Epilogue
Five years later.
GUILTY!
Conrad read the newspaper headlines with a bitter sense of satisfaction.
Seven executives from Blackwall had been tried for their crimes, and five had been convicted. A further four had pled guilty to lesser charges and had testified against their superiors.
Of course, they couldn’t be charged with murder because they hadn’t directly killed those children. Nor could they be held directly accountable for the other deadly incidents that had come to light during the investigation.
What could be proven was that they conspired to defraud the US government and keep the money flowing, and that was what they’d been found guilty of.
Conrad and Elle had waited a few months to send out the damning information, making sure that they had all their bases covered. They had decided to post them from the US, where the majority of Blackwall’s executive staff lived, so they had waited until Elle went to America to try to break into that market.
They had thought that none of the ten publications they had sent the information to had chosen to publish, but over a year later, the Boston Globe had finally begun publishing articles. The paper had waited so long because they needed corroboration first, and then because they began to uncover so many other abuses!
Next came the Senate hearings, then finally the criminal charges.
Blackwall itself was long gone, forcefully broken up and sold off after the Senate hearings.
Conrad wasn’t sure that the companies that had filled the void were any better, but they couldn’t be any worse.
Conrad’s second in command, Jackson, knocked on his door and entered when bid.
“Hey.” He smiled at his boss. “Enjoying your last day?”
Conrad smiled and leaned back in his chair, linking his hands behind his head.
“I don’t know . . . I’m going to miss this place.”
“We’ll miss you too, promise,” Jackson teased.
“Yeah, right, you can’t wait to get your hands on my desk.”
“Can you blame me?” He gestured to the window. “Who wouldn’t want that view?”
Conrad laughed. Like most of the building, his office had a very fetching view of a brick wall.
“Ah, well, I’d better get going.” He folded the newspaper up and dumped it in the recycling bin.
He hadn’t wanted a big send-off so he just said goodbye to his staff as he passed them, like he usually did.
Besides, he’d see them in under a month for the next board meeting.
The Conrad Consultancy, or CC as they usually called it, was a security consulting firm. They studied various places and situations, then advised on how to best secure them. He’d started with Elle’s first international tour, handpicking the men who would guard her and secure the venues she played in.
Conrad had hated being a bodyguard, but planning and logistics had always been one of his skills, not to mention finding weak points in enemy territory that he could exploit for his missions. Those talents were why he became captain of his SBS team, and his attention to detail meant that he had never lost a man.
Since starting this business, he’d never lost a client either.
He mostly employed ex-forces personnel, since few people were better at spotting trouble.
After Elle, he’d been asked to do the same for other tours, then he’d been hired to advise how to best protect a celebrity’s new home. Eventually, companies had begun to contact him.
Today he employed almost one hundred people.
And today was his last day.
Oh, he would still be a board member; he still owned 40 percent of the company, and if they needed him, he would come running.
However, his first baby was due in January, and he wanted to be a full-time dad.
Growing up without a father had made him determined to be there for his own children, especially while they were young. Luckily, he could afford to be a stay-at-home father.
At seven months pregnant, Elle was starting to have mobility problems, and he wanted to be there for her too.
Elle planned to take at least two years off work. She would still write songs because that was her creative outlet and her way of dealing with her emotions, and she might record some songs, but considering that they had had a studio built in their house, that was hardly going to take her away from the baby.
His office was on the outskirts of London, so the commute to their home in West Sussex wasn’t too long.
They had lived in Elle’s cottage for a while, but since Marcus had broken in, she hadn’t felt as safe there. When fans began sending mail to her home address, Conrad had insisted they move. She couldn’t bring herself to sell it, however. It was her family home after all, so she had rented it to a young local couple she knew.
Their new house, while not a mansion, was large, with seven bedrooms—well, six, now that one had been transformed into a music studio.
The main selling point, however, was that it was surrounded by a five-foot wall. With a few additions, such as wrought iron spikes atop the wall, a gate over the main driveway, CCTV, and an intercom at the gate, he had made it feel very safe while still looking like a family home. It was also only about thirty minutes from Gatwick Airport, which, since they both traveled regularly, was a huge boon.
They always tried to travel at the same time. Elle’s tour dates were usually booked at least a year in advance, so it was easy for him to arrange any international travel for when she was also away. She never traveled for more than six months in any one year, though.
Conrad parked in front of the house and let himself in.
“Hello?” he called as he entered.
“Up here!” Her dulcet tones came from the nursery upstairs.
Dumping his laptop case by the door, he removed his suit jacket as he climbed the stairs and left it hanging over the banister. He strolled into the nursery to see Elle up a ladder as she drew the outline of a wing for the mural they had decided on. She was wearing old black leggings and one of his old shirts. Her long hair was twisted and secured with a butterfly clip, a few tendrils escaping to frame her paint-smeared face.
