by L. D. Davis
“Take care,” Emmy said with a sad smile and started to pull away from me to get into the Escalade.
I pulled her to me and wrapped my arms around her. She didn’t hesitate to reciprocate as she rested her cheek on my chest.
“Your hair still drives me a little crazy, I have to admit,” I whispered to her.
She giggled. “Would you like me to give you a lock of it?”
“I’m so tempted, but I don’t think it will be the same as it is attached to your head.”
“No, I suppose not,” she said softly.
“I never deserved you,” I said, my lips moving on her hair.
“No,” she agreed. “You deserved better, and you got her.”
She pulled away from me then. She wouldn’t look at me as I opened the door for her, nor as she climbed into the truck. I needed to see her face and I needed to tell her she was wrong, but I couldn’t tell her that. Lily was perfect for me, the one I was supposed to be with. Before I could close the door, however, Emmy looked at me with misty eyes.
“Maybe there will be a place for us in another lifetime,” she said softly.
“I have no doubt about it,” I told her.
I closed the door and watched as part of me was once again whisked away. This time I was okay, and I knew she was, too. Emmy was going home to her happily ever after, and I was going back to mine.
EPILOGUE
*~Lily~*
Amara Sterling has lung power, my goodness can the girl scream.
“I’m telling you, she doesn’t like your driving,” I said to my husband.
“She loves my driving. Maybe she doesn’t like this stupid music you have on the radio,” Kyle said. “What the hell is this? Radio Disney? Put on some Boys II Men or something.”
I pursed my lips and turned the radio off altogether. Amara continued to cry.
“Definitely your driving,” I said.
“Maybe she just wants her grandma,” he said. In an adorable voice used only for his daughter, Kyle asked “Do you want your grandma, sweetie? Is that what you want?”
I reached back into her car seat, blindly searching for her binky.
“Gotcha,” I said as my hand closed over it. I stuck it in Amara’s mouth and the crying subsided.
“Binky addict,” Kyle murmured and took my hand into his. He brought it to his lips and kissed it.
Life has changed for us since the day Vic took me, aka V-DAY. Two mornings afterward as the nursing staff prepared me for discharge, Kyle was on the phone with the big guys at Sterling. They wanted him back to London ASAP. They didn’t seem to care about what was going on in his personal life. When they finally did yield, they gave him a whole week of personal time but insisted that he must be back in London by the following Tuesday. Without any hesitation or looks of regret, Kyle quit.
“My unborn baby and her mother need me full-time. This job isn’t even secondary in my life. I quit.” He ended the phone call and went back to talking to my mom as if he had not just made a life altering decision.
Days later while we relaxed at home, the Sterling men called back and offered Kyle his job back. He could work remotely from home as long as necessary with some light traveling if absolutely necessary. It was the least that they could do. Kyle had saved their asses big time and they never properly thanked him. In addition, he had been a large part in rebuilding the business and they were only just beginning to appreciate his hard work. Kyle said he wouldn’t work more than eight hours a day, and when the baby was born he wanted six weeks off and thereafter he wasn’t willing to travel for at least six months. They called back the following day and agreed to his terms.
Corsey took a vacation. A long vacation. I had run him ragged with the whole Chicago debacle, and the kidnapping thereafter. After he dropped Emmy off at the airport, he called Kyle and told him not to call him. He was going home to his wife and kid and he didn’t want to be disturbed. Forever. He really said ‘forever’ as if that was going to stop me from calling him and harassing him for letting me push him around in Chicago.
Marco came to see me two days after we got back to the penthouse. He apologized profusely for not doing anything about Vic. Then he apologized profusely that Kyle wasn’t leaving again.
“I was hell bent on seducing you, Lily,” he had said in his fading Italian accent. Lydia had been in the room with me at the time. She snorted and rolled her eyes. Marco had glanced at her and then whispered in my ear. “Well…I’ll settle for your sister.”
I laughed at his joke. In fact I was still giggling about it a few weeks later when I called my sister just for a chat. I wasn’t expecting Marco to answer the phone.
“Why are you always taking my sloppy seconds?” I teased Lydia once I got her on the phone.
“Trust me. There’s nothing sloppy about him,” she had said.
Supposedly, their relationship isn’t that serious, but my mother will have you believing they were about to run away to Vegas and elope. Either way I was happy for Lydia and I was touched that Marco wasn’t as shallow as I had once believed when I first met him. He overlooked my sister’s limp and most likely stepped up to help her deal with her pain.
Felicia was doing very well, better than either Kyle or I could have ever expected. She took her medication religiously and if she didn’t feel right she immediately called her psychiatrist for an adjustment. She started going to therapy twice a week the week after I told her off. Kyle started attending some sessions with her so that they could work on their relationship and deal with their past. It is working, for both of them.
