Epilogue: Five Years Later (Christian's POV)

October 7, 2022

"…Happy Birthday, dear Aaron! Happy Birthday to you!"

Yeah, I was playing the keyboard that Elliot had purchased a couple of years ago and how now set up on his back patio for his son's second birthday party. I still didn't make it a habit of playing in public, but our kids were exceptions. Aaron and his sister Ava were both still too young to start taking piano lessons, but Kate and Elliot were ready when the time came. Ava would turn five this Christmas, and her little brother was two today. Neither of his kids had been born on Elliot's birthday, like my twins had been born on mine, but it didn't matter. Aaron had come close enough. Elliot's own birthday was five days away, and we were going to spend it together. Both of our families were going down to Napa Valley to Ana's winery for a few days.

But today, we were at Elliot and Kate's house, which he had designed and built only about ten minutes away from ours, also with a fantastic view of the sound. It wasn't as large as ours, but it was more modern, and it suited them perfectly. There was a huge backyard, where the kids were all gathered now. The weather was cool but sunny, so the outdoor party had worked out OK. Elliot had a backup plan in their house if the weather hadn't cooperated, but thankfully it did.

"Daddy, can I give Aaron his gift yet?" Teddy asked as soon as we'd finished singing. Well, I think it was Teddy. It might have been Tommy. Half the time, I was just guessing when I called their names, but Ana usually told me what color shirt each one of them was wearing each day. One thing was certain, the older they got, the more they looked like me, other than those piercing blue eyes, which were just like their mother's. We'd just celebrated their fifth birthday this summer. Our birthday had fallen on a Saturday this year, the day before Father's Day, and Ana had thrown a big bash for the three of us in our own backyard. The weather had been perfect for a pool party, and all our kids had had a lot of fun. I absolutely loved sharing my birthday with my sons.

I answered, "No, son, Aaron will open all his presents in a little while. Just wait until it's time. We're going to eat cake first."

"OK!" he replied excitedly. Yeah, all of my kids loved chocolate cake. They came by that naturally. Well, we weren't sure yet about the baby. Ana hadn't let her have any chocolate yet. She was still on mostly baby formula.

Ten minutes later, we had a dozen toddlers covered in chocolate cake, and every single one of them was either my child, my niece or nephew, or the child of one of my security staff. Elliot and Kate had agreed that Aaron only needed the kids he was around everyday at Grey Daycare to come to his party, as they were just as concerned about security as Ana and I were. Besides, even with just family, it was still a good crowd for a two-year-old.

Not long after Lizzy and Violet came along, born on exactly the same day, June 7, 2018 (just two days before the Taylors' little boy, JJ) Mia and Leo had needed to get back to running Cafe Violette. At the same time, Ana and I had hired a full-time daycare coordinator and had gotten her to train all of our babies' security staff. Our plan was to have our own family daycare for our kids, Mia and Leo's children (which was only Violet at the time, but Alice came long later), and Elliot and Kate's kids (which was Ava at the time, but Aaron came along later). It only made sense to also invite our security to put their kids in our daycare as well. Over the past five years, we'd all kept having more kids, so now there were more than a dozen, and we were still growing. We'd simply keep adding staff as we needed to.

Christina was the only one of our kids who attended the second grade class of a private school not far away, and that was mainly because we wanted her to be able to socialize with kids her own age, not just her younger siblings and cousins. Ana and I were discussing the possibility of homeschooling her when she reached third grade, but we both had mixed feelings about it, so time would tell. The twins were already in kindergarten, and Ava, Liam, Lizzy, Violet, and JJ would start next year, so they already had plenty of interaction with kids their own age. We had hired a kindergarten teacher for them instead of enrolling them in a school where we would need to contend with all the security nightmares. We had enough security nightmares with just one child, Christy, with her going and coming from school each day. We would homeschool everyone else for now, and keep reexamining the question as the kids all got older.

