“If by knowing it means he’ll come over and beat the shit out of your father give me the phone and I’ll tell him.” Lucy sounded a little too serious for Tasha’s liking, but she smiled anyway and shook her head at her friend as she was taken straight into a cubicle in A&E where her phone beeped again.
He really was very good at sussing out when stuff wasn’t right or she was lying, even via text.
A nurse came in and did her obs then left again with the promise of a doctor being along shortly.
“Lucy, will you phone Angie for me and fill her in just in case this gets out, but tell her not to confirm anything. I can’t have Jim finding out about it through the press or rumours.”
Lucy nodded and went outside to call Angie.
Once alone, she replied to Jim’s message cautiously, still hoping to avoid him discovering the truth.
His reply was instant.
She sighed and suddenly felt very emotional. She was hurt physically and although she’d endured worse over the years these incidents still impacted emotionally, but it wasn’t that, not really. The truth was her threatened tears were tied up in Jim. As much as she wanted to avoid him knowing the details of her evening it really was inevitable that he’d discover each and every aspect of it. But what then? At what point would he decide Tasha and a relationship with her was going to be too hard, too much and cut his losses and move on.
Her tears were no longer a threat by the time Lucy returned. “Angie is on it and—oh Tash, look at you, you poor thing.” She pulled Tasha in for a hug, causing her to wince in pain.
Her phone rang again and as ‘Viva Las Vegas’ echoed around A&E she cried harder because she knew she had to answer it.
“Do you want me to speak to him?”
Tasha shook her head and answered as the ringing persisted.
“What is going on, Tasha? You’re being cryptic,” Jim said with only concern.
She wondered about the best way to deal with this and decided to go with only lies of omission that would still bite her, but less savagely than outright untruths.
“There’s been a bit of trouble at home. My dad has kicked off big style and hit my mum. She’s at the hospital and he’s been taken away by the police.” There was a slight wobble to her voice.
“Christ, Tasha, are you okay?” His concern had gone into overdrive at the possibilities of her father kicking off.
“Yeah, just a bit shaken. Gerry took Dan and Pippa back to mine, but I have a feeling this may come out in the tabloids.” She was ready to cry again.
Amazingly, Jim ignored the Gerry comment. “Have you contacted Angie? And your P.R. people? What about your legal people to secure a residency order for Pippa? What have the police said? Will your mom press charges? Is she badly hurt?”
She shook her head as she felt overwhelmed by all of his questions; very good questions she hadn’t even thought of. This is why he was rich and successful, because Mr Control Freak knew exactly what to do and who to contact.
“Tasha, baby, are you there?”
“Yes, sorry. Angie knows and is prepared, and she is my P.R. I don’t have legal people. I don’t know what the police have said and my mum is most unlikely to press charges and is a little bruised and bloody.” She rushed the words out, almost rambling whilst sniffing back tears that were desperate to fall.
“I will get you some P.R. and my legal people will contact someone over there. You need to make her see she has to press charges—”
The sight of the doctor appearing distracted Tasha from anything else Jim said. “I have to go the doctor is here.” She hung up.
“You okay?” asked Lucy.
She nodded, clearly anything but. “Mr Control Freak is going into overdrive.”
“You didn’t tell him you were hurt,” she said, stating the obvious.
“No. He would have MI5, the FBI and the CIA on the case.” She laughed despite the situation and pain it caused.
