He looked up as she appeared unhappily in the doorway. “Clare, have a seat.” He motioned to the oversized chair in front of his desk.
Clare looked at Ripley who was seating himself as well. “Why does he have to be here?”
“I know where the mop and bucket are.” Ripley smirked.
Ian put up his hands. “Look Clare, I can’t do this anymore. It’s over.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shoved a legal document in her direction and laid a pen on top of it. “I’m giving you a decision.”
“You don’t give me decisions.” Clare snarled. “I give you decisions.”
“Fine.” Ian reached forward and slowly began to pull the document back to his side of the desk. “The marriage is off then.”
That got her attention. Sitting up straight and trying not to drool. “What?”
“You’re pregnant Clare, not deaf. I said the marriage is off.”
“What marriage?”
“I was giving you what you wanted, but you blew it…again.”
“What?” Her head turned in several directions and her body came alive with energy. “What?”
“If marrying me was what you really wanted I was going to do it. All you had to do was sign the pre-nup.”
“Oh no. No pre-nup.”
“Then no marriage. Please leave.” Ian looked to Ripley. “Please help Clare pack. Give her twenty dollars and drop her off at that flea bag she came from.”
“With pleasure.” Ripley stood and began to help Clare to her feet. He stopped and looked at Ian. “Do I have to be gentle?”
“I don’t care. Just get her out of my sight and explain to her along the way exactly what will happen if she ever deigns to contact me or anyone in my family again.”
Clare smacked Ripley’s hands as he reached for her. “You can’t do this! This is your baby!” She screamed and pointed to her belly.
“You refuse to prove it.” Ian calmly folded his hands on the desk. “In fact other than the fact that you’re shaped like a cement mixer you’ve not even got proof you’re pregnant. Prove it, then prove it’s my baby and I’ll take care of it.”
“Wait!” Clare shoved Ripley off and turned back to Ian. “If I prove this is your baby, you’ll marry me?”
“You prove the baby is mine and I’ll have my lawyer take the child from you. I will raise it, cherish it and it will want for nothing, but you will never come near it for any reason.”
“This is my baby!”
“Not any more.” Ian said. “You refuse to co-operate, you refuse to even be civil Clare. You’ve lost any power or control you deluded yourself into having.”
“I will run straight to the press and tell them everything.”
“Not a problem.” Ian reached for the phone and started dialing. “I’ll call Blake. He’ll give you all the numbers of the important people in his little black book.”
“This will ruin you!” She hissed.
Ian didn’t blink. “I doubt it seriously, and if it does so what?”
“You’ll lose everything!” She threatened.
“No I won’t, but then you won’t get anything.”
“I’m sure there are plenty of journalists that would pay a lot of money for this story.”
“Dirt rags maybe a couple of bucks, but real journalists? I doubt it. Clare, in the past six months I’ve gone from lead anchor in a small Southern Market to second in command at a major television network. Along the way, I became a hero when I pulled two people from a fire, a martyr when my home was invaded and I was shot at, and a legend of the month when the whole mess embroiled itself in the old Darla Hutton legend.”
“And I’m sure all of that will come tumbling down when they discover you tossed your pregnant girlfriend on the streets and threatened her.”
Ian cocked his head. “Are you aware of how many public and pop culture figures have pregnant girlfriends they’ve treated worse? Not to mention the amount of lying whores who run to the press and claim to be the pregnant abused abandoned girlfriends of public and pop culture figures. That barely registers these days.”
“I’m sure that…”
“Clare, even if you had been dumb enough to make a sex tape I doubt you’d even get more than a couple hits on You Tube, and those would probably be from someone creepy who just wanted to see my penis.”
“I guess we’ll just see won’t we?”
“Either way. You get nothing and I get to keep what I have.” Ian motioned Ripley to remove her with a simple flick of his hand.
“Wait!” Clare held her ground. “What if we compromise?”