Five of the dozen kids in Grey Daycare were our security's, three were mine and Ana's (not counting Christy or the baby, who stayed connected to Ana in her carrier most of the time) and the remaining four were our immediate family. But by this time, our CPOs had become very close to us, almost like family. First, since Gail was still the main nanny in charge, it was a given that JJ, Jason and Gail's four-year-old son, would be included in the daycare. In the same way that my own sons looked just like me, JJ was the spitting image of Jason Taylor, so it was very fitting that they'd named him Jason Jerome Taylor, Jr. Gail had had morning sickness for most of the pregnancy, but once the time came, things had gone fairly smoothly with the delivery. JJ was a healthy boy from the start, and Jason couldn't have been a prouder dad. We'd bonded over the whole parenthood experience, and I now considered Jason more than my CPO and head of security. He was a friend. I think Ana felt the same way about Gail. They truly were like valued family members now.

We'd also gotten closer to both of Ana's CPOs and my other CPO, who all lived in apartments on our property now. Once we'd finished our new garage, which included two additional three-bedroom luxury apartments, Ana had managed to convince Luke to move his family onto our compound. She hadn't been happy when Luke's wife, Becca, had been heavily pregnant with their first child before Luke told her. Now that we saw her and their kids everyday, that wouldn't happen again. Their sons, Liam, who was almost five, and Cody, who was only a year and a half, were in Grey Daycare.

Ana's other CPO, Sam Prescott, and my own other CPO, Andre Wesson, were now married with two kids, and another on the way. Their youngest, Martin, had been born the same week as Luke's youngest son, Cody. I'd been pissed at them for having to take off all at the same time. We had three fucking CPOs who were all on maternity or paternity leave for the exact same six weeks. But then Ana affectionately reminded me that it wasn't their fault when their babies decided to be born. How well we knew that. I hated those six weeks of having temporary CPOs that I didn't trust as much, even though they were our employees who usually worked covert security.

Sam and Dre, as Ana insisted I call them, had named their firstborn Harriet, and we all called her "Hattie." She had been born on Labor Day weekend, I think on that Saturday, in 2018, the same year that Lizzy, Violet, and JJ were born. I remember because we were in Italy at our villa. I'd been nervous about traveling with Lizzy with her only being not quite three months old at the time, but Ana had begged, and I'm a sucker for her when she begs.

Besides, Ana was perfectly healthy and safe to travel, as was our little Lizzy. I had worried myself sick during Ana's entire pregnancy, even though she never had any of the morning sickness she'd had with the twins. She never got sick, at all. Then, when she'd gone into labor early, just as she had with the twins, I'd wanted to panic. Ana didn't want me in the delivery room this time because she knew how I would be. A nervous wreck. And I was. I had to watch from a window, and it was excruciating. But it had all been over in less than an hour, with no need for a blood transfusion as with the twins, and no other complications of any kind, and that included the procedure that Ana had insisted on getting, tying her tubes so she couldn't get pregnant again.

I didn't argue with her about getting her tubes tied, but I also didn't rely on it. I mean, she'd had an IUD both times, and those things are supposed to have near perfect reliability, but hers had failed… twice. So knowing us, her fallopian tubes would come untied. She agreed that it would be a good idea for us both to do whatever was necessary to prevent another pregnancy. Therefore, while we were waiting for her to recover from giving birth to Lizzy, I had a vasectomy. So Lizzy was, we agreed, our last biological child.

And what an amazing child our Lizzy was. She was the only one of my biological children who didn't have my hair color, but who did have my eye color. In fact, she was a carbon copy of her mother, except for my grey eyes. She was a mini-Ana, just like the boys were mini-me's, except for their mother's eyes. And our Lizzy not only looked like Ana, but she also acted like her. I remembered telling her when she was just a tiny little seed in Ana's womb that someday she'd grow up to be President. As each day passed, the more convinced I became that I'd spoken a prophesy. At only four years old, Lizzy was a natural leader, even more than her brothers, who also had strong personalities. Christina was the sweetest of all my kids, almost always giving in to what the younger ones wanted, even to the point of shortening her name. We all now called her "Christy," and she liked it, but it had been the twins who had started that.

