by S. E. Lund
Josh took hold of my hand and kissed my knuckles.
“Seven months,” he said.
“I know,” I replied and smiled. “Only seven months. It’s hard to believe that it all started just out there, a few feet away.”
“I’m am so glad you’re a jaywalker.”
He leaned in to kiss me warmly and I closed my eyes, my happiness overflowing, making my eyes tear up.
“Me, too.”
Then we were off, driving through Manhattan towards the airport and the rest of our lives.
24
Josh
Our flight to L.A. was uneventful, and our plane arrived late in the afternoon. After waiting for our bags, we rented a vehicle and drove the rest of the way to David’s place in Brentwood.
When we arrived, the brothers gathered in the entry, and we all hugged and slapped each other on the back. We spent some time with David and the other brothers while we waited for Ella’s parents and Steph to arrive later that night. In the interim, we enjoyed a barbecue around the pool, with David as host, cooking our steaks and grilling lobster tails and corn on the cob.
When Steph and Ella’s parents finally arrived, Ella and I went to greet them. We had a round of hugs and kisses as we greeted each other. Steph was suitably impressed by David’s place. Even for someone who was growing used to the idea of my family’s wealth, it was pretty overwhelming. She stood in the entry and glanced around, noticing the marble and waterfall.
David entered the house from the patio where he had been swimming and came right over, shaking Ella’s father’s hand and giving her mom a hug. He looked every inch the debauched rocker, wearing nothing but a pair of black swim trunks and sandals, his very buff body on display with its tatted arms and chest as he toweled off. He wore gold earrings in his ears, his hair was longish and dark brown, his beard was well-trimmed, and he had a brilliant smile. I could easily understand why female fans were so enamored with him.
I’d heard women describe him as gorgeous.
I introduced Steph, and when he saw her, David wolf-whistled.
“So, you’re the best friend Ella told me about,” David said, giving Steph a hug. “I hope you realize that we’re partners in crime at the wedding, since I’m going to be Josh’s best man.”
“The David Macintyre,” she said and shook her head. “I can’t believe I’m meeting you. I’ve been a fan for years. Can I get a selfie for my Facebook page? My friends back in Concord won’t believe it without photographic evidence.”
David seemed especially pleased and gave her a big smile. “Always glad to meet a fan and take a picture with them.”
They stood close together and Steph took out her cell, snapping a photo of the two of them together.
“Thanks so much,” she said and turned in a circle. “This house screams super-rich rock star. I’m suitably impressed.”
“I know,” he said and glanced around with her. “I can’t claim any credit since I didn’t pick it. My investment advisor did. I didn’t decorate it. My interior designer did so none of this is me. The only things I can claim are the waterfall and the infinity pool. They’re mine.”
“Infinity pool?” Steph said with a squeal of delight. “Oh, my God, I can’t wait to try it out.”
“Put on your swimsuit and give it a try. Michael and Christian are already in it. It’s warm, too. It gets cool at night in April, so I have the heat lamps on.”
“You call this cool?” Steph said with a laugh. “You should be in Manhattan this time of year.”
“No, thanks,” David said. “I’ll take LA. I find it cold today.”
Ella took Steph upstairs to her bedroom and to help her get unpacked. I turned to her parents and grabbed two of their suitcases, hauling them upstairs to their room, which was in the same wing as Steph’s bedroom. I left them to unpack and then headed downstairs to the patio, where my brothers were assembled.
“There he is,” Nash said and gave me a thump on the back. “The groom, enjoying his last hours of freedom.”
“You mean my last hours of living the lonely bachelor’s existence?” I countered. “How soon before the rest of you find your bliss?”
“I already found mine,” David said. “Music’s my mistress.”
“Flight is mine,” Nash replied, his arms crossed.
“I’m still taking care of business,” Michael replied. “Too busy for romance.”
“No one’s too busy for romance,” I replied.
We all turned to Christian, who was in the pool, his arms on the side while he watched us.
“Don’t look at me,” he said. “I’m too busy teaching and planning to become leader of the free world to fall in love.”
“Such diminished lives you guys lead,” I said with a scoff. “Rock star. Presidential-wanna-be. Bush pilot. Builder. None of you know what you’re missing. I recommend finding yourself a beautiful loving woman as your partner. You’ll be a lot happier if you do, no matter what you think you’re too busy doing.”
“I’m happy as a lark being single,” David said. “I have too many women, in fact. Don’t know how I could choose only one.”
“Ha! Said like a man who’s lonely in a crowd. We were meant to form pair bonds, brother,” I said and slapped David on the back. “We’re only really happy when we have that one special love. Seriously. Try it some time.”
“Sure, sure,” he said and slapped me on the back. “Whatever you say, brother. For right now, I’m happy with the way things are. There are a million beautiful women in this city ripe for the picking and all I have to do is pick one after the other after the other. The world is my oyster.” He held his arms out and turned in a circle, gesturing to LA, which was spread out below us, the lights of the city like a million gems in the darkness.
“That it is,” I said with a laugh and gave him a hug. “I found the pearl. You can keep looking.”