“Hey now, get down from there,” he chided, running up so he could hold the ladder steady as she descended.
“I’m fine,” she assured him, but she came down as anyway because she knew he was worried. He was still holding the ladder as she descended, essentially trapping her. “We short girls perfected the art of balancing years ago,” she teased as she stopped on the first step so they were almost the same height.
She gave him a quick kiss but was careful not to touch him anywhere else lest she get paint on him.
“But you suddenly have a few extra stone protruding from your front, it throws you off balance!”
“Are you calling me fat?” she placed her hands on her hips.
“Ah no. I definitely didn’t do that . . . Did I?”
She laughed and went in for another kiss.
“Oh, you’ve got a little bit of—” She went to wipe the paint away, until she noticed the paint on her knuckles.
“That’s because you’ve got a little bit of something just”—he pointed at her cheek—“there.” He stole another kiss, intentionally smushing his face into the paint.
“Stop!” She laughed, still trying not to touch him because of the paint on her hands. She also had paint on her sweatshirt, which was so covered in old paint, it was hard to tell what was fresh. “I’ll ruin your suit!”
“Eh.” He flashed her a cocky grin. “It just so happens I quit today, and I didn’t like this suit anyway.”
“And the shirt?”
“I gather full-time parents don’t have much call for dress shirts—the spit up and everything, you know? I hear it gets messy.”
It still wasn’t in her nature to ruin a very nice suit, so he had her at something of a disadvantage as he stole another kiss.
“You know, Mrs. Conrad, if you don’t start kissing me back soon, I might get a complex.”
“I don’t want to get paint on you!” She smiled, hands in the air as if she was being held at gunpoint.
The next thing she knew, Conrad stooped low and swooped her up in a bridal carry, making her scream with a mixture of delight and indignation as she scrambled to hold on. It amazed her that even with so much extra baby weight, he still held her like she weighed nothing.
“Uh-oh!” she cried as she spotted black paint transfer on his shirt. “This will never come out!”
He loved that even though she could support them both and a dozen children without ever needing to work again, she still worried about a shirt.
And rather than hire decorators, Elle wanted the two of them to decorate the nursery together, which he thought was a fabulous idea.
She wasn’t worried about wasting money with that last one; she just wanted to do it together, so it was more personal.
“Well now, it looks like we both need a shower,” he purred, suddenly making her care a lot less about having smeared paint on him. In fact, as he purred in her ear about lathering her up, she looked as if she would dunk him in paint just to make it happen.
He carried her through to their bathroom, which was equipped with a large walk-in shower, and he let the water run while he undressed her, so it was lovely and warm when they stepped under the water. The spacious shower consisted of a sloping floor and drain. It was separated from the rest of the bathroom by a wall of frosted glass bricks.
Being pregnant had made Elle incredibly aroused, especially in recent weeks, and although he couldn’t blame hormones, seeing her belly swollen with his child had had a similar effect on him!
Unfortunately, as their libidos grew, so did her stomach, making the logistics somewhat difficult. Still, never let it be said that Conrad didn’t rise to a challenge.
First he cleaned her, because there was no point in shower sex without the shower, and he preferred to get the boring bits out of the way. That didn’t mean that he didn’t take every opportunity to tease her, of course. For reasons she never understood, her breasts always needed far more cleaning than the rest of her body!
Ordinarily, he would tease her for ages, but the additional baby weight made her feet ache, and she’d been up a ladder half the morning, so he went easy on her today. As she leaned back against him, he moved his hands lower, using the sponge in one hand to lather up her belly, while his other hand explored the bump.
Call him a caveman, but the thought of his child growing in there made him rock hard. He snaked one hand lower, teasing her sex to make sure she was ready for him.
He needn’t have worried really. She was pretty much always ready these days and often accused him of being too slow. She pulled away from him and bent forward, holding on to one of the sturdy handrails he’d installed a few weeks ago.
He didn’t need asking twice. He aligned himself with her slick channel and sank in, balls deep on his first thrust. They sighed in unison. He wrapped his arms around her and held still for a moment, just enjoying the sensation of being seated inside the love of his life.
Then he felt the muscles in her sheath begin to clench around him, a sure sign she wanted him to continue.
“Patience is a virtue,” he whispered in her ear.
“If I wanted to be virtuous, I’d have become a nun. Now fuck me like you mean it, or I’m divorcing you.”
“Well in that case . . .” He pulled out until only the tip remained, then thrust his whole length back in.
“Oooh!” She sighed. “Like that . . . Harder . . . Bit harder! . . . Like that, yes! Yes!”
She’d also developed a taste for rougher sex since getting pregnant. He had worried at first, but once the third pregnancy book assured him that he couldn’t hurt the baby, he had relaxed. Now he just waited until the end for his cuddles.
