by Dori Lavelle
“That’s awfully generous. Judging by the attention your book is getting, you’re going to make some charities very happy.” Lori leans forward. “Can you confirm the rumors that there are talks of a movie deal?”
“I’m afraid not. In fact, allow me to squash the rumors—”
“So, you’re saying there will be no movie?”
“That’s right.” I take another sip. Hearing the words movie deal makes me want to cover my ears. Not a week goes by without my publisher trying to talk me into allowing my book to go to Hollywood. I can’t expect they’ll be pleased with my little announcement today. I don’t blame them for holding out hope that I’ll change my mind. After all, I’d changed my mind about writing the book. Except this time my mind is made up. I spent months writing the book, time I could have spent with Reese. It’s time for me to move on with my life.
“That’s a shame. Your story would make a great movie.” Lori picks up my book and opens it where a turquoise beaded bookmark separates the pages. “I have to admit I haven’t finished reading the entire book yet. Not because I didn’t enjoy it. It’s just so hard to read. I’m horrified at the things you went through.”
“Thank you.” I sweep my legs to the side and cross them at the ankles.
“So much has changed for you in a short time. First you were a model, then a student, only to be lied to, kidnapped, and almost murdered.”
“It was a difficult time.”
“I’m sure it was.” Lori puts down the book and picks up a pack of cards from the table. “Thirty minutes is a short time when you’re having fun, so let’s get to the hard questions.” She winks at me.
My body tenses and without planning to, I glance at the audience. Most of them have a copy of my book in their laps. I’m guessing I’ll be signing a few copies before making it out of the building.
I’ve come prepared for most questions and Markus Jenkins personally prepared me for the interview, but as many viewers know, Lori Raine can be unpredictable. She’s brought a lot of tough men and women to tears with her questions. And she always ends her show with a shocking question or revelation.
I’ll not fall into her trap. She won’t break me. I’ll only give her the answers I’m prepared to give.
I square my shoulders and lift my chin. “What would you like to know?” I’m expecting her to want more details about Mexico, even though most questions are answered in the book.
She glances at her cards. “A few months after you were rescued in Mexico and brought back home, you gave birth to a little girl. Reese Hollifield is her name, right?”
I blink at her, completely caught off guard. I should not have agreed to this interview. One of the reasons I had refused to give interviews was so I could protect Reese. Now Lori is making my daughter the topic of conversation, even though my one condition to coming to the show was that there will be no questions about Reese. She has built my trust at the beginning of the interview only to snap it in half.
“Ivy, are you with me?” Her voice is smooth as honey, dripping with poison.
She comes back into focus. Her head is tipped to the side expectantly.
I glare at her. “Yes, yes, I am.”
“I’m sure everyone is wondering who the father of your child is. Is it one of the twins?”
Hiding the truth would be more damaging than unveiling it. My publishers told me that Lori is always one step ahead. She prepares for her interviews with the precision of a lawyer about to walk into a court room. She has answers to most questions she asks and she’s not afraid to expose a lying guest if she has to. The best and only option for me at this point is to come clean.
I raise my chin and meet her eyes, my insides burning with rage. “The father of my daughter, Reese Hollifield, is Damien Steel.”
“The man who kidnapped you.” Lori smacks her thigh with her cards and looks to the audience for a reaction, which she gets when gasps and whispers fill the room. “How does it feel to look at your daughter every day and be reminded of what happened in Mexico? Do you look at her and see her father?”
I push down the anger burning at the back of my throat. “The funny thing is, Lori, when I look at my daughter, I see a little girl who saved me. She’s the reason I wake up every morning. The one good thing that came out of the worst time of my life.”
“I see.” Lori gives me a smile but I see-through her. She really enjoys this. She wants more than the facts. What she’s interested in is digging up the pain and bringing it to the surface for all to see. She likes a good shocker and this is mine.
She puts the cards back on the table and picks up her glass. As she lifts the glass to her lips, I strain to read her watch, to guess how much more time is left of the interview. Thirty minutes have never seemed more like an eternity.
Lori takes a drink and watches me over the rim of her glass. “I’m sorry I have to ask, Ivy.” She sighs. “What are you going to tell Reese? When she grows up, will you tell her the truth, that she’s the daughter of a kidnapper and a liar, and the niece of a murderer and rapist?”
The question is a stab to my heart. I clench and unclench my hands as I glare at her. I want to jump from my seat and wring her neck before walking out of her interview. But what example would I be setting for my daughter? Life is full of bullies like Lori Raine. My job is to teach her to stand up for herself.
I reach for a napkin on a side table. Wow, she really believes in her ability to make people cry so much that she has the Kleenex ready. Taking my time, I wipe my eyes and paste on a smile. To hell with the damn interview. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, Lori?”
She narrows her eyes. “What do you mean? I’m sorry, are the questions too uncomfortable for you?” She pauses and looks at her gang of an audience. “I guess Miss Hollifield didn’t get the memo. Thirty Minutes is about the truth. Unfortunately, some people can’t handle it.”
She chuckles and the audience barks with laughter.
