Happily Ever Addendum (25 page)

I sighed. "Would you like to see
the twins?"

His face lit up a little and he nodded
with half a smile. I led the way.

We were both sitting and talking about
the whole situation while the twins played in front of us when Aidan appeared.

"What the hell is he doing
here?" I stood quickly, as did Henry.

"Aidan…" I moved toward him
and he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me behind him.

"Get away from my children."
He ordered and Henry immediately began to walk out of the room.

"Aidan, your uncle came to
apologize and I accepted…"

"How can you even talk to
him?" Aidan turned and grabbed onto my shoulders.

"I can’t handle the tension and the
separation in your family any more. You need your family."

"He is not my family." Aidan
glared at Henry who put his head down and walked out of the room.

"Aidan, it’s your choice to forgive
him or not. I’m not saying to forget, but it’s time to forgive. Let go of all
of that and move on." I kissed his lips lightly and pulled back. "I
have forgiven him, that’s my choice."

I walked back over to the twins who were
looking at us curiously. Aidan stood frozen for quite some time, seemingly
thinking things over. Then he joined the twins and me on the floor to build
castles out of blocks.

By Thanksgiving, I had invited Henry for
dinner. Aidan was still very ‘iffy’ with him, but agreed to let it all go. He
would never forget nor would he fully trust him again, but it was progress.
Henry understood.

When Christmas arrived, Henry and Anne
were on their way to reconciliation. Aidan and I forgiving him seemed to be the
starting point for Henry’s acceptance. Elora was still slightly cold with him,
but she could tell that James was happy to have his father back in his life. He
was his father after all. Henry was an amazing grandfather to Jimmy. It was an
amazing turn in his personality. I had never seen Henry interact with children
before, but he was great with him.

This Christmas brought us a six months
pregnant Phoebe. Since she was so tiny, her belly was all you could help but
notice on her. Phoebe wanted to be surprised, so they didn’t find out the sex.
She was positive though that it would be a girl. She had already decided that
her name would be Adeline Lee Emerson, Lee was Oscar’s middle name.

The New Year brought with it so many
changes. While some were difficult, more were amazing.

Maggie was accepted to Dartmouth. Jason
bought her a promise ring and with it the promises that they would make their
separation during college work. Abby was starting her junior year of high
school and was in the running to be valedictorian with the grade point average
that she was holding. Ryan had turned two and was a beautiful and bright little
boy that Liam and Viola treated as their own son.

Oscar proposed to Phoebe when she was
seven months pregnant. March came with the arrival of a beautiful, little
Adeline. Phoebe took to motherhood like she had been doing it all her life. She
had only been home for a month when she started working with Celia on the dress
fittings for the wedding. I was ridiculously jealous of how quickly she had
lost all of her weight.

Dixon and Celia’s wedding took place in
May. They married in the Central Park Gazebo with one hundred and fifty guests
in attendance. It was so beautiful and perfect for them. Celia had finished
college and was currently the top engineer for a car company. Dixon and Celia
were so perfect for each other, Dixon in a female dominated career as an RN with
his boisterous and welcoming personality while Celia worked in a male dominated
career as a car engineer with her stand-offish and bitchy personality. It was
like ying and yang.

Warm summer air rolled in with June and
I was excited to get the twins out of the house. Aidan had been expressing his
desire for more kids for a few months now. After much consideration and
relenting, I was in my second month of pregnancy and tired.

When I surprised Aidan with the news
that we were having another child, he rearranged his schedule for the rest of
the workweek and swept me away to the cottage he had given me for our first
anniversary. Our whole time there we stuck to the no clothing rule, applying it
to both of us. My legs were so sore when we returned, I planned on heading
straight to the welcoming jets in my bathtub.

Once we were home, we greeted the twins
and played with them for about an hour. Then I headed for the bathtub, finding my
mail on the table next to the bedroom door. Absent mindedly, I picked up the
stack and started going through the envelopes.

I came upon a thick standard envelope.
There was no return address and the postmark said Germany. I furrowed my brow
and flipped it over. In big, bold letters, the word ‘Please’ was scrawled on
the back. I put all of the other mail down and opened the envelope.

"I thought you were going to take a
bath?" Aidan came in and wrapped his arms around my waist, placing his
chin on my shoulder, his hands over my stomach. "What’s that?"

I swallowed hard as I unfolded the
letter and looked for any indication of who it was from. Then I choked out.
"It’s from Loreley."

Chapter Ten
Headlines and Events
Lilli

I know that none of this excuses or washes
away what I have caused so many people, but I need you to know that my love and
friendship for you was the first real thing for me.

I am sorry and only hope that this brings you
and your family some answers and closure.

Thank you for all of your kindness, even when
I didn’t deserve it.

Forever your friend,

Loreley

As I finished reading the letter, I
wiped my eyes and sniffed. Aidan was pacing back and forth in the room as I sat
on the edge of our bed reading the letter out loud.

"Jesus, Aidan…" He stopped and
looked at me intently. "You…" he cut me off.

"Lilli, I am so, so sorry!" He
started to cry. "I didn’t even realize that Gideon would go ‘that’ far…I
mean, fuck…his own daughter. He used my…fuck, Lilli, I am so sorry!" He
buried his head in my lap.

I ran my hand through his hair.

"We need to find her." He
looked up at me, shock written all over his face. "We need to help her and
the baby." I felt the warm tears start to slip over my cheeks again.
"He’s your son, Aidan. Regardless of how, it’s not the child’s fault and I
will be damned if Gideon gets his hands on that innocent child."

"You are so amazing." Aidan grabbed
my face and kissed me fiercely. "I’m going to call Liam, James and
Henry…" he looked at me with uneasiness on the last name and I simply
nodded to him and smiled, "we need to meet as a family and discuss all of
this." He sighed.

