It’s early Christmas morning. I roll out of bed, having had little sleep and start pacing back and forth in our room. My conscience is eating me raw.
“Boxer, honey, what is it?” Evelyn’s says sleepily before clicking on the bedside lamp, squinting her eyes from the light. I glance at her, seeing how adorable she looks with her blonde hair all messed up from sleep. “You’ve been tossing and turning and pounding your pillow to a pulp these past few hours. Want to talk about it?”
“Yes! No! Yes! It’s not my story to tell,” I grouch at her. “I’ve been sitting on this information for a few days now.”
“Can you tell me enough and I can help you to decide?” Evelyn is always the calm to my storm.
“Ev… I have to say something.” I take a deep breath and let it out. “I’m grumpy because it’s not my business, but I feel I need to protect Whisper and make it my business, even though she’s only been with me for such a short time. Damn it Evelyn say something because I want you to agree with me, so it gives me the peace of mind to talk to Whisper, even though you have no clue what I’m bloody well rambling on about.” My conscience is fighting hard to break me. When it comes to anything associated with my daughter, I will let it bend me.
“Oh boy, this sounds serious. Honey, stop pacing and come back to bed and we can talk about it without you waking up the house. She waggles her eyebrows at me letting the sheet drop away from her naked breasts. “Although I’m not complaining about the view I’m getting of your fine ass and your fine—”
“Ev…elyn,” I growl out low because she can so easily distract me.
“Yes,” she purrs back at me.
Jesus!
Only she can have my cock growing hard at the same time as I'm feeling so tense about what's going to get revealed today and how it will affect Whisper and Edge.
“Ev, as much as my”—I point to my happy-to-see-you erection—“wants to wish you a Merry Christmas and we both will, I think I need your opinion first. Whisper once told me: no secrets or lies. I want to honor that.”
Evelyn sits up, covers her breasts and pats the bed coverings to confirm she's not going to distract me with her naked tits. "Reid, this is obviously life-changing information you've received, so I'm all ears." Aaannd she pulls out my real name. "Tell me what you're comfortable revealing, and I am sure later today I'll understand the rest. My lips are sealed." She makes this cute zipping her lips motion and tosses the imaginary key over her shoulder, which tugs a lopsided grin from me, releasing a bit of my tension.
“I need to tell Whisper something, so she’s prepared and can be there for Edge,” I reason as I get under the covers and tuck Evelyn into my side.
“So you do like Edge?” Evelyn sounds a little too smug at the dilemma I find myself in.
“Whatever,” I replied grumpily.
“Okay, so hit me up with what you want my opinion on.” She takes my hand and squeezes it, knowing what I’m about to reveal is enough to keep me restless.
“You know how Whisper asked me to find her a trustworthy lawyer?” Evelyn looks up at me nodding her head. “Knowing Mathias’s mother was going to be spending Christmas Day here, I thought it would be appropriate to get a background check done on her. I contacted Mathias while he was on the shuttle bus to the airport to collect her and we had a good talk. I explained I was going to get Joel to do a background check on her, for Whisper's safety. I needed to be sure we could all trust bringing her to Ghost's home. He was a bit pissy at first, but he understood and agreed as he knew she was completely clean and she was a top lawyer in Norway. She was well respected. I then asked if I could butt into their reunion time and come over and speak to her about getting some papers drawn up." I stop there and take a moment because what I'm about to say next will blow my woman's mind.
“Honey, go on if you can.” She squeezes my hand again.
“Bloody hell, Ev, I’m just going to come out with it.
“Okay.”
"We've found Edge's mother… Lily—Lily Schenk."
“SHOOT!” Evelyn sits up straight her eyes are enormous.
You can say that again.
“Mathias’s… mother?” she squeaks.
“Yup.”
“That makes Mathias his—”
“Yup!”
“—brother. How?”
"It's a very tangled web, which Lily will have to be brave and answer," I reply, adding a deep sigh because it's not a very nice tale she will be exposing. "That's the part where Whisper is going to have to be strong for Edge. As a little boy he went through so much trauma, and she understands that physical and mental trauma more than anybody else. His mother honestly thought he was dead and the rest of that story Lily is going to tell because that is as far as I'm willing to repeat what I know until Edge hears it."
“Shoot!”