“You did,” David said and squeezed my shoulder. “You really did find your pearl. Ella is a sweet sweet woman and you’re a lucky man, I gotta say. I know how happy you are with her.”
“This too could be yours, if only you’d let yourself fall in love,” I said.
“I fall in love all the time,” he replied. “None of them have been the one, I guess. Maybe one day.”
“One day, you’ll fall hard. I’ll enjoy watching.”
Ella and Steph arrived, and both were in their bathing suits, large beach towels wrapped around themselves. Steph was very tall, and attractive, with lean curves and an attractive physique. I saw Christian eyeing her while she and Ella removed their towels and climbed down into the warm infinity pool. All my brothers enjoyed the show, and I wondered if anyone would hit on Steph while she was in L.A.
Mr. and Mrs. Carlson came down and joined us, and the nine of us sat around the pool and talked about the wedding and Ella and my honeymoon in Bora Bora.
Finally, when it was getting close to midnight, David stood up and cleared his throat.
“I’m hitting the hay, but if you want to stay up later, by all means, please feel free. Just make sure to lock the patio doors when you come in. We have a fun day tomorrow, and the only thing any of us have to do is memorize where we’ll stand during the ceremony and what, if any words we have to say during the ceremony or after at the dinner. See you in the morning. I have Estelle coming to make us a nice brunch so you can expect the full deal at around nine. For those of you who get up early, you’ll have to wait. The early bird will not get the worm, in this case.”
We all said goodnight and made our way upstairs to our respective rooms. Before we went up, Mr. Carlson stopped me at the bottom of the staircase.
“Come join me in the kitchen for a minute,” he said quietly. He turned to Mrs. Carlson. “We’ll be up in a minute. Go on ahead.”
I walked with him to the kitchen, figuring he wanted to ask me about the FBI case. We didn’t get a chance to talk privately about it since I got the news.
“What’s up, Governor?” I a
sked, still not feeling able to call him ‘Dad’ or ‘Father’.
“Please, call me Emmet.” He took a glass out of the cupboard and filled it with ice and water from the refrigerator dispenser. Then he turned to me.
“I wanted to ask you about the case. I heard that MBS was hacked and that some fake evidence was planted to make one of your execs guilty of tax evasion.”
“And money laundering,” I added, nodding.
He nodded. “I wanted you to know that when I heard, I suggested that the FBI check out Derek.”
“It was you who tipped them off?” I asked, shocked that it had been Ella’s father. “What made you think of it?”
“He threatened me,” Emmet said quietly, glancing around like he was concerned who would overhear him. “I didn’t tell Ella or her mother. I didn’t want to worry them, but he wanted to hurt me, and he wanted to hurt Ella because of losing his position and the hit he took to his reputation. When I heard that MBS had been hacked, I called a contact I have in the FBI and suggested they check out Derek. I had a hunch. It was right.”
“Wow,” I said, shaking my head in surprise. “I had no idea it was you who tipped them off. Thank you. I trusted my CFO to not have done what the FBI alleged, and I expected he would be cleared, but still. It was pretty touch and go for a while.”
“I’m sure it was,” he said and cleared his throat like talking about it was difficult for him. “You have to understand that at one time, I thought Derek would be my son-in-law. I truly loved him as a son for a while, but he was more ambitious than he was ethical. Unfortunately, power attracts the worst as well as the best.”
“That it does,” I said. Then I decided to be totally honest with him. “I want you to know that I had nothing to do with MBS’s investigation into your partner’s activities back in the day. I was still in college--.”
He held up his hand and stopped me. “Don’t mention it. We’ll put all that behind us and have a détente, okay?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said and then I frowned, remembering how suspicious I was about Emmet getting off without any charges, considering it was his business partner who was found guilty of so much.
“So, you had no idea that Garner was involved in anything shady back in the day?” I asked, pouring myself a glass of ice water.
“Actually,” he said and leaned against the countertop. “It was me who turned him in.”
He raised his eyebrows meaningfully. I mulled that over for a moment.
“You suspected him of cheating and tipped off the Feds?”
“I was working for them,” he said softly, taking a sip of water, considering me through narrowed eyes. “And that has to stay completely between you and me. Neither Ella or her mother know.”
“You were working for the Feds?” My mouth dropped open in total shock.
“I did a stint in Military Intelligence when I was with the Army before I went to law school. When I got out, I helped out with some fraud and money laundering cases as an informant.”
“Wow,” I said and was truly nonplussed by the news. Emmet had worked for the DOJ providing them with intelligence he’d gleaned through his contacts in the business world. “That puts a whole different spin on things.”
“It does. I can’t let on to people that I’m a friend of the DOJ or they’d clam up, but I do my part to bring the guilty to justice. Just so you know your father-in-law isn’t a crook.” I glanced at him to gauge his mind set but he was hard to read. Finally, he gave me a grin.
“That’s good to know,” I said with a relieved laugh. We shook hands.
“Welcome to the family, Son,” he said and gave me a quick hug.
“Thanks, Dad.”