"I’ll call Devlin. He should be
here as well. He may want to bring the authorities.” I stood quickly and went
for my cell phone.

Once everyone had arrived, Jay brought a
tray of coffee into the dining room and began to serve everyone. Once he
reached me, he put a glass of milk in front of me. I smiled up at him and he
smiled back kindly. It was strange, but it was like Jay had been in my life
forever. From the moment we walked into this house, Jay and I seemed to be on
the same page about everything. His smirks and knowing smiles were priceless to
me.

The letter was being passed around as
Aidan paced around the table explaining what we had learned.

"What if it’s just another ploy?"

I looked up at James intently.
"It’s not." I felt all eyes fall on me.

"Lilli, this could be just
another…" I cut Henry off this time.

"It’s not." I stood up, my
chair screeching against the hardwood floor. Aidan moved quickly toward me.
"I will not allow this poor, innocent boy to be manipulated and used for
Gideon’s satisfaction. I want to find them and if you don’t want to help me,
then I will do it myself."

"Baby, please calm down. I don’t
want you to upset yourself." Aidan pushed my chair back and sat me down,
placing his hands on my shoulders as he stood behind me. "I am going to
help Lilli find them."

"Aidan, you need to be careful, we
now know how far Gideon has possibly gone with his own daughter." Devlin
shook his head and took a deep breath. "We also know how far he has
manipulated you, so I think you need to assume that he is not above doing
worse."

I felt Aidan’s hands start to massage my
shoulders lightly, obviously he felt my tension.

"I think we all know that he is a
cold-hearted, manipulating asshole, but what I want, aside from finding Loreley
and the child, is to take Gideon down." He released my shoulders and moved
so that he was standing next to me.

The room was silent for a long moment,
everyone thinking over the information that was in front of them.

"I’m helping." My head snapped
up to see Aunt Anne looking around the table. To say I was surprised would be the
understatement of the year.

"You know that you don’t even have
to ask me." Viola sat back in her chair eyeing me. "We all know where
I stand with innocent children."

"Obviously, I would never leave my
wife unsupported." Henry took Anne’s hand as he finished.

"James…" Elora spoke with
authority.

He shook his head.

"This could get dangerous for all
of us, but fuck it…let’s find Loreley and figure out how to get rid of Gideon."
Elora leaned into James and kissed his cheek, leaving her head to rest on his
shoulder.

Using what Loreley had sent to him and
Liam, Devlin set to digging up as much information as he could on Gideon.  Viola,
Anne, Elora and I met with a couple of private investigators, hoping they would
be able to find Loreley through the letter’s postmark and date.

I knew finding her was going to be
difficult. I also knew that once we did find her and her son, my life would be
forever changed. I was not the only one to have Aidan’s children. I would be
lying to myself if I said that it wasn’t hard to think about. Or that it wasn’t
going to be hard to deal with, for that matter.

How did we make this work? She and the
child would need to be kept safely away from Gideon. Did that mean that they
would live in this house with us? Wouldn’t that be slightly uncomfortable and
awkward for all of us? I sat, thinking about moving Loreley into the pool/guest
house.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Lilli

Being six months pregnant meant that I
could sleep again. I loved this trimester. However, when my cell phone started
ringing in synchronization with Aidan’s during my love affair with dreamland, I
couldn’t help but let a particular ‘F’ word fly out of my mouth in a large
groan.

Aidan chuckled but quickly grabbed his
phone. "Hello." He croaked out, his voice still thick with sleep.

He cleared his throat as my phone rang
again. I sat up and grabbed it, noticing that it was four in the morning.

"What?" Aidan jumped out of
bed and ran to the television. "When?" His free hand was fisted into
his hair.

"Aidan?" He turned his wide
eyes on me. "What? What’s wrong?" I felt the nervousness and panic
start to rise from my chest into my throat.

He turned the television so that it
faced the bed and not the sitting area. There, on the screen, was a picture of
Loreley and Gideon, an old family photo. It wasn’t the picture that shocked me,
it was the large scrolling headline beneath.

‘Father and daughter found dead’, ‘Both
found with multiple gun shots to their bodies’, ‘Prominent New York Businessman
found dead with his daughter.’

I gasped and climbed off the bed.

"We are watching it now." He
spoke into his phone while mine continued to ring on the bed.

"Oh my God”, I shrieked as a
thought pummeled its way to the forefront of my mind. "Aidan!" He
snapped his head to me, looking me over. "Where’s the baby?"

His eyes widened. When he registered the
sobs that had erupted from my chest, he dropped his phone to the floor and
pulled me into his chest.

"Shh…we are going to find out what
happened. I promise, we will. Cole will be found." He kissed the top of my
head over and over, trying to soothe me.

Two weeks later we were dressed in black
and sitting in a large brown and cream colored room. The amount of flowers that
covered the room could almost make you forget that they surrounded a casket,
almost.

We found out a week after the bodies
were discovered that Loreley had returned to Gideon’s home to either confront
him or to find incriminating evidence. He found her in his house and apparently
flipped out. Stories from the staff varied from him screaming and throwing her
around, demanding to know where the child was to Loreley simply waiting to kill
him.

In the end, the autopsies and the
investigation were concluded to Gideon having shot Loreley first. The shot
wouldn’t have been fatal if it had been treated immediately; however, Loreley
pulled out her own gun and shot back. Gideon’s injury was immediately fatal, a
bullet straight in the heart. The remaining shots that killed Loreley had been
inflicted by Gideon’s security guard, Felix. Felix had been caught and was
awaiting his trial. His other guard, Lawrence, could not be found. Only his gun
was found.