Lucky in Love

by Bishop, K. M.

  The last thing I want is for her to doubt that I can be the right person for Tony, that I can be a suitable mother to his child. We have already had more than enough complications leading up to this point.

  “…can’t do this to me…” A yelling travels up the stairs. It’s Tony and he sounds panicked. “No way!”

  I’m struck ice cold. He sounds utterly horrified, which suggests to me it isn’t his mother down there after all. Or it is and he’s having a massive argument with her. The last grandparent vanishing into thin air. I tug my trousers on as quickly as I can to join him, to try and put a stop to whatever it is. If this row is because of me then we will need to find another solution because I don’t want him in the same state that I’m in.

  “I don’t know what you mean! I haven’t done anything wrong. Seriously, stop…”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why can’t I move faster? It’s so frustrating! Fucking hell, come on, Natasha!

  I race down the stairs and peer towards the door to see who Tony is yelling at. I have to lean as much as I can without toppling forward, and it nearly knocks me from my feet to see police men there.

  “No, I haven’t done anything,” Tony screams. “You can’t do this to me, you can’t…”

  They ignore his words, spinning him around to slap handcuffs on him. A screaming sound echoes through the hall way, reverberating off the walls. Tony’s eyes meet mine where I am on the stairs and I can see the sheer terror there behind his gaze. Whatever is happening to him, it’s really freaking him out.

  I want to cry out his name, to let him know that I’m here for him, but I can’t get any words out. That’s the moment I realize that’s because the awful shrill screaming sound that is coming from me.

  “I don’t understand why,” he calls out to me. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t get it.”

  I somehow manage to get down the rest of the stairs and there I reach out to hold him, but of course his hands are firmly fixed behind his back and the officers have such a tight hold of him there’s no way in.

  “Step back, Ma’am,” one of them tells me firmly. “Please don’t get in the middle of this.”

  “I want to know what’s going on. Tell me now. I don’t understand…”

  None of this makes any sense. I can’t wrap my head around it at all.

  “Mr. Compton is under arrest, so we need to take him to the station for questioning.”

  “Why? What has he done?” I stare at Tony. “What have you done, Tony?”

  He shrugs and they don’t answer me. Why doesn’t anyone want me to know?

  I thought that we were in a good place now, that we had finally overcome all of our endless drama to be together, but it seems that we aren’t done yet. I thought that fate kept pulling us back together, but actually it seems to be constantly pushing us apart. I can’t be with a man who’s committed some kind of crime, can I? That can’t be a father to my child. I don’t even know what he’s done, how bad it is.

  I thought I knew Tony Compton, but I don’t know if I do anymore.

  “Excuse me, Ma’am, we need to take Mr. Compton now. This is important.”

  I can’t do anything but watch on hopelessly as they take him away, pushing him in to the back of the cop car like they do in movies. Like he’s a real life criminal. I stand in his door way, carrying his child, wondering what sort of man he really is and where the hell we’re supposed to go from here.

  As the police car drives off, an Uber pulls up with his mother inside. She steps out of the car and stands in shock, watching her son vanish from sight. Then her eyes turn to meet mine and they are absolutely filled with questions. Ones that I don’t have the answers to, at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tony

  “Pension money?” I exclaim in shock, this day getting weirder by the moment. “What the hell do you mean?”

  Ever since they first brought me into the police station, the officers have been throwing strange words at me like I should just understand. I can only assume they think that I’m playing a game by not really understanding all of the business words, but I really don’t. I didn’t ever bother to learn them all.

  “Oh, I think you know exactly what I mean, Mr. Compton. You, and your father before, you guys have been taking the company employee’s pension money for a while now. Lining your pockets and leaving them with nothing.”

  “First off, my father would never do anything like that!” I yell. “He was a good man. He wouldn’t ever do anything to harm his employees. That isn’t what he was about. He loved them all. He was so passionate about his work family. I know for a fact that he wouldn’t do anything to harm them. He didn’t need to.”

  “Well, we have evidence here from England that suggests otherwise. You want to see it? I can show you.”

  “Hell yeah, I want to see it. I can’t sit here being accused of something that I don’t understand, so if you have evidence to support these claims against me then I damn well want to see it right now.”

  I expect them to be bluffing, I’m sure they can’t actually have anything against my father, but he returns with a stack of paper work so high it takes my breath away. My blood freezes over. The last thing I want is for my father’s reputation to be tarnished. Or to learn that I don’t actually know anything about him at all…

  But then I’m not here to pay for my father’s crimes. I’m here for my own, whatever they might be. I honestly have no idea whatsoever. Maybe this stack of paper work will help me out. I’m not even sure how much of it I will understand since the papers were always pretty hard for me to follow, but I’ll give it my best.

  “Now, you take a look through all of these documents. You check out the finances, tell me if it looks right to you.” The officer cocks a knowing eyebrow at me. “Then we can talk again.”

