The men in the room glanced at each other, smiles and grins tugging at their faces as they turned and looked at me again.
“Sweetheart, we’re a few steps ahead of you.” Leon leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of my head, “While you were getting your beauty rest we had a lot of long discussions about what happened.”
I was a little miffed that they were having conversations without including me, but I couldn’t go back and wake myself up so I just listened as they continued.
Dominic gave my hands an affectionate squeeze, “I will no longer be working at Russo Enterprises but I will be able to remain as a part of the pack.”
“So what will you do now?” If Dominic didn’t work at Russo Enterprises what could he do? In all of our time together I realized now that I’d never asked him what he liked to do outside of work.
“I do not know yet,” Dominic replied with a shrug of one shoulder, “I have spent so much time as ‘Business Dominic Dubois’ and you all saw how that ended. I need to relearn how to just be myself again.”
“He needs a hobby.” Owen chimed in, he'd gotten up off of the bed when the rest of the pack arrived and now had his arm wrapped around Leon’s, their fingers linked at their sides.
“I suggested painting.” Gage rumbled from behind everyone, as usual he was hanging back and observing everything. Well that just wouldn’t do. I held out a hand for him and he stepped forward and clasped my hand in his and leaned down to give me a quick kiss.
“So we’re okay?” I asked, could it be that easy?
Leon smiled down at me, “We’ve got a lot of work to do together to be a cohesive pack… but yeah I think we’re all going to be okay.”
I dozed off some time after that, cuddled with Gage on the hospital bed while our betas went home to shower and Ric and Leon went to Dominic’s checkup with him. I awoke later by myself in the bed and it was bathed in the orange light of the sunset over the San Francisco Bay. It took me a moment to realize that someone was sitting in the chair next to my bed and because of how bright the sunset was I could barely make out any of their features. I opened my mouth to scream but an elegantly manicured hand slid over my own, killing the scream in my throat as my eyes adjusted to the light and I could see who had come to visit me. I could feel concerned tugs along the bond from both Ric and Gage and did my best to send calm vibes back their way but I could tell that they were probably going to start making their way back from wherever they were at.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Cecelia Worthington apologized, giving my hand a squeeze, “I wanted to see how you were feeling.”
“Better.” I replied, surprised that she had even come to the hospital at all. The Worthingtons were the ‘send flowers’ type of people and despite Cecelia having taken me under her wing I didn’t expect her to show up in my hospital room. I said as much.
“Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, but why are you here Cecelia?”
“Always one to get right to the point Eloise. I’ve come to appreciate that about you. I suppose I should ask you the same question that you asked me upon our first meeting: Do you want the stock answer? Or the truth?”
I could tell that something big was going to happen—the air felt heavy around us as I thought about it. I could just ask for the stock answer and never figure out what Cecelia Worthingon wanted from me. I’d been wondering about that over the past few months ever since our first meeting. Why had she taken me under her wing when most were vying for her attention? Those people were much better connected than I was. So what was so special about me? I had a feeling that she was going to answer that question.
Sitting up with a wince I moved the pillows behind me to prop myself up and lay back, repeating the same answer she had given me months ago at the charity gala: “‘No legacy is so rich as honesty’.”
A pleased smile filled Cecelia’s beautiful features and she folded her hands over her lap, “Very well. This is going to be a bit of a story, so I apologize in advance.”
“I’m not sure if you know this or not—the upper crust of society hardly mentions it anymore after all—but my alphas and I had a son. His name was Jason and he was our everything, sweet, sensitive and most of all: fearless. We loved him with everything that we had and provided him with the world, the best education and the best connections. Unfortunately we also provided him with the opportunities to become involved with people who would drag him down with drugs and other horrible vices.” Cecelia took a shaky breath before continuing.
“By the time we realized that anything was wrong he was already too far gone. We threatened to cut him off if he didn’t go into rehab. The day after that argument Jason disappeared and we never saw him again. We looked everywhere, hiring the best private investigators that money could buy, but we could never find him. He was eighteen years old.”
The sheer amount of sadness that was radiating off of Cecelia nearly took my breath away, I couldn’t imagine my child going missing like that, just the idea made me feel sick.
“We went on for the next twenty three years without hearing anything. I just made myself accept the fact that if Jason ever wanted to see us he would. About a year ago we got a letter in the mail from an apartment complex in Washington state stating that as next of kin to one of their residents that we were responsible for clearing out the apartment of the deceased.” Cecelia’s voice wobbled on the word ‘deceased’ and she sucked in a deep breath to try and calm herself down.
“And that was Jason?”
Cecelia nodded, “Yes. He’d apparently been living in Washington for most of the time that he was missing from California. He changed his name and eventually got clean. He never married and worked as a handyman at the local university until he had a heart attack at work and never made it to the hospital. By all accounts he led a quiet life and for that I am grateful for.”
“I’m very sorry that you had to go through that,” I said honestly.
Cecelia smiled, “Thank you for letting me tell it. I’m sure you are wondering just where you come into the picture, right?” I nodded.
“Well, Atticus, Raoul, Simon and I were on the first flight to Washington that we could catch. Together we sifted through our son’s life to try and piece together the last twenty two years and we found this.” Reaching into the designer leather bag that was hooked on the arm of the chair Cecelia pulled out a polaroid photograph and a strip of plastic and handed them to me. In the picture was a brown haired man who looked young, probably around eighteen or nineteen years old, with a huge grin on his face as he cradled a newborn baby in his arms. He had the infant tilted as if he was showing it off to the camera.
The plastic strip was what looked like a faded hospital bracelet with a woman’s name on it that I didn’t recognize.
“It took us a while to figure out who that baby was. The woman in the hospital—Rosemary—was Jason’s high school girlfriend. She had left for school in Sacramento a few months after Jason disappeared and we never made the effort to reach out. As far as we could gather both of them had drug problems before and after the baby was born and eventually the newborn in the picture was taken out of their custody and given to Rosemary’s half sister, a woman living in the rural parts of Sacramento. Her name was Georgia Taylor.”
46