She was getting up a few times a night now, which was leaving her a little bit sleep deprived, and after a vigorous fuck, she generally didn’t mind a snuggle while she fell asleep.
Realizing that he was close, he reached around and began to rub her clit in time with his thrusts.
“Come for me, Elle. That’s it.”
“Fuck me harder!”
He obliged, increasing the pressure of his strokes on her clit at the same time.
He saw her hands curl into fists. A second later, he felt her sheath clamp down on him as she came, but he kept rubbing her clit. He knew it would keep her coming until he seated himself fully inside her and spilled his seed.
They were both panting as he detached the shower head and used it to clean her up. Then he turned the water off and wrapped her up in her fluffy panda dressing gown. Her eyes were hooded so he knew she’d fall asleep soon. He took her butterfly hair grip out so she could sleep comfortably. After pulling on his own robe, he carried her into the bedroom and placed her under the covers before climbing in the opposite side and spooning her until she dozed off.
“Sleep tight, princess,” he said once she was asleep. He placed a light kiss on her hair before slipping out of bed.
Elle awoke to an empty bed, but she was used to that after a nap. She was lucky that she could sleep during the day really, because lord knew she hadn’t slept a full night through in weeks.
Stretching like a cat, she reluctantly got out of bed, knowing she’d never sleep tonight if she stayed curled up any longer. Besides, she had the urge to pee again!
Conrad had already cleaned up their clothes, so she brushed her bedhead away and tightened her dressing gown. She had had to buy an XXL to accommodate her growing bump, but the robe drowned the rest of her. Before Conrad bought her this panda robe, she’d been resigned to boring maternity wear. He seemed to like her cute nightwear more than she did!
Making her way down the hall, she found Conrad painting the mural, dressed in his old clothes rather than a suit, thankfully.
They had chosen to be surprised by the baby’s gender; it didn’t much matter to either of them if they had a boy or girl. As such, the mural was rather genderless right now. Set on a boat, it had a pirate fencing with a prince or princess. They would both be made into boys or girls once the baby was born. Above the boat, flew an angel, the only gendered character—it was Elle’s mother, one white feather falling from her wings.
Conrad had no artistic sense, so he was painting block colors by numbers. Elle would go over it later and add the detail.
With a contented sigh, she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway to watch him.
The time she spent being stalked was objectively the worst period in her life, and she was glad to see Marcus sentenced to twenty-nine years, even if she knew he wouldn’t serve all of it. He’d been his own worst enemy by refusing to plead guilty; he still believed he could con everyone into believing his story. Then like a fool, he’d fired his barrister and represented himself! Finally, in addition to all his other crimes, he’d had a mandatory five years added for using a gun during a crime.
And yet without the publicity that his stalking and the trial generated, her career would have taken far longer to build, both here and in the States. She’d even won a Grammy for a collaboration with Eminem, which she had no doubt would never have happened had her story not made headlines around the world. Eminem would never have heard of her, let alone asked to sample her song. That collaboration had also introduced her music to a whole new group of people, some of whom became her fans.
But more than that, without Marcus, she would never have met Conrad, who was, hands down, the best thing to have ever happened to her.
They weren’t a couple most people would expect to find together, she mused as she watched him painting the blue background. He was a cynic, while she always saw the best. He was physical, while she was lyrical. He preferred to work behind the scenes, while her career courted fame. He was confident while she still doubted herself often.
It worked because they made it work. She accepted that he was different, and she gave him the time and space he needed.
He, in turn, accepted her foibles, like when she was writing and recording and sometimes stayed up all night to perfect a song. Rather than chastise or nag her, he simply accepted it and made her a coffee before he left for the office in the morning.
She stepped into the room, and he turned to smile at her.
“Hey, have a nice sleep?”
“Lovely,” she purred as she approached with a predatory look in her eye.
“Whoa, I’m covered in paint,” he warned, stepping back as she got close.
He held his paintbrush up so it was out of the way and wouldn’t stain her dressing gown as she slowly backed him into the wall.
“Using my own tactics against me?” He shook his head as he teased her. “That’s hardly very sporting.”
“I’m playing for two; I need all the help I can get.” She shrugged.
“That’s all very well and good, but how exactly do you plan to extract any kisses from me from all the way down there?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. Sometimes she really hated being short, but you had play to your strengths.
“I don’t need to,” she said with a smirk.
“No?”
She shook her head.
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why is that?”
She stood up on her toes, as much as she could in her current state, and whispered, “Because underneath this robe, I’m naked.”
She saw his pupils widen, and he held out for all of thirty seconds before he bent down and willingly gave her the spoils she’d so cleverly earned.
“I win.” She smiled smugly as he pulled away.
“I think it’s a win-win situation,” he argued.
“Of course. But I still won.”
“Whatever you say, darling.” He laughed and leaned down for another kiss.
The End