“No comprises Clare.” Ian remained calm. “You get choice one or choice two. That’s it, either or or out the door, no turning back.”
Clare smacked at Ripley’s hands one last time. “And my choices are?”
Ian nodded to Ripley who calmly cracked his knuckles and reseated himself. Ian picked up the pen and slid the document back within Clare’s reach. “Choice one, we get married. You sign the pre-nup and as soon as the house is finished we get married and that’s that.”
“You’re going to build me a new house?” Clare smiled and reached for the pen.
“Not exactly.” Ian leaned back in the chair. “Billy will fly back to Virginia and add a few rooms on to Aunt Hil’s house. We’ll be living there.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen.” Clare laughed. “Won’t it be a little difficult to run HRT from Lost Mountain?”
“Oh, if we get married I’ll resign effective immediately from HRT. I’m buying Fettersons Market. You will run that and I’ll farm the land.”
“Excuse me?” The pen dropped from Clare’s hand. “What about the money?”
“What money?” Ian’s eyebrow rose.
“All the money you’ve made at HRT?” She said. “Surely we can…”
“Clare that money is all tied up in this house, and medical expenses. I live well, but if those paychecks stop we’ll need income. I have enough to make a nice down payment on Fettersons.”
“But why do you have to leave HRT? Can’t we get married and you keep your job?”
“Unfortunately, it would be bad press for me to be married to a woman who is such a risk she can’t legally be allowed on HRT property. If we get married, I’m sorry I no longer have a job at HRT. That’s been made very clear.”
“Just get a job with another network.” Clare smiled.
“Your timing is way off, Clare. HRT was taking a huge risk putting me in such a position as it is. I’m unproven. The press and public like me, but as far as the other networks go I’m a snot nosed pain in the behind with nothing to show. If I had time to get a few successful schedules under my belt, I might have been a hot commodity.”
“So we wait a couple of months…” Clare bit her lip.
“Try years Clare.” Ian informed her. “Once again, you know not of what you speak. You want to get married. Sign the pre-nup, and we move to back to Virginia.”
“If we ain’t got nothing, why bother with a pre-nup?” Clare figured it out.
“The pre-nup has very little to do with money…darling. Although it does state that should the marriage end you leave financially with exactly what you came into the marriage with.”
“Well that’s not a whole lot.”
“And should the marriage end, the pre-nup takes care of custody.” Ian said matter of factly.
“Custody?”
“Of the baby. Should we divorce, you give up all rights and claims to the child and/or any other children we might have.”
“Well…if you think there’s going to be another baby you have absolutely lost your mind.”
Ian leaned forward. “There will be other children. I want lots of children and if you won’t give them to me…” Ian reached back and began to scoot the pre-nup away from Clare and towards him with a finger.
Clare threw the pen on the desk. It bounced from the force and hit Ian in the forehead. “Problem, dear?”
“What’s the other choice?”
“You stop being a freaking free loader and bitch and we get on with our lives.”
“What?” Clare tried hard to be offended.
“Clare let’s just raise this baby. Lots of people do it. They’re smart enough to know just because they’ll never work out as husband and wife doesn’t mean they can’t create a warm loving environment for a child as man and woman. Let’s learn to like each other. That will be a new one for us.”
“But we love each other.” She insisted.
“No, Clare. At most my sperm loved your egg. Sorry to be crude, but that’s the fact here.”
“Oh yeah?” Clare continued. “Then why were we together for so long?”
“You know, I’ve thought a lot about that.” Ian softened his line. “Believe it or not, if I thought either one of us could actually love the other I’d be willing to give marriage a shot.” He actually felt shamed as the words escaped his lips.
“Face it Clare, I was with you because no one had ever tried so hard to keep me around and I was used to the abuse. Hell, it was better than the abuse my Uncle heaped on me, and you that you loved me because I was the only thing you’d run across in life that really didn’t care about you one way or another.”
