I remember the day Charlie left a test on the counter and found two lines the next morning. She was through the roof excited and rushed down to the doctor only to find it was a false positive. She was devastated. Spencer couldn’t get her out of bed for a week.
Jenna’s lawyer snaps his leather binder closed. “My client does not have to be subjected to this harassment. We will provide a blood test. Until then, we’re done here.”
“Noninvasive paternity tests can be run as early as eight weeks into the pregnancy,” Carmen states. She snaps at one of the team members, “Get me the form for the lab.” She turns back toward opposing council. “Please have your client give this form to her doctor. Mr. Brennan will also submit a sample. As soon as the test results are back, we can resume negotiations. If you’d like to have samples run by your own lab, I’ll discuss that with my client.”
Jenna stands and slams her hands on the table. “I will not subject myself to or endanger my baby with this dangerous test like some sort of common whore. I’ve been faithful to my fiancé, and I resent the implication otherwise. There will be no paternity test. Chase is the father of our baby, and that’s all there is to it.”
Carmen turns to opposing council. “I will get a court order, and I will win. But in the meantime, we’ll start with proof of pregnancy.”
Jenna points at the box. “That’s your proof.”
Carmen sighs. “We need tests from a lab, not a stick that could have come from anywhere.”
“Jenna,” her father says, “why didn’t you tell us about this before? We would have taken you to the doctor to get confirmation before the meeting. That would have helped all of us… prepare.” From the tone of his voice, I wonder if he believes her.
“I just found out. There wasn’t time to tell anyone,” she says. “I thought we should go to the doctor together. This is something we want to share, right, Chase? This is the start of everything. I’m sure you want to be by my side when we get the good news.”
Chase starts to speak, but Carmen pulls on his shirt to stop him. “Ms. Carlyle, my client has made it very clear that there is no relationship between the two of you. If, in fact, you are pregnant, and if, in fact, that child is my client’s, structured terms of visitation and support will be agreed upon, but that will not change the fact that any personal relationship between you and my client is over. I hope that you understand that.”
Jenna’s face turns crimson with anger. “No, we are getting married. We are starting a family. You’re wrong.”
Carmen looks at Jenna’s lawyer. “I think we’ve reached an impasse for the day. We’ll resume after the test results come back. Until then, I’d like for you to remind your client that the restraining order is still in effect. She is to stop going to my client’s neighborhood and pestering the guards at the gatehouse. It’s bordering on harassment.”
A feral growl erupts from Jenna. “You,” she shouts, pointing at me. “This is all your fault. Everything was fine until you came back. You’ve done nothing but stir up trouble since the day you landed. Go back to Munich where you belong.”
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and count to ten. I know engaging her is the worst thing I can do. The lawyers are here, and I have to let them do their job. The meeting is almost over, so I just have to bite my tongue for a few minutes longer.
“Don’t ignore me!” Jenna screams. “Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
She jumps onto the table and leaps at me. I could step out of the way and let her fall flat on her face, but if she’s pregnant, I don’t want anything to happen to the baby. When I catch her, her hands wrap around my throat, and her fingernails dig into the delicate skin on my neck. Carmen screams for security as Jenna’s mother just screams.
“Why did you have to ruin everything? He doesn’t love you! He loves me!” Jenna emphasizes each word by squeezing more tightly.
“Jenna, what are you doing? Stop!” Chase rushes over, knocking over chairs in his path.
“Stay back, Chase. Let security handle this,” Carmen says. “Otherwise you’re liable, and you don’t want to give her any more fodder.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
The team of lawyers form a wall, keeping Chase back.
“Someone has to stop this,” he yells.
The room becomes at melting pot of voices as everyone screams at once. Her hands tighten around my throat, cutting off my air.
“Jenna,” I rasp, “I don’t want to hurt a pregnant woman, but if you don’t get the hell off me, I’ll unclasp that hand by breaking your wrist.”
“Jenna, stop,” Charlie shouts.
Security rushes in and pulls Jenna off me. She digs her talons in as they remove her, taking hunks of my skin with her. The whole ordeal lasted only a matter of seconds, but it felt longer, like a blur of insanity moving in slow motion. I didn’t think she would actually do permanent damage, but the look in her eyes is pure chaos.
“When did my office become a scene of the Jerry Springer Show?” Carmen shouts as the security guards restrain Jenna.
Jenna screams and flails against the guards. Her parents rush to her side, pleading with her to stop.
Chase pushes through the crowd and pulls me into his arms. “Are you okay?”
“Get your hands off him, whore!” Jenna screams as she fights against the guards.
I step back. “Let’s keep some distance until we’re out of here. She’s a volcano about to erupt. Let’s not provoke her.”
“Next time I won’t let go until you’re dead!” Jenna screeches. “Dead! Do you hear me? Dead!”
“We need to get her out of here,” one of Jenna’s lawyers says.
Jenna fights them, but they slowly cajole her out of the room.
Chase lifts my chin so he can see my neck. “Are you okay? We need to get this looked at. Some of these are deep.” He looks at the lawyers. “Can you get a medic or something?”