“No.” Heat rises up my neck. “This show is about you. You take people’s pain and derive pleasure from it.” I wet my lips. “You’re making it look as though what I went through is my fault.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You don’t need to say it. Your words and actions say it all.” I lean forward and harden my voice. “What I went through is not a joke, and it can happen to anyone, your daughter, your sister, your friends. Instead of educating people, telling them to be more careful, you’re making me feel guilty for something I had no control over. I’m sorry, but you should be ashamed of yourself.”
“No, Ivy, you should be ashamed of yourself for making a mockery of my show.” She points a trembling finger at me, her anger erasing her beauty.
“The way you’re making a mockery of my pain?”
“I did no such thing. I merely asked an honest question.”
“Now let me give you an honest answer.” I cross my legs. “One day, when my daughter is old enough to ask questions about her father, I’ll answer them honestly.” No longer caring what anybody thinks, I turn to the audience. “I’ll tell her that her father was born a good man but he had a very tough childhood. I’ll tell her that he made a lot of mistakes, and hurt me in many ways, but when it mattered most, he did the right thing. He owned up to his mistakes in the end and tried to make them right. We all make mistakes. We all hurt people in different ways.” I turn back to Lori. “Look at you, for instance, you’re hurting people and don’t even know it.”
“How dare you—”
“Let me finish.” My eyes blaze at her. “In Damien Steel, I saw a monster at first, then I saw a man in pain, then I saw a man who saved my life. He was hurt by someone before he hurt someone else. For my daughter’s sake, I choose to see the good in her father.”
“Do you mean that?” A deep voice comes from the audience, amidst a flurry of whispers.
I squint as my gaze travels over the faces in the audience. Before I can find the one I’m searching for, he stands and removes his cap and dark shade
s.
“What the—call the cops.” Lori’s head snaps back. Shock waves sweep through the audience as Damien leaves his seat and walks down one of the aisles, headed for the stage.
“Lori Raine, Damien Steel. I wish I could say it’s a pleasure to meet you, except it’s not. I hope you don’t mind me joining you.” Without waiting for an answer, he takes a seat next to Lori, whose face is white as a sheet. She looks like she’s seen a ghost.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” she breathes.
“Turns out I’m not. I survived. The only reason I stayed away is for Ivy’s sake.”
Even though, unlike everyone here, I’d known Damien was alive, my body is also hot with shock. Never would I have expected him to show up like this, or ever.
He ignores Lori and turns to me. Silence falls over the room when he continues to talk. “I did a lot of terrible things, and if you decide right now to call the cops on me, I won’t stop you. But there are a few things I want to say to you first, and I want the world to hear.” He runs the palm of his hand over his jeans. “Hearing you say those things about me cut deep. After all I did, I’m the last person to ask you for forgiveness. But I want you to know that even though I’m sitting in front of you, the man who did all those terrible things is dead. He died in Mexico. The man I am today is the kind of person I grew up wanting to be, someone who is willing to sacrifice his heart if it means saving the woman he loves.”
He draws in a breath. “Ivy, I’m not here to cause you more pain. I realize that what I did to you cannot go unpunished. I’m tired of hiding, pretending I’m dead only because I’m afraid of the consequences. I’m here because I want to be the man you and our daughter can be proud of, someone who is not afraid to accept responsibility for his crimes.”
“What do you want?”
“I read the book—every word. Seeing everything I did to you in black and white shook me. I can’t hide from the truth. When I close my eyes I see your pain. I need to do the right thing.” He rubs the side of his face. “I wanted to see you first, to tell you I love you before turning myself in.”
While Damien is talking, two cops get up on stage, ready to take him away. He glances at me and gets to his feet. “I said what I came to say. Please tell Reese that I love her and wish I can one day meet her. If you decide not to grant me that wish, I’ll understand.” He hands himself over to the cops and allows them to guide him to the steps and down the aisle.
“Stop,” I shout before they reach the door. Tears clog my throat as I get to my feet. He turns. Our eyes meet across the room. “I . . . I don’t want it. I don’t want you to go to prison.”
Even as I say the words, I know that whatever will happen to Damien is out of my control. My book contains enough damning evidence to send him away for a long time. I have slammed the final nail in his coffin.
“The decision is not up to you, my love. Don’t stand in the way. This is something I have to do.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The rational part of me urges me to turn the car around, to drive away from the prison gates before the reporters see me. A week has passed and all the focus of the press has been on my story. It came to a point where I had to move into a small motel on the outskirts of town to hide out, while Reese stayed with my mother.
I thought that waiting a week before visiting Damien would be enough to get them to stop camping outside the prison gates.
I wipe the sweat off my forehead. I’m sweating and it’s not because it’s been a hot couple of days.
After seeing Damien at the studio, the way he looked at me and the things he said, I’m nervous about seeing him again. I don’t have to visit him. Both my mother and Chelsea warned me to stay away. Mom said she’s proud of me for forgiving him, but I’d be a fool to let him into my life, into Reese’s life. Her words kept me up most nights, and this morning I woke up at the crack of dawn and stared out the window while my mug of coffee went cold, debating on whether to come or not. But something inside me refuses to let me let go.
I take a deep breath and step out of the car, throwing myself into the throng of reporters and journalists.
