ANDREW {EPILOGUE}

"Al, will you get down from there. Please." I turned my attention to Alyssa who, for the last half an hour, had taken to dancing on the table and had refused to listen to me when I had asked her to get down. I had tried everything, expect the promise of sex and I was seriously considering that as a bargaining point, if only to make her stop giggling at and prevent her from asking me to join her.

"Tell him, Robby. Tell him that I am only having a good time," Alyssa whined with her attention now on Robert. But he was having problems of his own, dealing with his wife, who had long since passed out on his lap, and wasn't about to go anywhere without his help. He had attempted to wake her several times already, but it seemed that she was out for the count and wasn't coming round anytime soon.

"You are going to hurt yourself. Just, please, get down from there and I shall dance with you, like normal people do," I sighed.

"Andy—" I hated it when she called me that name because Ben had been the only person who had ever called me that and, since our falling out and refusal to speak to each other two years ago, I had decided that no one was allowed to call me that name; it reminded me of times which were better left forgotten.

"Aly," I mimicked her voice the best that I could, but I didn't need someone to tell me that it was terrible, because I already knew that I sounded nothing like her, "if you come down from there now then, when we get home, or in the morning providing the kids are still asleep, I shall give you the best sex I have ever given you."

"Ugh. That's disgusting, and I don't need to know what you plan to do," Robert imitated the notion of being sick but, having been his best friend for far too long now and knowing his family as well as I did, I knew that Robert and Johanna were still as active as Alyssa and I were in the bedroom, even at the age of forty-three, Robert could still give his wife the same fun in the bedroom he had been able to deliver when they first met each other.

"I know that, when Johanna isn't passed out in your lap, you can still make her scream your name," I smirked knowingly at Robert while he looked down at his wife, running his hands through her hair, with a smile on his face. I knew that, despite everything which had happened between Robert and Alyssa seven months' ago, that he loved Johanna as much as I still love Alyssa and he would never be as stupid as doing something which would ruin his marriage—I almost allowed it to ruin my relationship with Alyssa and, while anyone with sense would have walked away, I loved Alyssa too much to do that to her, and so I stuck by her side and I have tried to make our relationship work ever since the revelation that Alyssa and Robert had been sleeping together behind my back.

"You would think that, by now, we would have learnt to keep the two of these away from each other," Robert laughed, his eyes moving between his wife and my fiancée, who was still dancing on the table with her hands above her. Robert never complained though because, even though he had slept with the woman I was marrying, he loved Johanna and he realised that she was the only woman for him, Alyssa had been a moment of weakness for him and Robert had been her sanctuary when she thought that I had lost interest in her, but I loved her unconditionally and I wasn't going to allow anything to come between the two of us.

I knew that I had hated Rebecca for cheating on me with Ben, but I didn't know that was the reason she had walked out on me, and I also didn't know that the two of them had planned her leaving behind my back either—they wanted to have their perfect little family with each other, but they wanted to punish me in the process, and they did that well when they told me that I wasn't Ella's father and Ben was the one who had fathered that little girl. But, as much as I tried to hate both Alyssa and Robert, I found that I needed them and I couldn't live without either of them because they were too important to me.

It had been tough in the first place. I refused to speak with Robert, even threatened to tell Johanna about what he had been doing behind her back, but I couldn't see Johanna hurt and I couldn't see Riley without his father either. I was hurt, and I was angry, but I could never pull another family apart for my own selfish reasons, and so I allowed them to get on with their lives with the threat that, should he so much as look at my fiancée in the wrong way again, I would reveal his dirty secret to his family and I would then walk away from everything which I had; I would walk away from Alyssa and leave her to deal with the fallout of her actions alone.

"Alyssa Rose Lopez! I swear, if I have to tell you to get down from there again, then you are going to be in serious trouble," I felt like I was scolding a child rather than a thirty-two year old woman and I was relieved that I had booked us a private booth for the evening because, if I had not done that, I don't even want to imagine the looks we would have gotten from people right now.

"And here was me, foolishly thinking that I had brought my fiancé out with me, not my fucking father," Alyssa muttered sarcastically as she finally got off the table and sat down in the middle of the sofa.

I laughed, sliding in beside her and wrapping my arm around her waist, possessively pulling her body towards mine and she instinctively put her head on my shoulder, wrapping her arms around me in return. I kissed the top of her head, looking down at the woman I was lucky enough to be marrying, and it was like nothing she had done even mattered because I loved her and I knew that she loved me. I knew that, after we spent seven weeks away from each other, her realising what a stupid mistake she had made and I calming down enough so that I could actually think straight, she was always going to be mine and she was never going to be anyone else's because I wasn't going to let that happen.

