shit my body was doing lately. Either way, I was sweaty and I felt terrible. I was also horny. I was horny all the time now. It added to the irritable feeling.

  “This is my fault,” I told Luc. “I told him I was seeing Connor. He must have figured out who he really is.” I swallowed. “I mean, how hard would it be? If som
eone was really trying, they could figure out that Connor Palczynski and Connor Prince are the same person pretty easily. My dad figured it out really fast, remember?”

  “I agree, it isn’t hard to figure out Connor’s true identity,” Luc said. He’d been listening intently. “We never meant for Connor to start operating under an alias, especially not an alias as patently transparent as the name on his birth certificate.” His hands tightened on the steering wheel. His knuckles were white. “Anyone really interested would figure it out in an afternoon.”

  “So, you agree with me, right? It was Ashton Radley. He was super angry that I was pregnant. He said that Connor had ruined me.”

  Luc nodded his head. “It’s definitely plausible. If Radley was jealous of Connor, he might be more than willing to dig up someone to humiliate him.”

  “This is going to destroy Connor, isn’t it?” I asked. “He doesn’t want the spotlight.”

  It took almost a full minute for Luc to respond. “I think Connor’s really torn right now. But Isabelle, none of this is your fault.”

  “It is my fault. I let Radley know I was pregnant. Then, when he guessed who the father was, I confirmed it. He wouldn’t have ever looked into Connor’s real identity if I had just kept my stupid mouth shut. Now the whole movie will probably be destroyed. Connor’s reputation will be destroyed, again. And we’ll have to live with this shadow hanging over us.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for Radley figuring this out. Someone would have eventually figured it out anyway. And most likely, they would have tried to blackmail Connor, or humiliate him, or something like this. I’ve been warning Connor about this for a while, actually. But he’s been turning a blind eye to this vulnerability for some time now. Maybe, in a messed-up way, this is what he needs.”

  I’d been staring out the window, but his last sentence surprised me. I looked back at him.

  “What do you mean? Why is this what he needs?”

  Connor had been through so much already. He’d already had his reputation dragged through the dirt once. It seemed so incredibly cruel for it to happen again.

  “You’ve been good for Connor,” Luc answered. “When I first met you, I thought there was no way you two would get along. You’re too similar. Both too stubborn, too blunt, too convinced that your way of seeing things is correct. But I was wrong. You helped each other. You tempered each other.”

  I listened silently. I was still feeling guilty, but it was nice to know that Luc thought I was good for Connor. He’d been good for me, too. He’d challenged me in ways I’d never anticipated, but he’d also helped me to grow up a little bit. He’d helped me to move on from my mom’s death and think about my future.

  “But more than just being good for Connor,” Luc continued, “you’ve pulled him out of his hidey hole. He’d been retreating further and further from reality. You know that cabin that you two spent the night in? He used to spend months there at a time between productions. It doesn’t even have running water or electricity. He just wanted to be completely alone. I didn’t want to tell you, because I didn’t want to scare you, but Connor wasn’t in a good place mentally when he met you. He had this whole idea that having a baby would fix his problems, but he didn’t need a baby. He needed you.”

  “And now, because of me, all that progress will be erased,” I said, swallowing back tears. “Once he finds out this was my fault, he’ll probably never want to see me again. I’ve ruined his life.”

  “You’ve ruined nothing, Isabelle. You’ve pulled him back into the world. Maybe now, finally now, because he has something to fight for, he’ll change his mind. Maybe he’ll realize that letting the world push him around and tell him who he is doesn’t work for him anymore. Because it isn’t just his reputation that matters. He’s got a partner and a baby on the way. I’m no psychologist, but I have to believe that this might be enough for him to decide to fight.”

  “I hope you’re right,” I told Luc. We were almost at the helipad now. I could see Jimmy standing with the pilot, and I wiped away the tear that had escaped as Luc was talking. “I really hope you’re right, for all our sakes.”

  49

  Connor

  The Visit

  “I don’t want to go on her stupid program,” I told my agent, Elaine. “I don’t see what good it will do.”

  “You have to decide whether or not you’re going to roll over like a bitch and take this or get up off your knees and fight it.”

  Elaine didn’t pull her punches. Maybe if I’d had her in my corner a few years ago, I’d have been more successful in salvaging my career. My publicist back then had insisted that I lay low and hide from the press. That had only encouraged them though. When they realized I wasn’t going to engage with them directly, they took it as ammunition to prove that I was guilty. My lack of fight became an admission of guilt in their eyes, and then in everybody else’s.

