048:

She got a cab and asked him to take her to the beach house which was really their only home base. It was where the nanny would be after leaving the hotel room. Lights were on and Ryan's car was in the driveway. She got out, feeling all the worse for wear and walked up the short cement pathway, outlined by planters and bushes.

She hesitated before opening that front door. Her sides ached with the way the baby had been turning, her lower back hurt as well. She was somewhat hungry, having not eaten most of the day, and her boobs hurt from needing to nurse Hannah. Yes, she thought mildly, she could call herself rough... she felt rough. What would it be like once she got through that door? Would he be there ready to fight with her? She had surprised him, hadn't she? He'd expected her to be in Montana, still sitting there with her frowny face on, trying to figure out what had happened to them. He didn't really know the girl she'd become with his brother.... Much more confident, much less inhibited, much more able to see the big picture...

She'd been deceived, but she wasn't any longer. It was obvious what he had done, and she could and would rectify the situation. Fortunately, there wasn't anything to split up. She wondered though if he hated her? Did he do it all for revenge? Did he do it because he wanted to hurt her? Why had he gone to such lengths?

Her hand on the front door started to turn the knob when out of the corner of her eye she felt rather than saw movement and she swung around, ready to scream. He was sitting on the hood of his car. Had he been there the whole time? She gasped and her hand rose to her throat.

He slid off the car and came to her. "It's me, Melia. It's Ryan."

"You scared the tar out of me!" She cried and then laughed nervously. "What are you doing out here?"

"Waiting for you, of course, what did you think?" He gently removed her hand from the door, keeping her fingers entwined with his he pulled her toward the sidewalk.

"I have to nurse the baby." She tried to pull away.

"We have to talk." He intoned lightly but firmly and continued pulling her along.

"Ryan! I have certain physiological needs, and one of them is dripping down my front. I have to nurse the baby!" she said and ripped free of him, she wasn't prepared for the way he caught her hair at the back of her neck and pulled her around to face him.

"I said we have to talk." His voice was low and menacing.

"You're crazy, and I won't talk to you while you are acting like this. Let me go!" She wondered if he had forgotten her martial arts training, or if he simply thought she couldn't do it while sporting this big belly. It didn't take her but a moment to jab him with her elbow in the gut, stomp down on his instep with her heel and punch him in the jaw so he'd let her go. There, she thought, angrily, panting as she made it into her living room and locked the door behind her. There, now I've punched both the Patrick Boys.

He was pounding on the door. She was sure he'd wake the neighborhood. The nanny was sitting on the couch, looking scared and disheveled. She grabbed her phone and decided to call the police, but her phone was ringing and it was Jake.

"What's going on? I've got your husband locked out, with judo marks on his face and neck, doubled over and limping. Do I need to get involved here?"

"Tell him to leave. I'm not talking to him tonight." She snarled, holding her hair back and staring at the front door as if those on the other side of it would manage to break it down and harm her. She could hear him yelling.

"Tell him to shut up!" She cried into the phone and then clicked off and tossed the phone on the couch. The baby was in her carrier as if the nanny had had a hard time getting her to sleep. "How was she?"

"Sh-she wanted her momma, that was for sure!" Came the liquid reply. "Is it safe for me to go next door?"

Melia pulled her hair out of its elegant but snarled coiffure, and wrapped it tightly in a bun, and then bent to lift the almost sleeping baby, who smelled milk even in her sleep. "Safe? Of course! He won't do anything to you. It's me he's mad at."

"What's wrong?" The nanny managed a quizzical and knowing smirk that Melia found repulsive. She didn't know this nanny, and now, she didn't like her.

She shook her head. "I beat him up." She finished evenly and then turned and went up the stairs to her room and closed the door. She peered out the window briefly, looking down into the street where the complex security guards had been summoned by the commotion, and Jake was still holding Ryan against his car. She had stilled her freaking heart and stuck both wrists in magnetic bracelets left on the nightstand. She pulled the straps off her neck and sat down in the armchair to nurse her baby.

Was he crazy? What was he hoping to accomplish acting like a maniac? Her head ached unbearably. Blue flickering lights danced in the corners of the room, and soon they would start to look like animals with fangs if she didn't get diffused. Damn him, why had he done this to her? Did he stand so much to gain by causing a scene?

Her phone started to ring and she glanced at it, as did Hannah, who was wide awake now, staring at her mother with placid but curious eyes. It was her father's number. She picked it up. "Hello?"

She could hear yelling in the background. "Melia, you don't need this kind of publicity right now. Open the front door and let Jake bring him inside. Paparazzi are all over the place, and starting to take pictures. Open the front door. I will be there shortly." Click.

Oh brother, now her Dad was involved. She called Jake's number and told him to bring Ryan inside and then hung up. She heard the front doors open and then sirens coming down the street. Too late. He had stopped yelling. There was a pounding at the door. She could hear Jake's voice, and then Ryan's, but she couldn't tell what they were saying.

And then there was a knock at her bedroom door. "Melia, it's Jake. Can I come in?"