Carmen comes over and looks at my neck. “We’ve got a plastic surgeon downstairs who owes me a favor. We’ll get him up here, but let’s get Mr. Carlyle out of here first. Do you want to press charges? We can get the police involved, but then it’ll become public record. I’ll support you either way. Just know what you’re getting into.”
Jenna’s mother had been about to leave the room, but she turns around. “No, please don’t. She’s pregnant. She’s just emotional. One day when you’re about to become a mother, you’ll understand.”
Taking a deep breath, I think about how I should respond. “I don’t think jail time would help her. She needs intervention. I won’t press charges if you get her some help.”
Her mother folds her arms. “She’s fine, just a little stressed. That’s all.”
Chase glares at her. “Mavis, this goes far beyond being a little stressed, and you know it! Jenna is completely off the rails.”
I narrow my eyes. “I don’t know you, and I don’t know your daughter, but I can tell you this: you’re at a crossroads. You can either get her the help she needs or forever look back at this moment as the time you had the opportunity to prevent her downfall but chose to sit on your hands and do nothing. Whatever happens from this point forward will be on you. All of this erratic behavior is a huge red flag that something serious is going on with your daughter’s sanity. If you don’t get her help soon, she’ll escalate, and someone will get hurt. Most of all her.”
Mavis steps forward, looking ready to pounce. “Is that a threat?”
This woman is unbelievable. “If that’s how you’re taking it, then you’re just as off balance as she is. She’s a ticking time bomb in desperate need of intervention. I’ll keep the police out of it and do what I can to keep this out of the press, but only if you get her under the care of a doctor. A voluntary commitment until a doctor will sign off on her release. Not next week or next month—now. Otherwise I go to the police station tomorrow morning and file a report.” I look at Carmen. “Where’s that doctor? I need to get cleaned up and g
et out of here.”
“Good idea,” Charlie says.
Carmen puts her arm around me and guides me to the door. “Twentieth floor. Someone will give them a heads-up you’re on your way.” Once we’re outside the room, she says, “We’re going to push for her to go to the hospital from here. I know a really good private facility where we can get her in for an evaluation. I’ll make sure it happens. Her lawyers are decent. They’ll see the writing on the wall.” She turns to Chase. “And here I thought this would be a boring Monday. You’ve certainly made today interesting.” The elevator door dings. “I’ll call you as soon as I know something.”
Charlie, Chase, and I step into the elevator and watch the doors close.
“Well, that happened,” Charlie says, breaking the silence. She steps toward me to look at my neck. “Jesus, looks like you’ll be wearing turtlenecks for the next few weeks. Thank goodness you’re a trendsetter. People will just think turtlenecks are the next hot thing. You should call your publicist. I bet she knows of a few designers with turtlenecks in their lines.”
I push out a deep breath. “I’m not sure which part shocked me most: the pregnancy or the MMA attack.”
“She is not pregnant,” Chase and Charlie say at the same time.
She looks closely at the blood stains around my collar. “I kind of feel bad for pushing for the eight-thousand-dollar dress now. That little black dress you got from Banana Republic would have been just fine and machine washable. I don’t think my Stain-B-Gone stick will help with couture.”
The door opens on the twentieth floor, and Charlie steps out. I’m about to follow when Chase pulls me back by the elbow and hits the close door button. As soon as the doors close, he pushes the stop button and pulls me into his arms.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “Never in a million years did I ever think it would go this way. I never would have brought you into this shitstorm if I’d known. I still can’t believe that just happened.”
“Shhhh, it’s okay. I’m okay. I promise.”
“Car number two, is everything okay?” a voice says over the intercom. “We’re showing the emergency button has been pushed.”
Chase pulls away and clears his throat. “Yeah, sorry. Everything is fine. I must have bumped it.” He pushes the button, and the doors open. He holds out his hand. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up and get out of here.”
Chapter Sixteen
Arianna
“These eggrolls,” Chase says as he shoves a third eggroll into his mouth. “These are worth sitting in traffic and the hassle of coming into the city. I forgot how good Chili House is. Can’t get these in Miramar.”
After I got cleaned up and was assured by the plastic surgeon that the scars wouldn’t be too bad, Spencer met Charlie, Chase, and I at my condo, and we ordered Chinese. Chase ran to the pharmacy on the corner to get the antibiotics and creams the doctor prescribed while Charlie vented to me about Jenna. I was still too stunned to comment, so I just let her rant. Once the food came and the boys arrived, we set up a family-style picnic on the floor and regaled Spencer with the story while he sat there in astonishment. We’re still waiting for Carmen to call with an update. We’ve each tried to steer the conversation to other topics, but it keeps coming back to Jenna.
Charlie gets up and pours herself another glass of wine. “You sure you don’t want a drink, Ari? You’ve certainly earned one today.”
I hold up my water. “I’m too tired to swirl. Water’s just fine for me.”
Spencer dunks a pot sticker into the dumpling sauce. “I can’t believe Jenna has broken down this way. I’ve known her for years, and I never saw this coming. It just goes to show how little we really know people.”