"Christ, Ev, it is one disturbing tale. Test results are in, DNA all matches." I'm waiting for the penny to drop.
Clunk!
“That means—”
“William Dupré was married to Lily?” she sounds appalled.
"No, but he is the father of both men." I scrub my hand over my face. The tension hasn't left. "I feel I need to give Whisper the heads-up. It's a pretty massive secret I'm keeping from her. I want her to be able to help Edge through today and have a little time to adjust herself to the news. Mathias and Whisper met under very stressful times; she was forced to cane him. He's coming today to talk things over with her and reassure her he's okay and also now to meet his brother under better conditions. Mathias doesn't know she's pregnant. I wanted her to be able to share that with him. I know she's a little stressed about meeting him again and I don't want too much piled onto her in one go. I've sat on this information, having the perfect opening to tell Whisper when I gave her the papers back she wanted to be drawn up, but I didn't. I chickened out.
"My gut tells me I would be making a big mistake if I didn't warn her about what was going to happen today. It's her first Christmas, and I want it to be a good one. This news is already going to throw a perfect day into a tail-spin, but as you can imagine, Lily has suffered a great loss losing her first-born, and I've had to keep her away from Ghost's house with the promise of her being able to reveal herself on Christmas Day. Not the best day, but I needed for Whisper to hear the heartbeat of her baby—correction babies—first, before any unsettling news gets shared and it's going to unsettle Edge in a huge way. I need those two to spend time together and see where that was leading before the heavier news was slammed down on them."
"Reid, I think you're right. Although you've shocked me with this news, forewarning Whisper is the right thing to do. She can be there for him because she's a very strong young lady. He's the father of her babies, and he will need her when the time comes. It's going to be very hard for Edge to hear his mother is alive and in the same room as him and he's already unknowingly met his brother. He knows Mathias is a good man who helped Whisper as best he could while she was held captive. Edge already has Mathias's respect, and that is a good thing," she reminds me.
I wrap my arms back around my woman drawing her against my chest and rest my back against the headboard. “Bloody hell, when it comes to Lily, Edge has a lot more to understand and swallow. And then there is Mathias, who didn’t even know he had a brother and he never had a name to call his father. Lily simply refused to speak about the man to him. Once I was finished explaining enough about Whisper’s captivity and how she came to be under Miss Catherine’s loving wing, he was disgusted to share the same DNA as that motherfucker. I didn’t give the both of them full disclosure, but it was enough to rattle the two of them. I need Whisper to know I had to tell them enough of her life, for Mathias to understand what he was a part of, and how keeping her safe was even more important now all these skeletons have floated down the river.”
“I can fully understand why you need to let Whisper in gently and warn her about what is to be coming.” I knew she would understand.
"Everything has changed now, Ev. Whisper and Edge are building a family and sorting out where their personal lives are heading, and Edge has his club, his men he thinks of as his family and his parents who adopted him. He had a fucked-up father that's linked Whisper to him and now brought to light new family members, both come with a lot of emotions, and there will be guilt and pain. Edge will have a lot of questions. I've made sure he has as many of those answers available to him. It will assist him in coming to terms with a lot of what is thrown at him today. How he takes it all is still to be determined, and he will need Whisper to lean on, even though he won't admit that.
"Whisper wanted to get home as soon as possible. I guess we will have to play it by ear now as to what happens today. My daughter won't leave Edge to deal with this by himself. I can see she's already way too emotionally attached to Edge for that to happen. Ev, I know you've taken leave from your—"
“I’ve got my father covering everything back in New Orleans. We stay here together for as long as Whisper and Edge need us.”
"I love you, Ev."
“I know you do. And I love you too.”
“How about we get a little more sleep before I talk to Whisper?”
"How about you give me an early Christmas present," she says seductively.
“Why Dr. Castille, I thought I’d already given you an early present last night?”
“That was a Christmas Eve present, not a Christmas Day present,” she corrects me. “This is our first Christmas together, I’m a little greedy,” she teases.
“Yes, you are, Dr. Castille.”
I roll us both over and pull her up to her knees. “You might want to brace your hands against the headboard because things are going to get a little dirty and you can spread those lovely legs of yours a little wider.” And then I’m on my back and sliding between her thighs and gripping her waist. “Merry Christmas, Evelyn.”
And then I pull her down onto my face.