I said it and it didn’t feel so strange. I was glad that I knew the truth about him now – how he’d offered up his once-upon-a-time future son-in-law as a suspect in the hacking case against MBS, and how he’d been working for the Feds all along.
“Don’t say anything to Ella, but if you do, and I’m sure you will because young couples these days tend to tell everything to each other, tell her it is imperative that she never ever says a word about it to anyone. Not Steph. Not her mother. My life could depend on it. If my enemies knew, I’d be dead.”
“Mum’s the word, and Emmet?” I said and gripped his arm. “Thanks for telling me and for what you did for MBS.”
He shook his head. “It was for Ella. You love her and be good to her and make me happy that I did.”
“I do and I will.”
With that, we each went up to our respective bedrooms in David’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills.
* * *
That night, I lay in bed and debated whether to tell Ella what Emmet told me. He didn’t want me to tell her, for her own sake, but he also knew I probably would. I knew he’d served in the military, but I didn’t know he’d been in military intelligence. His bio said he’d been in planning, so I had no idea exactly what he did while he served.
“Can’t sleep?” Ella asked when I tossed and turned.
“Big day tomorrow,” I said and pulled her against me. “Lots on my mind.”
“No cold feet, I hope,” she said softly.
I rubbed my feet against hers. “Nope. Hot as usual.”
I kissed her and felt her smile against my lips.
It was then that I decided to tell Ella what Emmet had told me, because of my pledge to always tell her everything. We would soon be married, and I felt so damn good knowing that my fears about Emmet were misplaced and he was in fact a very good man with strong ethics and morals.
He was a man I could respect. A man much like my father, in his own way.
Hopefully, one day, a man I could love like a father.
So, I told her.
“Oh, my God, Josh…” She sat up and turned on the bedside light, and then leaned over me, her hands on either side of my shoulders. “My father was working with the Justice Department to rat on his partner?”
“He was an informant and was helping them fight financial fraud. He suspected Derek when he learned MBS had been hacked because he was being personally threatened and figured it was Derek.”
We talked for a while and I tried to assuage her fears for her father and mother.
“I hope Derek goes away to jail for this,” Ella said.
“I have no doubt that he will. Hopefully for long enough that he’s suitably chastised by the time he comes out.”
She turned off the light and lay back down beside me. I pulled her into my arms, and we snuggled down together.
“I’m glad the two of you are now going to be on better terms,” she said softly.
“Me, too,” I said and sighed. “For a while, I was suspicious about your father and why he didn’t get charged when his partner did, but now I understand. He was working with the Feds to bring his partner down.”
“He always seemed so angry about it,” Ella said.
“He was probably putting on a show, so he’d be in good with the bad guys. Keep his cover.”
“I guess so,” Ella said and yawned.
“You’re not supposed to tell anyone about it. Technically, neither of us are supposed to know and your father asked me not to tell you. Whatever you do, don’t let on to your mother. She doesn’t know.”
“I won’t,” Ella said and leaned up to kiss me. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I said I’d tell you everything and I meant it.”
“I did, too,” she replied and snuggled back down and together, we both tried to fall asleep.
* * *
The day of our wedding dawned clear and warm – perfect for an outdoor ceremony late in the afternoon. Steph and Ella spent the morning at a spa getting their bodies waxed, moisturized, massaged, manicured, pedicured and their hair washed and styled. David and I did our own masculine version of a grooming spa and Ella and I ate separately, trying our best to avoid seeing each other on the day of the wedding. Ella slept in Steph’s room so we could start the day right a
nd so when the time came for us to get dressed and for Ella to walk down the makeshift aisle between two rows of folding chairs to where I waited with David at my side, my emotions were high.
When I saw her, I felt my heart swell with happiness.
She was beautiful.
Her hair was up and there were wild flowers in her bouquet and in her hair. The dress was simple but beautiful, matching her own pure beauty.
I felt a choke in my throat as the ceremony proceeded. It was simple, just the way Ella and I wanted. The officiant was a female pastor in the Presbyterian Church that was in the Brentwood neighborhood whom David enlisted to do the ceremony. Before we left for LA, we’d written out our vows, and they pretty much mirrored what we had said to each other weeks earlier.
We stood facing each other and when the time came, we repeated them to each other:
Don't ever doubt my feelings for you. If you need me to, I will happily tell you that I love you every day of my life for the rest of my life.
When I slipped the ring onto her finger and kissed her, I knew we both meant it.
We turned and faced the small group of our family and a few friends, husband and wife and I thought about what my father had written in his will:
My one piece of advice on how to have a happy life? Marry well. Have a family with many children. Love your family with all your heart, the way I did you and your mother.
I knew with a certainty that went right to my heart and soul that he was right.
Epilogue
Ella
* * *
After a wonderful week in Bora Bora, Josh and I arrived back in Manhattan, tanned and rested, ready for our new life together. Both of us went right back to work the day after we arrived home and it felt good to be back in my office with a pile of manuscripts in front of me, waiting to be read. We put our heads down and focused on work for the first month back, and it wasn’t unusual for us both to be working late in the office until eight or nine at night, breaking only to have dinner together in one of our respective offices.