Page 60 of Off Limits

“You’re trying to use your daughter as leverage to get what you want?”

She snorts. “Okay, that’s one way of putting it, I guess. Listen, Jean-Luc—“

“—She’s your daughter.”

“Jesus. I’ve been a mother for eighteen years of my life, okay? I don’t know what to tell you. Enough is enough. I need to live my own life for me, I deserve to live my own life. I always thought she and I could be friends later, you know? If she became more fun.” She snorts with laughter. “I don’t mind if she’s around as long as you do the parenting. You always liked that, anyway. But I did my part, okay? I saw her through to adulthood, didn’t I?”

“But you didn’t see her through to adulthood. Social Services was called, Melanie!”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic! You can’t have it both ways, J.L. She can’t be too young to be on her own but old enough for you to fuck. So which is it?”

I gape at her, too stunned to speak. Point Melanie.

“We haven’t…” I stutter quietly. “I’ve never…”

She rolls her eyes. “The one thing I ask is that you don’t tell me the details.”

I’m shocked to my core. Shocked at what she’s offering, shocked at what she already knows, shocked that I ever thought I could love this woman. Shocked that for years I never let myself see what she’s really like deep down inside: vindictive, cruel, and selfish.

When I do speak, I almost don’t recognize my own voice. It’s low and serious. “Go pack your bags.”

“Babe,” she resists, blinking nervously. She knows me well enough to know when I won’t back down.

I take a step forward. “I’ll call Patrick to take you to a hotel tonight.” Our family lawyer, Patrick, is well known to Melanie. “Tomorrow you’ll find accommodations for yourself. You will not speak to Danica, you will not show up on our doorstep, and any future communication will go through Patrick.”

She twists her mouth, furrowing her brow. Frustration is etched all over her face. “You could have had it all and now you’re going to throw it away?”

I take another step forward, dwarfing her with my full height. “Could have had what?” I ask menacingly. “You and your daughter? She’s not yours to sell, Melanie.”

“I’ll use it against you,” she threatens. “I’ll destroy you!”

“I don’t care what you do. You think you can send any storm my way that I can’t weather? Do your worst. But don’t you dare try to use Dani as a pawn.”

She steps back. “You’ll have to pay me more alimony to shut me up!”

“The alimony offer is off the table,” I say quickly, turning my back to her as I walk towards the stairs. “I want you out of here before we’re home tonight.”

“Fuck you, Jean-Luc!” she spits out behind me.

I look up and see Danica standing on the mezzanine, wide-eyed and mute. “Into your room, sweetie,” I say when I reach the top of the stairs, placing a hand against the small of her back. “Grab your dress and pack an overnight bag.”

Danica

THE WEDDING IS two and a half hours away in Nanaimo, but still I’m surprised when Jean-Luc loads my bags into the trunk and tells me we’re going to stay the night in a hotel.

I only heard enough of his argument with Melanie to understand that he finally kicked her out. By the time we left, she was in his room and I didn’t bother to say goodbye. Why would I? She’s barely spoken four words to me since she arrived.

In the car, Jean-Luc calls his lawyer, shooting me sideways glances as they talk over speakerphone. “Give her until nine o’clock,” he says. “And then make sure she’s out.” He calls his assistant and says, “Book me two rooms in Nanaimo.”

His jaw is tight and he’s unusually silent—which is really saying something, considering that Jean-Luc is usually silent. But today I can practically see the wheels turning in his head.

We’re on the ferry when Jean-Luc’s assistant calls again, and he holds the phone to his ear. I can only hear snippets of what he’s saying. “I’m not staying over there just to be an hour away from the venue…Fine, but make sure it’s got two beds.”

While he talks, I lean over the railing, watching the water rip into two slices as it’s cleaved apart by the boat. The boat is loud, engines whirring and wind roaring, but the scenery is stubbornly calm, stoically resistant to the churning chaos of the boat and the wind. I look up and take a deep inhale of the cool lake air, scanning the hills that seem to crowd the shoreline on every side.

When Jean-Luc hangs up the phone, he joins me, wrapping an arm around me and kissing the top of my head. “I’m sorry for all of this, sweetheart.”

“It’s okay.”

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