Maybe it’s the hormones, but I’d quite happily punch her in the throat.
Ten minutes later, Aeron leads me out the back entrance and helps me into the armored black car.
Gwen waits in the backseat, her hair pulled back in the usual neat chignon. She glances up from her iPad and smiles in greeting.
“So.” She nods toward my belly. “Everything okay?”
His face lights in an odd, lop-sided smile. He looks boyish. Happy. “Perfect.”
I’m already raising a brother that everyone thinks is my son, he told me after that first scan, his arms wrapped around me so tight I nearly choked on his sweater. What would the difference be?
“What about you?” I ask her. “Any news?”
“Uh-huh.” She hands Aeron the iPad, then sits back to fasten her seatbelt as the car pulls out on to the road. Blacked-out windows cast her elegant profile in shadows. “It all went through.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Already?”
“Done and dusted. Lore Corp belongs to Murdoch Holdings, and you’re officially free.”
He sits back, breathing deeply. “Fuck. Shit.”
The engine rumbles beneath me, and the baby shifts back and forth. It—she—is bothered by anything that vibrates.
“So when do you leave?” she asks.
“As soon as possible.” He scrolls through the paperwork on the iPad. “Prepare the press release for as soon as we touch down in England. And then…well, I guess that’s it.”
Aeron kept Gwen on after the Maldives because in the end, her position as an informant helped us, and firing her would’ve been risky. She knows too much. It could have gone the other way, obviously, and then I’m not sure she’d still be around. I’m not just referring to her job.
Such things are necessary, as is the case with the sale of Lore Corp. Aeron tried everything to rescue his reputation, but it’s all been too much; the resemblance between Aeron, Ash and Abel is too blatant to ignore. Even the National Enquirer sheep have spotted it. With the baby on the way, and the way Ash has been since the incident, we’ve decided to cut our losses and, as they say over here, get the hell out of dodge.
I will miss SilentWitn3ss. My first baby. But it turns out there are more important things to protect. Things you might die for. Things other people have to die for, whether they realize or not.
“Is there anything else I can help with before you go?” Gwen asks.
I look up from my cell. Shake my head. “Nothing we can’t do ourselves.” Then I tap Aeron on the shoulder and jab a finger at my screen. “Have you seen this?”
He peers down at the blue-and-white Facebook friend request.
Dean Horowitz.
I hope everything’s okay, he’s written in the message box. Saw about your baby on the news and just wanted to say congratulations. How you doing these days? I still think about you sometimes. X
“That will have to be taken care of,” Aeron says quietly.
“Yes.” I spread my fingers across my belly and close my eyes for a second. When I open them, I’m still pregnant, still beside Aeron and the world hasn’t melted away. “I suppose it will.”
SEVENTEEN WEEKS LATER
Aeron
Wellwick Manor
Wiltshire countryside, England
Grasshoppers, let me introduce you to Miss Harper Lore: forty-two minutes old, blue-eyed, blond-haired, and abso-fucking-lutely perfect. She looks a little like she’s been shrink-wrapped, but that’s normal, right?