Melia quickly pulled her dress straps back up and sat Hannah up to burp her. "Come in!" she called.

Jake looked embarrassed to see her in her evening dress half off her shoulders, having just nursed the baby who was starting to scream having been lurched off her dinner sooner than she'd expected. "Sorry, Mia. There's an officer here to talk to you. I guess Ryan wants to press charges."

"Are you kidding? He started it!" She cried in shock and heard yelling from downstairs as Ryan heard her words.

She nodded as Jake indicated that the officer wanted to come in her room. "Hello, Mrs.... Mann.. I mean Patrick." An older police officer spoke to her fairly kindly, but with an exasperated tone, clearly having no patience for a domestic dispute among celebrities.

Jake tossed her a blanket and she wrapped it modestly around herself and Hannah. "I was just feeding my baby, do you mind?" She indicated the screaming child in her arms, and when he nodded for her to continue, she demurely put Hannah back to her breast and pulled the blanket over them both.

"Why don't you explain to me what happened?" The officer said gently and Melia felt her headache turning to a migraine in seconds. Those words reminded her of another time, another officer, another set of questions, another event.... She started seeing that incident in her mind and was repulsed and sickened.

She shook her head. "I- You have to go. Jake, I need.... Matthew, or... or my dad."

Ryan was at the bedroom door. "Or me." He crossed the room to her and placed his hand on her wrist which was all of her that was showing. She felt the current lash out and rush into him angrily, diffusing as quickly as it had come. He didn't get it all, but left her sitting there depleted as he sat back on the bed and stared at her and then put his head in his hands. "I'm sorry officer, I don't really want to press charges. It was just a misunderstanding. I'm really sorry."

"For the record then. Mr. Patrick, you grabbed her head and shoved her? And you know that Mrs. Patrick is trained to react to such an assault with martial arts moves that can debilitate a person? Do you both agree?"

They both stared at each other, Melia with a sneer on her lovely face and Ryan with an expression of controlled anger. He nodded and hung his head. Melia's gaze was frankly puzzled as she tried to figure him out. Was the contrite act working on others? It wasn't working on her. She stared at him longer and then nodded as well.

"Should I leave you two alone and go see about damage control?" Jake asked. He made his way out of the room and Ryan sat there staring at the ground. They could hear footsteps on the stair as the officers and the security guards left the main rooms and went outside.

"This is bloody stupid, Melia." Ryan said finally.

"You're damn right it is. I should never have agreed to marry you. This whole week has been nothing but a farce. And now to have you wanting to press charges against me for--- for defending myself...." She choked on her words and thought she might cry, but once again the tears were lodged in her throat leaving her unable to continue and unable to shed them.

"I know. It's all wrong. I don't blame you for being pissed off." He said running his hands through his hair roughly.

"Pissed off?" She repeated in anger. "I'm so royally pissed off Ryan, you have no idea."

"You're right. I've acted like an ass---"

"Hole." She finished glaring at him.

"Okay, an asshole." He agreed. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry doesn't cut it! It's been one damn thing after another all week. I can't take any more."

"What do you want to do?"

Melia shook her head. "I have no idea. This is all so unbelievable to me. I don't know what to do." She said and finally stared back at him. "Look at me, Rye, what am I supposed to do?"

"Can you forgive me? Can we start over, baby? I am sorry. I just got out of hand... "

She shook her head. "I don't want to do anything now until after the baby comes. I'm going to ABCSC or to Catalina. I'm going in the morning. I want to be alone, and then after the baby comes, we'll see, okay?"

"Why not back to Montana? I'll come with you." He suggested hopefully and his eyes did look contrite, more like normal Ryan eyes had always looked, more like the boy on the hot air balloon, giving her a ring....but, she reminded herself fiercely, he was an actor, and a very good one....

"I need a break." She echoed other words she'd heard recently. "I need to get my head on straight."

"Let me come with you." He pleaded.

Melia stared at him. She felt nothing, not hurt or anger, or even nostalgia or sympathy. She only felt very confused. How could this be the same person from the past week? How could this man be the one who had just grabbed her by the hair and yanked her... how could this man be the one who....

She shook her head quickly. "It would be better if I go somewhere alone for a few days. I feel worn out. I just want to think. I have to think."

Ryan got on his knees. "Please Mia, please give me another chance." He seemed so sincere.

Her throat choked up again and she couldn't talk. The baby had fallen asleep. She pulled her off her breast and wrapped her gently and laid her on the bed. Ryan stood there, looking at the floor.

"Ryan, I don't know what to say."

"Say you'll give me another chance. I swear nothing like that will ever happen again."

She shook her head. "After the baby comes." She said firmly.

"Mia, please..." He entreated her, but it wasn't that she couldn't forgive him, she could, she felt a lot of forgiveness right then, but she also felt so much confusion she didn't know how to respond and a voice in her head was saying very calmly, "This isn't how I pictured it, Mia, go to Catalina. You need to think."

*******