When Walter tried to force his way back into Felicia’s life, she put her foot down and stood her ground until he finally slunk away back into the recesses of hell. She started reforming friendships and even went out on a few dates, much to Kyle’s agitation. If she had a bad day, she no longer apologized with lunches and brunches. She apologized in person by saying “I’m sorry”. All of the new changes couldn’t have been easy for her, but she really felt she needed to try. She didn’t want to lose Kyle the way she had lost Miranda, and she didn’t want to miss out on Amara’s life.
I couldn’t go to the grand opening of Lily’s, but Mayson told me that a lot of the old crowd from SHOTZ was there and more. It was a big hit and stayed busy. Marco and Kyle helped run the business end while I was stuck in bed and continued to do so for a few weeks after I had Amara. When I finally made it in there, I was greeted by a lot of familiar faces and cheers for my return. I only worked a few hours a week because I wanted to spend as much time with my baby and Kyle as possible. When she is older, I will spend more time there, but in the meantime, it is running well and is everything I hoped it would be.
All of Vic’s secrets came out in the weeks following his arrest. Since the police now had every reason to search his home in New Jersey, they did so and thoroughly. They found everything they needed to find regarding premeditating my kidnapping and even proving that he had burned down SHOTZ. There were other things that they found that also connected him to a couple of other sexual assaults, in addition to some robberies and other things. There was no getting out of it this time. He was going to be in prison for a fairly long time.
Two weeks after V-Day Kyle proposed to me. It wasn’t quite the proposal a girl would expect, laid up in bed with a bowl of ice-cream resting on my belly, but I was genuinely surprised when he got down on one knee. We got hitched two weeks after Amara was born, at the Sterling estate. My family came in from Ohio, Marco came, Mayson, and a few other people from work. It was quaint and sweet, but how it was done didn’t matter to me. The fact that I married this beautiful person is what mattered most to me.
Kyle is still a dick sometimes, and sometimes his insecurities will trip him up, but he’s always trying to be better. He is always trying to do the right thing and to make me happy. He is the most amazing father I have ever seen, tender and loving to our daughter. Every Sunday he sits on the couch with Amara in his arms and they watch football. He
talks to her as if she understands what’s going on. He changes diapers, feeds her, burps her, bathes her, and spends hours a week just watching her facial expressions or watching her sleep.
Anna and Gavin are never far from my mind. I feel sad that they are gone, but I look at Gavin’s kids and feel fortunate to have a piece of both him and Anna living on – three adorable pieces. Kyle didn’t forget about Little Gavin either. He called him weekly, even when we weren’t together apparently. He didn’t want Gavin to feel like another man had deserted him. Could I possibly love this man anymore?
“It looks like mom has some company,” Kyle said absently as we pulled into the driveway at the big house.
My stomach knotted up. I wasn’t nervous before now. I just nodded, acknowledging him before getting out of the car. My hands were shaking as I picked up the diaper bag. Kyle picked up Amara in her car seat and we walked towards the door. I took a very deep breath as I unlocked the door and pushed it open. I could hear voices drifting in from the kitchen at the back of the house. I let Kyle walk ahead of me and I watched as he came to a sudden stop at the threshold to the kitchen. I stepped up beside him to see her with my own eyes.
Miranda, Kyle’s long gone sister stood a few feet away from him with her hands folded in front of her. Hell, she was gorgeous and she and Kyle have similar facial features. Three children, two of them identical, stood off to the side between their grandmother and a man I guessed was Chad, Miranda’s husband.
Miranda smiled as tears filled her eyes.
“Hey,” she said softly.
“Randi…” Kyle choked out and then looked at me with wide eyes. “You knew about this?”
I nodded slowly. Know about it? I contacted her and talked to her for weeks before I convinced her to visit her mother and subsequently Kyle.
Kyle handed me the car seat and meet his sister halfway for the most emotional, heartfelt embrace I had ever seen or experienced in my life. I wiped away my own tears as the pair murmured and cried. After a couple of minutes Kyle was introduced to his twin nieces, thirteen year old nephew and his brother in-law. I hugged Miranda and each of the children and shook her husband’s hand. She cried again when she got to hold Amara, and I couldn’t blame her. Our baby was beautiful with her dark hair and gray eyes.
Felicia had made a big dinner. We sat down and ate and talked and laughed. It felt like a real family, something Kyle had been lacking most of his life. It made my heart ache with joy to see his face light up and to see how happy he was. I was so happy for him, I had to excuse myself half way through dessert so that I could go be a girl and cry in solitude.
I shut myself into the bathroom and cried. I was so happy for him, for me…for us. I felt like a pussy sitting on the tub, crying – like a pussy – but I couldn’t help it. My life was so different from a year ago, so perfect.