"You going to be alright taking her out to the car?" I asked Robert.

"Don't worry about, I will manage, I always do when she gets herself into this state. You just need to worry about the future Mrs Collins," I liked the ring that had to it, Alyssa Collins, she would officially be mine and I smiled at that thought, looking down to see that she was now falling asleep in my arms. I picked her up, carrying her out of the back entrance because that was the only place the bloody paparazzi weren't lurking around this place, and she wrapped her arms tightly around my neck while pushing her head into my neck.

"Does it ever bother you that you have to sneak out of your own club?" Robert asked.

"It is a good job that she isn't awake to hear you say that, otherwise she will engage in a full-blown argument about who actually owns the place," I remember, when I finally handed Collins' Holdings Inc. over to Ben and I didn't know what I actually wanted to do with my spare time, mostly because I had never had any plans set aside because I thought that I was destined to be a CEO for the rest of my life, so I ended up going with the flow and seeing where it took me.

It was only after Alyssa's thirtieth birthday that I took the drastic decision to use the money from the company, which Ben was kindly supplying me with at the end of each month, to buy an abandoned building in the centre of New York. With the help of Robert, and some very expensive contractors, I successfully turned the building from nothing into one of the most popular nightclubs in the city.

And, when it came to naming the place, I was feeling both romantic and sentimental, which is how it earned the name 'Lopez' and I ended up gifting it to Alyssa as a present. She claims to run the place, but Robert and I are the official managers of the club and we deal with all the business which we get from various different clients, while she runs the bar and prepares the cocktails lists for the evening. Robert was also the one who was in charge of security and finance, since they were two of his real strengths, and he also knew some males who were on the terrifying side, and I was in charge of everything else which needed to be done.

Since the launch of 'Lopez' two and a half years ago, I have extended the branch with three more nightclubs, and I have now lost track of the amount of money which I am actually earning from each of them. I had one in Paris, which was the least popular of the three new branches, one in London, which had become famous across that city and it was a popular choice of venue for people who had a lot of money to spend, and there was one in Miami, situated right on the beach and was the only one of the four branches to open during the day to serve cocktails to those on the beaches—I am still to tell Alyssa about all three of them, and Robert is only aware of the one which opened in London, because he is joint manager of that one as well.

"Do you ever get tired of having to sneak out of Alyssa's club?" Robert corrected, to which the both of us burst out laughing as we approached the car which was waiting to take us back to our houses where, hopefully, our children were all in bed and asleep.

"Evening Mr Collins, Mr Johnson," Sam gave the both of us a curt nod, opening the backdoor and helping Robert to get Johanna into the vehicle first, ensuring that she was strapped in securely before I stepped in with Alyssa, moving her to seat beside me without waking her. Her head fell to the side and ended up back on my shoulder. "Good night?"

"I think that my wife had a better night than I did, but it was still good to get out of the house," Robert took the front seat beside Sam.

At twenty-five, his boyfriend was lucky to have him, not only because he used the gym every single day and had some serious muscles on him, but because he was such a gentlemen and he was the sort of guy who could never harm a fly. He too nice for his own good, and he was the forgiving kind of person, which meant that everyone loved him and I was glad that he was part of my team—I even loved it when he and Markus, a twenty-three year old Italian who had the pleasure of dating Sam for five years now, came over for dinner because they were wonderful company and there was never a dull moment with either of them.

"Andrew," Alyssa mumbled my name in her sleep, a habit which she had developed ever since I told her that I forgave her and I wanted to make our relationship work, and she wrapped her left arm tightly around my waist, another habit which she had developed because she feared that I was going to leave her in the middle of the night.

"How long have you been married for now, Mr Johnson?" Sam asked with a smile.

"Coming up sixteen years this year, we got married on her thirtieth birthday, that was my present to her because I couldn't figure out what the hell to buy for the woman I had been dating for twenty years and been engaged to for seven years. And, please, I keep telling you to call me Robert."

"How about you Mr—"

"You know I like you and everything, Sam. But, if you call Mr Collins one more time, I may just have to phone Markus and have him start funeral preparations," I chuckled. I hated being called Mr Collins, it reminded me too much of being CEO and it also made me feel older than I actually was, so I allowed all of my employees to call me Andrew and I insisted that they did if they went to refer to me formally.

Robert, however, was the other way round and he wanted to be called Mr Johnson by everyone, with the exception of Sam, who was the only employee who was allowed to call him Robert. I think that's mainly because he was never anyone important before, he was my driver and that's all he did for me, so I get the impression that he was exploiting his new-found power while he could.