Christy, Teddy, Tommy, and Lizzy were amazing children, and we very well could have stopped right there. Ana and I had been in complete agreement from the moment we found out she was pregnant with Lizzy that we wouldn't have any more biological children after her. That didn't mean we couldn't adopt more children, though. And surprisingly, earlier this year, the opportunity presented itself to do just that. So, now, we were the proud parents of another baby girl, who we'd named Ella Hope Grey. Yes, I had finally agreed with Ana to name our baby daughter after my birth mother, who I now realized loved me and did her best in spite of overwhelming challenges that she just couldn't overcome. Ella's middle name was in reference to Nozomi House, where her birth mother had been when we met her.

One of the girls that Raina and Ken had rescued from that life, Tara, had been about four months pregnant when she came to Nozomi House, rescued from none other than Raina's first master, the one she hadn't expected to ever be able to identify because she'd never seen his face. Ken and Raina had been at an event when he'd been speaking, and Raina had recognized his voice. That set into motion a sting operation, and the FBI had caught the bastard red handed. Tara had been his captive for an uncertain period of time, and she'd been sold to him by a previous master, so she didn't even know how long she'd been a slave. It had probably been at least four years. She also didn't know whether he or one of the asswipes he'd loaned her to was the father of the baby she was pregnant with. We never wanted to find out that information. As far as we were concerned, I was the only father our Ella ever needed to know about.

When she'd first arrived at Nozomi House, Tara had been completely lost and unsure what to do. After a few weeks, through the counseling that she received, she determined that she wanted to give the baby up for adoption, but she wanted an open adoption. She wanted to be able to stay in the baby's life somehow.

That was where Grandma Liz came into the picture.

By this time, Grandma Liz had already moved out of our boathouse and into Nozomi House. About three years ago, she'd taken the job as house mother at the girls' home, which was Ana's old penthouse. There was an apartment in the house that was completely hers. When she moved in, at first I didn't think we'd ever be able to visit her there because Ana's attack at the hands of Jack Hyde still haunted us. And that bothered me because my grandma had become a very important person in my life. Would I really not be able to visit her in her new home? I hadn't been happy when she'd taken the job as house mother because I'd wanted her to live in our boathouse, where she was always close to us, on a permanent basis. But it was her choice. I was afraid we wouldn't see much of her anymore.

Ana had settled the issue, though, about a week after Grandma Liz moved to Escala when she told me that we were going to see her, and that was that. And honestly, all three Escala homes, at least what we saw of them, had changed so much I never would have recognized them. We didn't get a tour; there were parts of the home that were off limits, especially to me, a rich man who would probably remind some of the traumatized girls of the assholes who'd abused them. But we did see Grandma Liz's new home, as well as Ken and Raina's. There were absolutely no reminders of our old homes, and nothing to trigger Ana, thankfully. It was another step in our healing that we could go there now without being re-traumatized. It was now a place of healing, so that was very fitting.

We had no idea that Grandma Liz had been talking to Tara about us. One day while we were visiting her, she introduced us to Tara, who was probably close to six months pregnant at the time. It was Tara herself who proposed that we consider adopting her baby. All she asked for was that we keep her informed about the baby's life. She didn't know yet if it was a boy or girl, but that it was healthy. She hadn't wanted to find out and form a bond with the baby. She knew she wasn't able to care for it.

Ana and I had been shocked that Grandma Liz would go behind our backs and talk to a young girl about giving up her baby… to us. We already had four kids of our own, the oldest of which wasn't even seven years old yet. We hadn't even seriously begun to think about adoption yet, since our youngest was only three at the time.

"What were you thinking, Grandma?" I finally just came out and asked her.

With tears in her eyes, she replied, "I was thinking that Tara reminds me of my Ella. And I wasn't there to help her when she needed me. But I can be there for Tara now. She's a good kid, just like Ella was. If you adopt her baby, we're essentially adopting Tara, too. She's too old to officially adopt, but unofficially, I want to be there for her.

I wasn't sold on the idea. I had a very extensive background search done of Tara, and Ana and I spent a few weeks discussing the issue. Ana was for it long before I was, but I was worried about having this girl permanently in our lives. Grandma was right, though, she was a good kid. She was only eighteen years old, and she had a whole life ahead of her. Grandma was helping her get enrolled in courses at Seattle Central College that would help her prepare for the GED. If she could avoid the pitfalls that girls from Nozomi House often fell into, she could have a bright future.