Charlie pops a piece of chicken into her mouth. “I never thought she was good for Chase, but I never could have predicted this” She picks up another piece with her chopsticks. “Although she did take the term Bridezilla to a whole new level. I guess there were signs.”
“You knew her best, Chase. Were there any signs that she would become unhinged if pushed?” I ask. I really don’t want to hear details about their relationship—the thought of them together still makes my stomach churn—but after today, I’m curious about her. What makes someone turn violent like that?
Chase takes a sip of his beer. His face is solemn, and his shoulders slump forward as though the weight of the world sits on them. “I would have handled things quite differently if I had. I know a lot of this is my fault. I checked out of the relationship and just avoided her because I was too chicken shit to deal with the conflict. I’m sure the way I treated her gave her the shove right over the edge. This whole mess is my fault.”
Charlie gets up and sits next to her brother. “This is not your fault. Could you have done things differently? Sure, but whatever she has going on, that’s something that was lying dormant inside her.”
He pushes rice around his plate. “And I went and woke it up.”
Spencer throws a roll at Chase. “Beating yourself up won’t fix anything, so just knock it off. You didn’t seek to hurt her or anyone. Hopefully her parents will get her some help. Donald is a reasonable guy when Mavis isn’t pushing him around. I think they’ll do the right thing.”
Chase picks up the roll and throws it back. “Why do they give rolls with Chinese food anyway?”
The scratches on my neck are scabbing over and starting to itch. To combat the urge to scratch, I get an ice pack from the freezer. I lie on the sofa and put the ice pack on my neck. “Why do women always go for the throat?”
“Oh Jesus, Ari,” Chase says as he jumps up then kneels on the floor next to the sofa. “I didn’t even think about that. I’m so sorry.” He drops his head onto my stomach as though the reminder of my mother’s death might undo me. “Today’s really been brutal on you. I never should have asked you to come.”
“I didn’t put it together either. The similarities are freakily similar,” Charlie says.
I run my fingers through Chase’s hair. “Well, at least Chase had a relationship with Jenna. Jaime was just infatuated with Daddy. They’d never even met. And Jenna wasn’t going to kill me. If she hadn’t been pulled off of me, I would have snapped her skinny twig arm.”
Charlie puts her plate on the coffee table then bumps Chase out of the way so she can be closer to me. “This must be rattling you.”
Chase motions for me to sit up. He sits on the sofa behind me and lays my head in his lap.
“It didn’t in the moment,” I say. “But it all clicked when her mother started making excuses for her. It reminds me of Jaime’s parents, when they pled for us to talk to the court to reduce her sentence. So desperate to deflect any responsibility from their child.”
Spencer tosses his napkin on his plate. “Didn’t she plead guilty?”
He’s been a part of the family since we were kids, but my mother’s death isn’t something we talk about often. It doesn’t surprise me that he doesn’t know all the details.
I nod. “She did. They came to an agreement to avoid a trial. She stays in a mental institution for the rest of her life. They think if I join their petition to the governor, she’ll get clemency or possibly be set up with house arrest, but there’s no way in hell I’ll ever do that. I think she got off lucky as it was.”
“Why would the state agree to that?” Spencer asks. “She killed your mom on national television. Seems pretty open and shut to me.”
“There had just been a string of cases where the defendant got off for mental illness. The prosecutor was worried that with the trend, there was a chance she might get a joke of a sentence or, worse yet, get off entirely. My father agreed that it was a risk he didn’t want to take, and I think he would have done just about anything to avoid a trial. So the prosecution negotiated a deal. She kills my mother, and she gets to spend the rest of her days in a cushy private mental hospital paid for by her parents. And she has the nerve to bitch about it too.”
Chase smooths my hair down. “I
’m so sorry today stirred all this up. Here I thought I was doing a good thing having us work through this together, and all I did was open old wounds.” He runs his finger gently down my neck. “And open new ones.”
I smile at him. “It’s not your fault. Stop blaming yourself. I just really want her to get help. I feel like she’s right on the brink of destruction. If her parents can pull her back from the ledge, there might be hope for her. She hasn’t done anything yet that can’t be fixed or forgotten. She still has a chance to pull her life together and just let this be a bad memory.”
Charlie picks up her wine glass. “If she’s not careful, news of this will get out, and the next thing you know, she’ll be the butt of jokes on late-night TV. Her name will be turned into a verb. ‘Dude, my ex went psycho. She’s pulling a Jenna.’”
Chase’s phone rings. I sit up so he can fish it out of his pocket. “Hello?” He’s quiet for a few minutes while he listens to the other person speak, offering a “hmm,” an “I understand,” or an “I see,” every few moments. “Thank you.” He hits end and puts his phone on the end table. “That was Carmen. Jenna’s parents brought her to that psych hospital Carmen recommended. They’re admitting her for observation for seventy-two hours. The good news is, upon admitting her, they ran a pregnancy test. She’s not pregnant.”
Charlie thrusts her fist in the air like Judd Nelson at the end of The Breakfast Club. “I knew it! The fake pregnancy was the stupidest idea! How long did she think she’d be able to pull that off before getting caught?”
Love To Hate You Page 16