"Sorry—" Sam replied shyly, "—How long have you and Alyssa been together for, Andrew?"

"Been together for three and a half years now, engaged for six months now," I smiled while looking down at her sleeping form once again. She really was beautiful and, regardless of anything which had happened, I knew that I was still lucky to have and I was even luckier that she was going to be my wife.

"How did you propose to her?" Sam asked, and this is one of the many reasons I loved Sam as much as I did because, though he was shy and never really knew if he could ask certain things, he would still ask them and he would never actually apologise for saying what he did.

"Yeah, I am your best friend, Andrew, and you never told me that. How the hell did you propose to her?" Robert added. I had never told anyone how I proposed to her, and I wasn't going to tell Robert how I had proposed to her, not when I was still angry with him at the time because he had committed the ultimate betrayal in my eyes. He had had Alyssa in his bed as my girlfriend, I was going to let it happen when she was fiancée.

"For Al's birthday, I took her on a two week cruise of the Caribbean—"

"Basically, for her birthday, you took her to the Caribbean on your private boat and spent two weeks having plenty of sex. Right?" Robert grinned.

"No. Well, we did spend two weeks have sex, but that's beside the point. I took her on an actual cruise two cruise to the Caribbean," I looked directly at Robert, emphasising that I had actually paid for the holiday, and that I didn't simply take the easy option of taking my own boat to the Caribbean and spending two weeks on it. I actually paid for everything we did during those two weeks. "On her birthday, we stopped over in Barbados for two nights, and I took her on a tour of the island before spending the night on the beach. We had a picnic under the stars, and that was when I popped the question."

"Just like that?"

"Yes, Robert, just like that. I asked her to marry me on a beach, under the stars, on her birthday, in Barbados," I didn't need to add that, after she accepted the proposal, she decided that it was a good idea for us to go skinny dipping and we ended up fucking, twice, in the middle of the ocean as people walked past us and didn't even acknowledge that we were even there.

"I asked Markus to marry me on his twenty-first birthday. I cooked dinner for the both of us and, as we were about to watch Fast and Furious, I asked him to marry me and he agreed, but we haven't been able to sort anything out because I've been busy with work and his family aren't exactly accepting of his sexual preferences," Sam sighed and I felt sorry for him. I didn't know that he had asked Markus to marry him, but I did know that Markus' family weren't very excepting of Sam and had, more than once, told Markus that he was to pick between his family and Sam because he couldn't have both—they were a heavily religious family, the kind who believed that being homosexual was wrong and that marriage was meant to be between a man and a woman, not between two men or two women. "Do you have any children, Mr Johnson?"

"Just a son, Riley. He's six now and is at that age where he doesn't want to do anything he is told, and where he thinks that he is always right and it is impossible for him to do any wrong," Robert chuckled. Riley had been a mummy's boy since the day he was old enough speak her name, and Johanna was always the one who let him get away with what he wanted, especially now he was at the age where he was at school and was trying to make friends, while Robert was the parent who administered the discipline and scolded Riley when he got a little too much and needed to be put in his place.

Alyssa and I had looked after him more than once and, whenever he was around our house, I have never seen a better-behaved child. He did everything he was told without complaint, went to bed when he was told and never stayed up past the time we told him he could do, and he was the definition of a perfect child. But, the moment he returned home, it was as though he became the child of the Devil himself and he would kick up a right fuss, claiming that I was better than Robert and wished that I was his daddy because I was nicer to him than Robert was.

"I have a niece and nephew like that—" Sam chuckled and I loved it when Sam opened up because, although he worked for Robert and I, and he often came round both of our houses for dinner, he rarely opened up about his private life and kept very much to himself, "—They're twins and have just turned six, but neither of them do what they are supposed to do. And, I know that I shouldn't laugh, but it's amusing watching my sister trying to control the both of them."

"Got to love twins. They are always double the fun," I muttered and I thought of the twins who were waiting for us when we returned home. Andrea and Scarlett, who had developed a new fascination for her cousins and wanted to spend some time with them, even though they were only seven months' old and couldn't make conversation with the eight year old, were babysitting them this evening and Scarlett was to spend the night as well once we returned home along with her mother.

"Do you have any children, Andrew?" Sam may have been to the house since the birth of the twins, but he had never met them because they had never been there when he and Markus came round, they had either been with Andrea or my mother, and I didn't speak about my children in public because I didn't want the wrong person to hear and bring them into the public eye.