  I don’t get it. None of it, and his expression isn’t making it any easier. I know that I haven’t always fully understood the business and I haven’t even been a part of it for the last couple of months, but I haven’t done anything wrong, I’m sure of it. I haven’t really done much of anything at all. Maybe that’s the problem here.

  But in this small, cold, clinical room with two way mirrors and unfriendly faces, it seems that I’m going to find out. Nerves zig zag through me, along with Natasha’s freaked out upset face as I lean in to start reading…

  * * *

  “That signature isn’t mine,” I insist for what feels like the millionth time.

  “So, you’re saying that this isn’t exactly the same as the one you drew for us just a couple of minutes ago?”

  “Well, it looks the same, sure. But I’m telling you, I didn’t sign that. I didn’t agree to the money transfer.”

  “But you’re telling me that during the time that your father was sick, you didn’t sign any paper work that you didn’t read properly, hmm? You don’t think this could have happened by mistake?”

  I know what he’s doing. He’s trying to trick me, but I’m not going to fall for it. Even when I was at my busiest and most stressed, juggling everything with my father at the hospital and the company, I always checked through everything before I signed it. I was so careful all the time, I didn’t want to make any mistakes.

  “Look, I’m telling you that I didn’t sign this. My father wouldn’t have either. Don’t you think it’s strange that my dad didn’t do this the whole time he had his company? It’s only really towards the end.”

  “Which brings us to you… it seems more likely that it would be you.”

  “But why would I want to do this to my father and his legacy? I loved him. I would never…”

  “People do a lot of crazy things for a lot of crazy reasons. We see it a lot in our job. Maybe to fund your life in America? I don’t know. You seemed to come quickly after your father’s death.”

  “Because I was grieving! I wanted to come and to be with my mother…”

  “But you left the company behind and according to you, you haven’t
really looked back since.”

  “Because Ben and Cole are competent, and they have complete control of…” I trail off as I remember Cole’s insistence that I come back to America. It was almost as if he knew that I’d start looking deeper into the company if I took over it completely. He wanted me out of the picture so he could carry on doing what I’m doing. He also has access to my signature and my dad’s, so of course he could forge them easily and neither of us would know…

  “I know who it was,” I gasp, slamming my fists down on the table. “It wasn’t me, it was the manager and the accountant. They have been doing this the entire time. Skimming money from the pensions. I just… I’ve worked it out. They’ve been at it from the moment my father started getting sick. Oh my God!”

  Why aren’t they looking at me with happiness? Why are they staring at me like I’m lying?

  “You need to believe me,” I insist. “There has to be some way that I can prove this.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that. You will have your chance to prove whatever you want.”

  “What do you mean by that?” It didn’t sound like something to help me out.

  “Because you’ll be standing trial in England for this. So, prove what you want then.”

  “England?” I cry out in dismay. Going to England is always the issue. Whenever I go there, me and Natasha run into issues. Just when things were looking good. “But I can’t go. I’m about to have a baby.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have committed a crime then, should you? Then you could have been a father.”

  “I didn’t do it! Don’t you hear me? I didn’t have anything to do with this. Why are you looking at me like this? I’ve just told you who it was and you’re staring at me like I’m lying. Whatever happened am I not innocent until proven guilty? Does that not count as a thing anymore? Because I’m getting really pissed off here.”

  “Buddy, do you not think that every single person that we see in here claims that they didn’t do it? At first at least. That’s all we hear, no one comes here and confesses right away. It doesn’t happen.”

  I’m stumped, I guess he’s right about that, but I really haven’t had a damn thing to do with it. I would never hurt hard working people like that, my father’s working family. I just wish that I’d been paying more attention then I might have spotted that before it got to this point. I don’t know if there is anything that I can do now.

  I glance around the room, all of a sudden feeling trapped, like the walls are closing in on me. I really am stuck here, aren’t I? They aren’t going to let me go. I can’t clear this mess up enough for them to set me free.

  “So, I just have to wait? Stay here until I know what’s going on?”

  “Oh, don’t you worry, we’ll put you in a nice cell. The one for guys who said they didn’t do it.”

  I need to call Natasha, my mother as well, then perhaps a lawyer. I don’t know if that will make me look guilty or save my ass, but it seems like the right things to do. I’m sure that’s what smart people do in this situation. Get someone to protect me because it seems like my innocence isn’t enough and I can’t do it myself.

  “Come on then, let me take you to your new home. That’s where you can stay until we know when you’re going.” They lift me from my seat. “Unless there is anything else you want to tell us?”

  “I’m not going to confess to something that I didn’t do, so give it up now.”

  “That’s what they all say. But eventually, everyone cracks, and they give us what they want.”

  “Well, you won’t get that from me because like I said to you, I didn’t do it.”

  “Of course. You already told me that.”

  “I know, but you won’t listen to me. You’re being ignorant.”