  That was back then though. When the news was still fresh. When there was still doubt.

  Today, everyone knew what kind of a man I was. Thanks to that fucking program, everyone had just been very well refreshed on it.

  “I don’t see what good it will do,” I said to Elaine. I was ignoring texts from Luc, Jimmy, and Isabelle telling me to fight. “I just can’t see the benefit.”

  “The benefit is not having to live the rest of your life in a world full of people who think you’re a monster,” she told me. “I would think that would matter to you now that you’re going to have a child. Do you want the other children to ask him why daddy almost killed someone, betrayed his country, and then used his money to cover it up? That’s gonna’ get awkward.”

  I ground my teeth. “Just give me a minute, okay?” I asked her, needing some air. We’d been fighting for the better part of an hour. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Come back with an answer,” she told me. “Because I need to make the booking.”

  I stomped out of my kitchen where we’d been talking and into my backyard. To my surprise, my nephew Tommy had been about to let himself in my back door. We stared at each other in shock.

  “Your people called my dad and he called me,” Tommy said. “I came as soon as I could.”

  Jimmy and Luc. They must have alerted Wallace to the emergency. And Wallace mobilized Tommy.

  “I don’t need a rescue from my nephew,” I said, frowning. I’d been trying to get some air and perspective. Now I was dealing with family. There was nowhere I could run. I felt utterly trapped.

  “Good,” Tommy replied, surprising me. “Because I don’t think that I can rescue you.”

  “But you’re here for a reason. And it isn’t just moral support,” I told him. I knew my brother’s kids pretty well. Tommy was only a few years younger than me. In some ways, Tommy and I were more like brothers than Wallace and I were.

  “Moral support?” Tommy laughed. “Yeah, that’s not really my strong suit.”

  He wasn’t the type to show up and hold my hand because the situation was scary. Wallace didn’t do that with his own children, and Tommy wouldn’t do it with me. Not only because I’d fucking hate it, but it wasn’t our family’s way. We were kind of a tough love bunch when it came right down to it.

  “Then what?” I asked. There had to be a reason. He wouldn’t come sniffing around for no reason.

  “I came because your people and my dad asked me to. That accountant, Jimmy? He called and said I had to come over and give you some news because you weren’t answering your phone. Or your emails.”

  I ground my teeth. Damn it, Jimmy. They knew I was terrible with texts and emails. It was my Achilles heel. I needed conversations to be in person. So, they summoned my nephew to be their errand boy.

  “Am I paying you to deliver my messages?” I asked. I wouldn’t put it past Tommy to demand an hourly fee for his services. He was always a smart kid. Of any of us, Tommy was the most like Wallace in that respect.

  “You can’t afford me,” he replied, laughing. “My hourly rate would b
ankrupt you in an afternoon. But don’t worry. This I’m doing for free. I have to look out for my future aunt and cousin here.”

  I paused. Aunt and cousin? My brain didn’t quite know how to compute that information yet.

  “Anyway,” Tommy was saying obliviously, “Jimmy asked me to come over here and tell you some stuff because apparently you don’t know how to use a phone. You might want to work on that by the way. It’s a bit embarrassing that my uncle struggles to use—”

  “Tommy, what stuff?” He’d wandered off mentally. If I let him ramble on, it might take all afternoon.

  “Oh. Right. Jimmy, Luc, and Isabelle asked me to come over and tell you that,” he pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket. “Here’s the first thing. Ashton Radley, whoever that is, is the one who pulled your old military friend out of obscurity to humiliate you. He was, according to Luc and Isabelle, jealous that you had knocked up Isabelle and intent on getting back at you. So, he figured out who you were and your vulnerability, and has now successfully exploited it.”

  I blinked. That… made sense. “Huh,” I managed. “Okay. I guess at least now I know who to hate, although I already hated him.”

  My nephew looked at me sidelong. “Who is Ashton Radley anyway?”

  “He’s an actor. A not very good actor.”

  “And he wants your girlfriend?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your pregnant girlfriend who obviously loves you?”

  “Yes,” I actually quite appreciated the fact that Tommy was outraged on my behalf.

  “Sounds like a dick to me.”

  “Oh, he is.” I shook my head. “What was the second thing?” I asked.

  Tommy nodded and read from his note. “The second thing was that Jimmy got the report back from the private investigator. They didn’t find what they were looking for, but they found something else. Radley has a very big gambling problem.”