What's a Girl to Do? (Season 2)

Chapter Nine: Ashes to Ashes

I walked into the conference room that Friday morning in the third week of January, armed with my research on our latest case on Jackie Farris, an heiress who was under investigation for the murder of her wealthy grandfather. Jackie's father, Paul Farris, was the executor of Johnson Farris' estate, but Paul had a rock-solid alibi, and couldn't have been the murderer. I sat down in my usual spot, chewing my dried cranberries, and waited for Nicholas to arrive so we could go over strategy for the case.

Opening arguments had been set for the first week of September, so my research, at this point, was preliminary, but, I reasoned, far more detailed than necessary. Even though I enjoyed peppering the biographies with my own personal vocabulary, I had soon come to realize that simplicity was best when it came right down to it, and I found that Nicholas could sometimes grow annoyed with my words.

"Hope you slept well last night," Nicholas said by way of greeting as he walked into the conference room with that confident flair of his, "because you and I are not leaving this room until our strategy discussion is exhausted."

I pursed my lips, looking up from my notes. "And tell me again who decided to start strategy planning eight months before the trial?" I ask him.

Nicholas smirks, sitting across from me. "You know as well as I do that we wouldn't start for another few weeks, but one of us is having a baby, and won't be on-hand as much. This way, you have less work to do in the future, meaning that you'll have more bonding time with whatever name you've decided for the baby."

"Iana," I said, tapping my pen impatiently against my stack of papers. "I told you that. I told the whole office that."

"Yeah, right. After your brother."

"Both my brothers," I reply, rolling my eyes before turning back to my notes. "I told you this. I told you my daughter's name is going to be Iana Phillipa Gallagher."

"But just the way it's pronounced—Ee-Ana—it's like you're stretching something to the point of it being unnatural," he replied.

I roll my eyes at him again. "Well, I'm sure if it were up to you, I'd name her something snobby, like Nicole or something..."

Nicholas smirked. "I'm not impartial to it."

I let out a sigh of exasperation, turning the page in my notes. "How's Jasmine?"

Nicholas's smile faded as he pulled his laptop out of his bag, signing in before opening a new Word document and typing up some notes himself. "Yeah, she's fine," he replied. "She's modeling right now, so that's something..."

I nodded. "That is something," I replied. "Does she like it?"

He nodded back. "She seems to enjoy it, although I wish she wouldn't drink as many cocktails at the parties we go to. I'm afraid she's getting too dependent."

"I know what you mean."

He looks up. "Do you?"

"Yeah, my... My biological father, Frank, is an alcoholic, and my brother, Lip, is, too. I had some of the symptoms when I first moved here—drinking too much and relying on that fuzzy feeling you get after the fact." I shrugged. "Thank god for pregnancy, because I don't know what I would've done if I didn't have a reason to stop."

"But you did stop, right?"

"Yeah, once I confirmed the pregnancy," I replied. "The doctors have said that the drinking wasn't so much that it hurt the baby. I'm just relieved that I found out before permanent damage was done, you know?"

Nicholas nodded. "Yeah, I know."

I lowered my pen then for a moment, wanting to figure something out that I had long been questioning. "What are you so afraid of?" I asked, quietly.