  He laughs and handcuff me up again before leading me towards the cell which I’m going to be spending the foreseeable future in. Until my ass is hauled back to England once more, again without my desire to go. Every time that happens, I mess up Natasha’s life, confusing everything for her. First with the exams, then the pregnancy, now, depending on how long all of this mess takes, the baby being born and those first hard months she will have to do by herself. I was so looking forward to being there for her, for seeing our child come in to the world, for doing night feeds and helping out. Now, through the actions of someone else, that’s being taken away from me. Because of the greed of other people. I’m really going to have to fight this until the bitter end.

  Anger bubbles through me as I think of Ben and Cole, of Cole telling me that I need to be with my family, all the while taking my whole company from underneath me. I haven’t ever been driven by money, my father did that for me, I suppose, but now I’m not going to have anything. Because of them. My new company will go under before I have even really begun with it, my life in America will be shattered, I will have nothing.

  As I consider all of that, there’s a part of me that wants to head to England right now, to take those assholes down. I look forward to a trial where I can somehow prove that I had nothing to do with it. I mean, my innocence has to come out somewhere, doesn’t it? Someone needs to see that I didn’t do this.

  The officer takes great glee in locking me away, shutting me off from the world, and putting me behind iron bars. I can see it in his eyes that he’s certain I belong here. I already hate him for what he’s doing to me. For what he thinks of me. I think that’s what hurts the most. He might not know me or my character, but it doesn’t feel good to have that just assumed. What if other people think that of me as well? Oh god, what if Natasha thinks that’s something I would do? She won’t, will she? She knows me better than that. But then life does seem to have this horrible way of getting in our way just when we seem happy, so why should I assume different now?

  “Fuck.” My head falls into my hands as an intense sense of hopelessness overcomes me. What if there isn’t a way out of this? What if it isn’t innocent until proven guilty? I’ve seen cases where people get locked up for years over something they didn’t do. That can’t be me, I cannot miss out on my child’s life like that. It isn’t right. “Fucking hell, how the hell am I going to get out of this one? I’m screwed.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Natasha

  “Are they still out there?” I hiss quietly, hoping they can’t hear me. I’m sick of the constant intrusion.

  “Yeah, they are still out there,” Ann, Tony’s mother, replies. “Cameras, microphones, the lot. Bunch of damn vultures. I’ve got half a mind to go out there and kick some ass… I would as well if it wasn’t for the fact that it would hurt Tony’s case. They will portray me as some kind of psychopath… him too.”

  “I hate the press,” I reply decisively. “I never thought much about them before but being on this side of it is hard. I can’t quite understand why they are so interested in this case. It’s crazy.”

  “Slow news time. That’s all it is, so they don’t have anything else to do.”

  “Well, it’s leaving us trapped in this house which sucks. I hate it. Although, I am glad that you’re here, Ann, I don’t know what I would do without you. You have been a life saver.”

  She knows that she has as well. I would have absolutely fallen apart the last couple of days if she wasn’t here to keep me standing. She turned up at exactly the right moment and instantly took control. She’s been in touch with the police station, sorting everything out to make sure that her son is being taken care of… well, as much as she can anyway. It hasn’t been the easiest thing for her, but she’s strong as all hell.

  The only thing I haven’t asked her yet, that I’m too scared to find out, is if she thinks that he’s done it or not. I know he’s been locked up and that he’ll have to go back to England for the trial, because he’s been in trouble for stealing pension money or something like that, but Ann hasn’t ever given an opinion.

  “So, what do we do now?” I ask as she returns to her seat on the couch. “Stay in for another day?”


  “We can’t do this the whole time, you know? You’re going to have that baby soon enough.”

  I wrap my hands over my stomach, desperately trying to keep my baby inside for just a little while longer. At least until the media interest subsides. I don’t want the cameras chasing me to the hospital and printing stories linking my child to his father’s possible crimes. I don’t want the birth to be associated with that.

  “How can we get rid of them before that, Ann? I’m really scared about it.”

  “Don’t you worry.” Her lips purse together in a steely line. “I’m here to look after you.”

  She has taken on the role of my parent as well as Tony’s, making up for what my family lacks. I know that she cares so much about me and my son, although we haven’t been able to have the amazingly happy conversation about it yet, but I’m afraid that even she won’t be able to do anything about it. I guess only time will tell…

  * * *

  “Natasha.” A shaking like a damn earthquake almost knocks me from my bed. “Natasha, wake up.”

  “Wha…?” I murmur, still in a half asleep state. The more pregnant I get, the more tired I am.

  “You need to see this. I’m so sorry, I don’t mean to disturb you, but I think you need to see this now.”

  I rub my eyes and push up into a sitting position, still trying to adjust. I might have been asleep all night, but my head is spinning with restlessness. If it wasn’t for the desperation in Ann’s voice, I wouldn’t bother.

  “What is it? Something about Tony? Has there been a break in the case?”

  “Not exactly. It isn’t just about Tony. It’s about you as well.”