"I have a daughter from a previous relationship, Ella. She's almost six now and is no trouble at all. She is rather shy and somewhat quiet as well, you wouldn't know she was in the room unless you actually spotted her, but she is so sweet that it is impossible not to fall in love with her the moment you first met her," I smiled. Ella may not have been my daughter biologically but, since Rebecca waited until last year to tell me that fact, I had bonded with Ella and formed a relationship which could never be broken, I still thought of her as my daughter and she still called me daddy while referring to Ben by his name, which pissed him off and filled me with joy.

"What about Alyssa and yourself? Do you have any children together?"

"Twins, Katie and Alexander. They're seven months' old and spend most of their nights awake, while spending most of their days either in silence or asleep," I chuckled.

"I would love the chance to be able to meet all of your children sometimes. Perhaps I could bring my niece and nephew for you to meet?" Sam suggested and, given that they were both Ella and Riley's age, which meant my daughter may actually make a friend in the form of someone other than Riley. I loved that they were friends, and that they were there for each other, but I knew that Ella needed someone other than Riley to be her friend, because he wasn't always going to be there and she couldn't rely on him always being there.

"I shall leave you to sort it out with Robert. Ella could definitely do with meeting some new people, since her only friend is Riley," I watched as the car came to a stop outside our house. It was a simple two-storey, four bedroomed, family house in a neighbourhood where only families lived which meant it was generally a quiet area where everyone was friends with each other.

I still had my apartment in the city, which Alyssa and I still visited from time to time, when we needed some time alone, but we spent most of our time in the house with the kids, as a family, while Sam and Markus lived in my apartment rent-free with all the very same benefits which I am entitled to as a resident there.

"Do you require a car tomorrow, Andrew?" Sam smiled as Robert opened the door for me, helping me gently remove Alyssa from the car, but I made sure to take her off him as soon as I was out of the car and able to hold her on my own. There was still some distrust there, which Robert was aware of, and I think it was always going to be there whenever Alyssa and Robert were around each other because, although there was no love involve in their affair, it still happened and Alyssa shared a part of herself with another man which should have only been seen by myself.

"No. I think that I shall be looking after Alyssa as she nurses her hangover, so I shall see you on Monday at the usual time," I closed the door, muttering a quick goodbye in my friend's direction, before I put my arms under Alyssa's leg and secured in a bridal style, moving the both of us towards the front door of our home.

"Andrew," I looked down to see that Alyssa was on the brink of being awake, and falling back asleep once again.

"Hey, baby," I grinned, digging my key out of the pocket, skilfully unlocking the front door and letting us both inside the spacious hall which had the door to the living room on the right and a door to the kitchen on the left, with the stairs directly in front of the door.

"I'm sorry," Alyssa muttered.

"You were having fun, you don't need to be sorry. I only shouted at you because I was worried about you," I smiled at her reassuringly as I walked up the stairs, lifting her up slightly to make sure I didn't drop her, and headed straight towards our bedroom which was at the end of the hallway, beside the twins' bedroom and opposite the spare bedroom where Scarlett would be sleeping now.

Our bedroom wasn't massive and it was pretty simple, at least in comparison to the room which he had shared in my apartment for a year and a half before we set our sights on this house, but it was still big enough for the two of us and it had everything which we needed. We thought this house would offer us the sense of normality which we wanted and it was one of the few things which the paparazzi didn't know about us, that we had a house in the suburbs, where we lived with our children and had the life which we had always wanted with each other.

"No. Not just for tonight, for everything, for all the hurt and the pain. For being no better than the sister I despise," her eyes remained closed and, though the alcohol was the reason she was saying all of this now, I knew that she meant it because she had said it more than once in her sleep—I guess her biggest fear was that she was going to lose me, I realised this from the whimpers which would sometimes fill the silence when we were in bed and from how tight she would grip onto my shirt when she was asleep, but that wasn't going to happen and she should have known that by now.

"Let's not talk about this now. I am here and, I promise, I am not going anywhere," I pressed a kiss to her forehead, putting her into the bed and watching as she automatically snuggled closer to me, the duvet wrapped around her shoulders.

"I don't deserve you, but I still feel like the luckiest woman in the world," Alyssa continued while I took her shoes off for her and helped her get under the covers properly.

"And why would that be?" I smiled to myself as I walked round to my side of the bed, stripping off everything but my boxers, before I slipped into the bed next to her beneath the covers. As soon as she felt that I was there, she rolled over once again, and wrapped her arm around my waist with her head resting on my chest.

"I am going to marry the man I love. I am going to be your wife and, with our two amazing children, we are going to be a proper family. And nothing is going to come between us again," she muttered sleepily.

"Go to sleep, baby," I moved my head forward and placed a kiss on the top of her head.

"I love you, Andrew. Forever and always."

"I love you too, Alyssa. No matter what happens, I will always love you. And that's a promise."

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