In the end, it was Mom and Dad who convinced me. They were in the process themselves of adopting another child, a little girl who had also been rescued by Ken and Raina. She had lived at Nozomi House for about a week before Mom and Dad had become her foster parents. She was only 14 years old and had been trafficked just a few months ago… by a relative. Her parents were dead, and it had been an uncle who had sold her to some asswipe who was now in prison where he belonged. By the time we adopted Ella, I already had a new little sister, Phoebe Grey. And she was exactly the same age as Jason's daughter Sophie. Like cousins Lizzy and Violet, Sophie and Phoebe had been born on exactly the same day. And like Lizzy and Violet, the two of them began to act as much like twins as my boys. OK, maybe not quite. They didn't exactly share a brain like Teddy and Tommy seemed to, but they definitely had a strong bond. I saw a lot of my youngest sister because she was often at our house hanging out with Sophie, who lived just next door. The two of them were great with our kids. And yes, Phoebe had been traumatized by all of the abuse and neglect she'd suffered, and yes, she needed extensive therapy. But she was doing really well. She had a promising future now that she had a healthy family who loved her and were supporting her. My grandma wanted to be that type of support for Tara, and she believed our adopting the baby would make a big difference. We certainly could afford another child, and we knew we wanted to adopt more kids someday. The reasons why we should do it greatly outweighed the risks involved with having Tara in our lives.

Once I made up my mind, and Dad did all the paperwork for us, the process was fairly smooth, and Ella Hope Grey was ours from birth. It was mine and Ana's names on her birth certificate as her parents, as if she'd been born to us naturally. And we loved her just as much as our other children. There was no difference, except that she had a first mommy who was still alive. Christy also had a first mommy whose painting was on the wall of her room, and this gave us a chance to remind her of Leila. I hated thinking about it, but it was good for Christy to be reminded. Ana insisted on it because of the promise she'd made Leila not to forget her.

As it turned out, we hadn't seen much of Tara since Ella's birth, but Grandma Liz had. Tara had moved out of Nozomi House about a month after Ella was born, but in the past month since that time, she and Grandma had kept in close contact. Ana sent Tara pictures of Ella about every month or so by text. Tara seemed appreciative, but she had distanced herself from Ella and really did seem to consider her completely ours, which was good, because she was. From every indication, Tara seemed to be doing well. She had passed the GED and was now enrolled in college level courses at Seattle Central. She hadn't decided yet on a major. Grandma said she was trying to convince her to do the Respiratory Therapy program because she seemed most interested in something like that.

At the moment, Ella was asleep in the baby carrier that Ana wore her in. She'd purchased that thing when Lizzy was an infant, and now, it was coming in just as handy with Ella. Ana had carried Lizzy everywhere, even when she returned to Ismintis-Grey full-time when Lizzy was only four months old. Now, it was Ella who was always attached to her mother. She didn't need Ana's breastmilk, as Lizzy had, but Ana felt that it was just as important to keep Ella close for the bond she was forming with her.

And Ana had an incredible bond with all five of our children. She was simply amazing.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Ana asked me, bringing me back to the present. The kids were all running around in the yard, burning off their chocolate highs. They'd all sleep well tonight. We still hadn't had the gift opening for Aaron, but it was coming.

"Like what?" I asked Ana innocently. Like she was the goddess she is? "Like you're the 'best of wives and best of women'?

Mia overheard me and snarked, "Elliot, Christian's quoting Hamilton again." Yeah, my siblings loved to make fun of me for quoting lines from Hamilton every chance I got. Ana and I had seen it a couple of years ago in New York, and we'd both fallen in love with it.

"You know what, Mia," I said with a serious face even though there was nothing serious about what I was about to tell her. "I have some advice for you. 'Talk less; smile more…' I sang the lines from Hamilton, making her, Elliot, and Ana all laugh. Elliot and Mia gave each other a meaningful look, and I knew exactly what they were thinking. Yeah, I'd changed a lot over the past six years or so. I wasn't the uptight prick I used to be. Having Ana in my life, and all our kids, had changed me.

"Oh, shit, now that you've made me laugh, I need to pee again," Mia moaned. Yeah, she was pregnant again, which meant she ran to the bathroom every five minutes. She still had another couple of months to go. It was looking like Mia's first son was going to be another Christmas baby, like Ava and Liam had been five years ago.