Ignoring the flashing cameras and questions, I keep my head low, my hand tightly wrapped around the handle of my handbag. I charge forward without looking right or left, only focused on where I am going. I hold my breath until my lungs scream, until I’m forced to suck in the smells of chewing gum, stale cigarette smoke, and perfume.
A journalist with stringy hair and bad breath shoves a microphone in my face. “How did it feel to have sex with two brothers?”
“Would you really like us to believe you couldn’t tell the difference between the two?” someone else shouts.
The word “whore” from somewhere in the crowd lands on my ears. Tears burn the back of my eyes but I bite them away and push my way through, ignoring the questions and insults hitting me in the back. I refuse to make any comments because the next thing I know, my words will be taken out of context and the sting will follow me for weeks. Answering their questions only gives them permission to hurt me more.
Here I was thinking after the interview with Lori, I would move on with my life, finally shutting the door to the past. It only served to open the door wider, inviting Damien in. Almost every news station reported our story and the Internet went crazy as videos from the show were watched, liked, and shared thousands of times. I had to stop watching TV and reading the papers to keep from going mad.
At last, by some sheer miracle, I make it through security and into the visitors’ room. Damien is already waiting on the other side of the glass, his chin covered in stubble, his hair disheveled. When he sees me, he picks up the handset.
“I didn’t think you’d come.” His blank eyes crinkle at the corners as he gives me a weak smile. “I never expected to see you again.”
At hearing his words, a coolness settles on my spine. The same words Judson had used when I first visited him in prison what seems like a lifetime ago.
“I only came to tell you that I tried to get the charges dropped. It didn’t work.”
“Good. This isn’t something you can stop from happening.”
“I get that now. And I respect your decision, but you should know that I meant everything I said on the show. You hurt me deeply, but the person I saw in you the few days before Judson showed up, was a good man. That’s why I choose to forgive you.”
He nods with a smile. “You have no idea how much that means to me. Unfortunately, the law is not as forgiving, and I’m okay with that.” Silence falls between us before he talks again. “Am I really the father of your child?”
“I did the paternity test. Reese is your daughter.”
“Our daughter.” His eyes glint with pride. “You gave her a beautiful name.”
“Thanks. It’s my grandmother’s. I’m glad you like it, Damien.”
“I know this is selfish of me but I have to ask.” He runs a hand over his head, causing even more of a mess. “Is there a chance I can see her again?”
I’ve been expecting the question and dreading it. It’s one thing for me to forgive Damien but quite another to allow him access to Reese. On the other hand, I don’t feel comfortable denying him a relationship with his daughter.
“Can I have a few days to think about it?”
“Yes, of course. That’s more than I can ask.” He places his hand on the glass this time. “I promise to never break her heart . . . or yours again.”
I shift in my chair. “Damien, this doesn’t mean we’re together.”
“Are we friends at least?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think we can ever be just friends.” I glance at my left hand, at the empty ring finger. “I need to return your ring.”
“It’s yours. When I came to see you at the hospital, I planned to propose to you. I thought the birth of our child meant a new beginning for us. But I don’t blame you for not wanting a relationship with me right now. I fucked up.”
“Wh
at should I do with the ring?”
“Keep it. Maybe one day you’ll change your mind.”
I moisten my lips. “I don’t think—”
“Give it a couple of years, if you must, to think about it.”
Epilogue
The warm summer wind sweeps across my skin and rips strands of my hair out of the intricate up-do. I brush the strands back and pin them back in place.
I’m enjoying a glass of wine under the long canopy that offers shade to a dozen low reed tables. Chelsea and Neil wanted a laidback daytime, beach wedding reception and their wedding planner did an amazing job. The center of the tables are decorated with oyster shells strung together by white cords as well as flowers and tea light candles. Instead of chairs, soft cushions are placed on reed mats. In spite of the loud music, laughter, and chatter, I feel so relaxed my eyes are threatening to close by themselves.
“Excuse me,” I say to one of Neil’s cousins, who spent the last thirty minutes telling me how spaghetti is made. “I need to check up on my daughter.” I give him a polite smile and rise to my feet.
“No problem. It was nice talking to you.” He turns to the guest on the other side of him and continues the spaghetti story. I can’t help smiling as I walk toward the area that’s reserved for the kids, enjoying the feel of the sand between my toes.
Damien is sitting on a large cushion facing the sea, with Reese curled up in his lap. One of his hands lays gently on Reese’s curls.
Watching them together makes my heart clench. When he was in prison, it took me months before I gathered the courage to take Reese to visit him. And he was so moved that I started taking her to see him more often. It didn’t take long before Reese warmed up to him and they developed a bond. Every time I told her we’re going to visit “daddy” her eyes would dance and she would be incredibly animated. The deeper their relationship grew, the more distant the past became, the more I embraced the future.
I still had no idea where we would be once he got out, but I knew that if nothing else, we would be friends. The two years he was in prison, I had two short relationships and I told Damien about them when he asked. Although he always put on a brave face and told me he’s happy for me, his green eyes would darken with sadness. The truth is, no one I dated ever came close to making my heart flip over.