“Lily?” Kyle’s voice came through the door after a light knock.
“Yeah?” I said, standing up and rushing over to the mirror to wipe my face.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m great,” I said honestly.
“Wanna unlock the door?”
“No,” I said with a small laugh and unlocked it anyway.
“Hey,” he said, coming inside and closing the door behind him.
“Hey,” I said.
“Why are you crying?” He frowned as he wiped my eyes with a towel.
“Because I’m a little bitch,” I laughed. “I’m just so happy for us, but especially for you.”
He smiled and kissed me on the lips. “You did this for us,” he said. “You’ve done so much for me over the past year and a half. You’ve made me so happy even when I didn’t think I deserved it.”
“You don’t deserve it,” I teased, poking him in the chest.
He put his arms around me and slipped his hands down to my ass. “There must be a way to thank you, Mrs. Sterling,” he said in a voice that made my toes curl in my boots.
“I’m sure we can work something out, Mr. Sterling,” I said, wrapping my arms around his neck.
“I’m so glad you wore a skirt,” he said as he lifted me onto the vanity.
“Mr. Sterling, are you going to take advantage of me in this bathroom in your mother’s home?” I asked, appalled.
“Absofuckinglutely,” he growled before taking my mouth with his.
While he kissed me, his hands moved under my skirt and slowly tore my panties away. I growled my approval in his mouth as my fingers worked to unbutton his jeans and push them down to spring his erection free. His hands were back under my ass, pulling me to the very edge of the vanity before sinking into me. My moan was swallowed into his mouth as he thrust slowly inside of me.
Kyle broke the kiss and stared down into my eyes as he moved painfully slow, stroking my walls with his cock.
“Thank you,” he whispered, running a thumb along my jaw.
“For what?”
“For believing I was worthy of redemption,” he said seriously.
“Do you believe you are worthy of redemption?” I asked, running my fingers through his hair.
“I do now,” he whispered.
“Then that’s all that matters,” I said and kissed him again.
Kyle was a new man, mixed with a lot of the old Kyle. He was perfect. He was mine, and he was redeemed.
~*~ The End ~*~
Acknowledgements
Evelyn Erndt, thank you, thank you, thank you for odd hours of brainstorming, reading every little change – as annoying and frustrating as that must have been – and of course for your fine editing skills (and yes, I still say that ‘question’ deserves an exclamation point). Thank you most of all for your blunt honesty and friendship.
Lorien Vanover, thank you for not bitch slapping me when I yelled at you. Thank you for spending crazy hours reading and editing when you so have a wedding to get ready for! Thanks for the ridiculous text messages that made no sense but cracked me up. Also, I thank you most of all for your friendship.
R.L. Mathewson, thank you so, very much for your attempted sabotage of my diet, turning my scary children against me, luring me to Hershey Park to make me fatter, and for watching in amusement as I struggled with my enormous, heavy bag at the front desk in Virginia. Most of all, thank you for your guidance, for listening to my rants and raves, for putting up with my long list of stupid questions, for giving birth to my two blonde cuties, for finding everything bacon, for wearing the Goonies shirt and most of all for your valued friendship.
Karleigh Lewis-Brewster, where do I begin? Thank you for your patience and all of the HUGE, HUGE help you have given to me on many occasions. Thank loads for your loyalty and I hope the “meth head” has found redemption in your ‘side eye’! If not…psh…
Now, I must thank a long list of people. Many of you don’t even like to read and/or have not even read my books yet, but you have given me tremendous support that cannot be replaced. My career started with you when you chose to believe in me and not knock me down. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Jen (Wifey) Ripa * Tracy Demiani * Debbie Yeager * Sue Reed Pica * Douglas Wade * Steph Kirk *Keiko Harvin * Kathy Kimmerly *my fake oldest, favorite child John Ware * Nancy Warsewicz * Tiffany Marie Elizabeth Bermudez * Teresa Cunningham * Jason Miller * Shaniqua Robinson * Dean Schmidt * Candice Midgley * Jenn P.G. * Carin Batcho * Janell Wilson * And the countless folks at 5476 that hugged me because you loved my book*
If I have forgotten anyone, I’m sorry. Gotcha next book!
And a very special Thank You to the members of the
South Jersey Writers Group
& the talented people within.
About the Author
L.D. Davis lives on the East Coast of the United States with her children, husband, cat, and one fish. In her spare time she enjoys reading, time with her family, and great food and drinks with friends. Mrs. Davis has a bit of an addiction to Downton Abbey and similar shows and movies and a secret love for the various versions of Star Trek.
While L.D. lives a relatively uneventful life, there is always a party in her head. Look for more of her work later this year.