"Is Matty pushing on your bladder again?" Ana sympathized as Mia got up to go to the bathroom.

Yeah, Mia and Leo had already named their son, and we were all already calling him by his nickname. Matthew Jules Grey-Leroy was going to be spoiled by the entire family from the beginning. Their eldest, Violet Grace, had the same middle name as her "twin" cousin, Lizzy. We hadn't known until after their birth certificates were already completed, but we wouldn't have changed anything even if we had known. It had been just as important to both me and my sister to name our daughters after the amazing lady who had raised us, our loving mother, Grace Trevelyan Grey. Besides, our girls loved having their middle name in common with each other and their grandma. It was just another bond they shared. In appearance, Lizzy and Violet were as different as our twins were alike. Lizzy was Ana's carbon-copy, other than my gray eyes, but Violet looked a lot like Mia, with her dark hair and dark brown eyes. They may not have looked anything alike, but they seemed to think alike on almost everything. They both loved the color yellow, just like Ana, and rainbows, sunshine, and daisies. They both loved to dance and knew all the words to more Disney movies than I even knew existed. And they both had very strong personalities that somehow didn't clash with each other. I hoped they'd always get along as well as they did at age four.

Alice Noelle was about two and a half years younger than Violet Grace, so she wasn't yet two years old. And she was as meek as her big sister was bold. Alice's personality was more similar to my Christy's. Sweet and loving. Alice would turn two in January, shortly after her baby brother came into the world. She looked a lot more like Leo than Mia, although she still had Mia's dark hair and eyes. Her facial structure was more like Leo. He said that she looked a lot like his mother, who had also had dark hair. Leo's own hair was blonde. It would be interesting to see whether Matty looked more like him or Mia.

"Has Aaron opened his presents yet?" Derrick asked. He'd only just arrived, so he'd missed most of the party.

"Not yet," I replied. "How's Aunt Rachel?"

Derrick had literally just returned to Seattle after a quick trip back to Michigan to support his mother as she had a hysterectomy. She was doing well, so she assured me on the phone, but I was still worried. Gran Emma had passed away peacefully two years ago, and Aunt Rachel had spent last Christmas with us. She was planning to spend this coming Christmas with us as well, assuming she was feeling well enough. She was confident she'd be recovered from her surgery by then.

"She's tired but fine," Derrick answered. "She's glad to be home from the hospital, and she's promised to take it easy and follow the doctor's orders. I hate that she's recovering alone. But she'd tell me if she wasn't OK. She's OK."

I nodded. "Did Kelly make it back to Boston OK?"

"Yeah, but she's stressing out over her International Management course," he replied. Kelly was currently in an MBA program at BU, which was ranked even higher than Harvard Business School. And I knew how competitive and challenging it was.

"I can probably help her with that. Or Ana could," I suggested. "We both live and breathe International Management."

"I suggested that, but she didn't want to bother you. She said Isaac's helping her, like always. But I know he's got to be swamped with his own shit."

Isaac was following his dream. Yes, he had graduated from Harvard, like he promised he would. And now, he was still at Harvard. The Law School, that is. Yep, he was following in Dad's footsteps, and Dad couldn't have been prouder. Isaac was brilliant. He'd graduated in the top 10% of his class, and he was doing just as well in his Law School courses.

Isaac and Kelly still insisted that they weren't dating. They still claimed to be best friends, not more. Ana and I were convinced, however, that they were more, and probably had been all along. Ana had begun to make a game out of pointing it out whenever we were around them and we saw the looks they exchanged. We believed that they were just waiting to finish their degrees, and then they would either get married or at least be more open about the nature of their relationship. They already lived together in the house I owned, and although they had their own rooms, Ana and I doubted they slept separately.

Derrick had lived in the same house with Kelly and Isaac until he moved to Seattle after finishing his MBA at Harvard Business School. Now, he'd moved into our boathouse after Grandma Liz had vacated it. And he was working for us at Ismintis-Grey, working his way up from the management position we'd started him off in. Ana and I agreed that Derrick had potential to take over someday as our CEO when we were ready to retire. We wanted to retire early, but we were still years from that day. Derrick had time to prove himself to us.