“That’s a disgusting thing to say.” Clare looked hurt.
“I’m sorry.” Ian dropped his eyes. “But you know it’s true. Clare I don’t even understand why you kept me around as long as you did. At first I thought it was because you lost your father and you thought you could mold me into his replacement. It made me feel like I was worth something. I’d never felt that way before.”
“Ian…” Clare pouted up.
“Just give me one good reason why Clare. Come up with one true reason for trying to be anything more than friends and I’ll do anything you want. Anything…”
“Oh this is ridiculous. There are plenty of reasons…” Clare began to search her brain.
“One, let me hear just one that makes sense.” Ian pleaded. “And good together in bed isn’t one of them. That leads right back to the sperm and egg thing and I really don’t want to go there again.”
“Just good in bed?” Clare smiled weakly.
“Clare, for me…just good.”
“Damn…” she said. At least that made Ian smile.
“Take your time, Clare. Let’s not rush into any thing. We’ve hurt each other enough, and we’ve both been hurt way too much. Nothing has to change until then except our attitudes.”
“Ian?” Clare looked desperate. “What about me? What do I get out of all this?”
“I keep forgetting it’s all about you.” He chuckled.
“Damn straight.” She smiled. “It’s what got us all in this mess in the first place, and I’ve always relied on you to get me out of it.”
“Clare, I’ll always take care of everything the baby needs, 100%”
“And what about what I need?”
“Clare, I think it’s time you learned to stand on your own to feet. You’re a strong, relatively smart woman…”
“Relatively?” Clare turned to Ripley who grunted. “Watch it, Ripples.”
“I left you with a rather healthy bank account, a car and a condo all paid for. Six months later you don’t have a dime to your name. Think about it.”
“I needed stuff.”
“Then learn to pay for it. I know you are going to be busy with a newborn, our newborn. I don’t expect you to get a job tomorrow, but we can work this out together. You are really bad at blackmail, so we can rule criminal out, but we can do this.”
She nodded her head. “By the way, David Turner stopped by earlier this afternoon.”
“He did?”
“Yes, he said to apologize to you for thinking you might need him to step in and solve the problem known as me.”
Ian smiled. “Oh?”
“He said you’d squash me like a bug.”
“Don’t make me.”
“You just did.”
“Clare…” Ian shook his head. “Call your mother.”
“Okay, you win.” Clare crossed her hands over her belly. “Don’t be mean.”
“I’m not being mean.” He handed her his cell phone. “I moved her to a facility not to far from here. She’s doing so well. They let me bring her home on weekends.”
Ian saw the tears form up in her eyes. “The room Billy’s been working on is for her. We’re hoping soon we can keep her here permanently.”
Ripley reached over and touched her on the shoulder and handed her a tissue. “She’s still struggles to speak, but her mind is sharp and she makes herself clear.”
“Ronnie has been teaching her sign language. He adores her, and she just lights up anytime he’s around. She asks about you everyday.”
“Call her. She wants to hear from you.” Ripley rubbed her shoulder. “She’s got one hand sign down I’m sure she’ll make very clear one too many times, but I think all she needs now is her daughter.”
Clare took the phone and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Speed dial seven.” Ian said. He got up from the desk and looked at Ripley. “Let’s give her some privacy.”
Ripley left the room, as Ian squatted down next to Clare. “When you’re through, give the old bat my love and then come in the living room and have cupcakes and watch “Minute to Win It” with us. Come. Just be a part of the family.”
She looked up at him and smiled. “May I speak with Gloria Humphreys, please? This is her daughter.”
Ian kissed her on the forehead. “Just stop fighting Clare, and let us heal each other. Oddly enough, we need you as much as you need us.”
Clare squeezed his hand. “Mama?”
Ian shut the den door behind him and leaned against the wall. He looked up at the sky and said reverently. “Thank you God. Let this work, please. For my baby’s sake.”
He took a deep breath and passed out.
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