Derrick continued, "I still think Kelly's in the wrong program. She doesn't want to run a business. She doesn't need an MBA. She should have stuck with Accounting, which she loves, and just gotten a Master's in it. Then she wouldn't be struggling in all these classes she hates, studying shit she doesn't even want to use."

"Why'd she do the MBA, then?" I asked curiously. This was news to me. I hadn't realized she didn't want to run a business.

"Because Ana has an MBA, and she adores Ana. And I have an MBA, and she's always wanted to follow after me. But honestly, Kelly could teach Accounting. She loves to teach. That's what she should have gone into, but she knew there wasn't any money in teaching, and she wanted to earn a good living. She didn't want to struggle like we did growing up."

Yeah, I knew all about their struggles growing up. Aunt Rachel had raised them on her salary with very little support from their father, who had his family in Chicago. He'd paid the court-commissioned child support, but that's all, and it only covered their private schools, which Rachel had been determined to put them in because she saw how gifted they were, especially Derrick.

"Is Liz around here somewhere?" Derrick asked me.

I smirked at him. "Is it really my grandma that you're looking for or her sidekick?"

He blushed and smiled sheepishly. "I think you already know the answer to that. I have something for him that Mom sent. She knows he really likes Mackinac Island Fudge. She was there a couple of months ago, and she got him some of his favorite flavor, chocolate walnut."

"What, and she didn't send me any?" I pretended to be offended.

He ignored me and said, "There's something I want to ask you, Christian."

"That sounds serious," I noted. He'd gotten a serious look on his face, like he was worried about something.

He blurted it all out at once. "I'm thinking about leasing an apartment in Escala. There's one available on the twenty-second floor. It's a two-bedroom, two-bathroom. Honestly, I think it would be perfect for us. He'd be able to take the elevator upstairs to Liz's place everyday, and it would be a lot closer to work for me, too. I could walk."

Escala was too far to walk to Ismintis-Grey, but I didn't tell him that. Instead I asked, "What's your question?"

"Well… I want to ask Nick to move in with me, and I want to move out of your boat house and into our own place. It's a big step, and I just wanted to make sure you think I'm doing the right thing."

"That depends on how much the lease is for the apartment," I replied neutrally.

Derrick didn't need my approval to live his life, but I knew it was what he was fishing for. He and my former house security guy, who'd once been my CPO before that, who'd been Ana's CPO when Joseph Horowitz had attacked Raina at the Mile High Club, and who had been my grandma's CPO for the past five years, had been dating for nearly that long. I'd stopped thinking of Nick Perez as a boy scout, and I respected the guy. He'd not only saved Ana and Raina's lives that day, but he'd also kept my grandma out of trouble on multiple occasions. And he clearly loved my cousin. They were in a committed relationship. I was surprised they hadn't moved in together long before now. I knew Derrick wanted them to get married, and I wasn't sure what they were waiting for.

"I don't have any intentions to overpay on the lease," he assured me. "But I think it's a fair price, considering all the amenities and the location."

"Why don't you buy? Leasing seems like such a waste," I commented.

Derrick snorted. "I can't afford to buy a place in Escala. Even a one-bedroom would probably be over a million in this market, and it would be too small for us."

My brain began to hatch a plan, but I didn't tell Derrick my thoughts. Instead, I asked, "Didn't you tell me once that you want to have kids someday? Have you and Nick talked about kids?"

"Oh, yeah, we both want kids," he responded. "In fact, Nick wants us to get married and have kids right away. He wants us to get a surrogate, but I'd prefer to adopt after spending so much time with your family. He's coming around to the idea."

I commented, "If you're planning to have kids right away, a two bedroom apartment is going to be too small."

He sighed. "If we get a bigger place, we'll have to look in a shitty neighborhood. I like the idea of living in Escala because Nick is committed to his work, and he wants to be close to Liz even when he's off duty, just in case she needs him. She's more than a job to him, you know. I know she's your grandma, but she's like ours, too. Don't get me wrong, he's a professional. He always will be. But he cares about her as more than just a client."

I nodded as my plan was shaping up and making even more sense. I'd need to talk it over with Ana before taking any concrete steps, though.

A week later, my plan came together just in time, as Derrick and Nick announced their engagement. And they didn't plan to wait very long to tie the knot, although it was a bit longer than Ana and I had waited. They'd already made the arrangements at Ana's winery in Napa Valley for next April. And Derrick wanted me to be one of his attendants. His sister Kelly was going to be his maid of honor, and Isaac was also going to be a groomsman. Nick had a sister who was going to be his maid of honor as well.

"You haven't leased that apartment yet, have you?" I asked Derrick over dinner that night. Grandma Liz had joined us. She came out to our house about once a week now and spent some quality time with her grandchildren before returning home to Escala. Nick was there, as well. Long ago, he'd started joining us for dinner whenever Grandma Liz did. She'd insisted on it.

"Not yet," Derrick replied, with a glance at Nick. "We're still not sure it's the right decision."

"It's not," I agreed. I looked at Ana and asked, "Do you want to do the honors?"

She smiled and replied, "Sure, although it was all your idea." She turned to Derrick and Nick and told them, "Christian and I have an engagement gift for you, an early wedding present."

Derrick said, "Ana, you're already letting us use your winery for free."

"Nonsense, you're paying for the catering," she said. "It's not free. And this has nothing to do with that. This is something you're going to need well beyond your wedding day."

Nick was watching Ana with wide eyes, and Derrick was already getting tears in his. He knew this was going to be something big, and I'm sure he had an idea considering I'd just asked him about the apartment.

Ana explained, "When Christian and I met, we were surprised to find out that we both lived in penthouses in Escala. There are actually four penthouses there. I owned one, and Christian owned two. As you know, we sold all three of them to Ken and Raina for Nozomi House. They made all the changes that you see now. But the fourth penthouse belonged to someone else. We never knew our other neighbor. He was a retired judge who died about a month ago, and the penthouse went on the market shortly afterwards."

"You didn't! Oh, my God, Christian!" Derrick exclaimed.

"We did," I responded.

"Like I said, it was Christian's idea," Ana continued. "It needs some work, mainly cosmetic. You're probably going to want a new kitchen and maybe new tile in the bathrooms. Anything you were planning to spend on a lease could go towards that. The good news is that there's plenty of room for your family to grow. You and Nick can adopt the half dozen kids you've talked about."

"Half dozen?" I asked. I knew they wanted kids, but that many? What was I asking, Ana and I had almost that many. Chances were great we'd adopt another child in the future, and then we would have half a dozen.

"God, I really want to hug you right now," Derrick told me. "But I know… your touch issues. I won't hug you. But seriously, Christian… this is too much. I can't believe you. The penthouse! Holy shit!"

"You can hug me," Ana offered as she got up. Ella was attached to her as usual, so Derrick was careful not to disturb her as he hugged Ana tearfully. Even Nick also hugged Ana before he shook my hand and thanked me.

Derrick also took my hand and held it in his for a moment longer than felt comfortable, but I understood how moved he was, so I didn't mind. "Thank you, Christian. This is… too much. The penthouse. Wow."

I shrugged. "You're my cousin," I said. "I like taking care of my family." I was OK that he had only held my hand awkwardly, not hugged me. I'd come a long way, and I could hold all my children without feeling any burning, including the baby, but I still didn't feel safe having other adults touch me, other than Ana, and on rare occasion, my mom. Mia and Elliot had learned from childhood how I could stand to be side-hugged, and everyone else had learned from them.

Ana suggested to Derrick and Nick, "You can probably get Elliot to add a door between your penthouse and Liz's apartment. It's serendipitous that her apartment was built on that side of my old penthouse, so you share a wall."

"Serendipitous, indeed," Grandma Liz agreed. "You'll be just next door. That's fantastic."

I didn't need to tell them that she was a very big part of the reason I'd wanted to buy them the penthouse, because I wanted her CPO to be very close at hand, just in case.

"I hope you're planning on spoiling our kids the way you spoil Christian and Ana's," Derrick commented tongue in cheek to Grandma Liz.

"Of course, I am," she agreed with an enormous smile.

THE END