Chapter 111
“Manipulated? What are you talking about?” Luke asked, staring at Lucky like he had two heads.
He sighed and let go of Liz, stepping closer to his bewildered parents. “We know what you’ve been doing. We know you’ve known all along that we weren’t really married, and that you’ve been doing everything you can to try to get us together for real. Dad, I’ve come to expect this kind of thing from you, but Mom? I thought you were the sane one in the family!”
Laura bowed her head, ashamed of her behavior. “I’m sorry, Lucky. I was only trying to help. If you weren’t so stubborn, we wouldn’t have had to do any of this!”
“And Dad, was it really necessary to drag Charisma into it?”
Luke shrugged. “I didn’t drag her, she volunteered. So did Caroline.”
Liz shook her head, still stunned that Carly had been scheming against her all that time. “How long was this going on?”
Laura looked over at her husband, waiting for him to answer. He looked up at the sky, thinking for a moment. “Um, as long as the Cowboy’s been home, I guess.”
“So we were right, then,” Lucky said. “The Bachelor Auction, the whole jail fiasco, Lulu’s camp... that was all you.”
“Well, I have to give credit where it’s due,” he smirked. “Your lovely manager thought of the jail one. Quite brilliant if you ask me. You hired yourself a real winner.”
Lucky shook his head slowly. He was trying to be angry, he really was, but then he would think of how happy he was with Elizabeth, and all his hostility would disappear. “Mom, when I called you from New Jersey, you told me Dad was still out of town, and acted like you were mad at him for setting us up....”
She smiled proudly, seeing that he wasn’t angry. “You’re not the only actor in this family!”
Liz couldn’t help laughing, and Lucky just rolled his eyes. “Who else was in on this? Emily? Nikolas? The whole town?”
Luke chuckled. “Just us and Caroline. Do you really think I’d trust Nikky with something this important? He’d probably go running to you in a second!”
“Yeah, it’s called loyalty,” Lucky said sarcastically. “You should look it up sometime.” He thought for a moment and sighed. “Fine, so you won, we fell in love after all. But that doesn’t excuse what you did! You made us think we had to stay married, when all along you knew it was a mistake! If you had just told us from the start that you knew...”
“Look who’s talking,” Luke cut in. “If we hadn’t seen the newspaper article, you wouldn’t have said anything, would you? You could have told us from the beginning that it wasn’t real, that you just got wasted and couldn’t remember anything. If you ask me, that’s the worse lie here.”
“We told Alexis...” Liz started to say, trying to redeem them a little bit.
“You told Alexis the truth, but not your own parents?” Laura asked.
“We had to, Mom. She was doing the divorce,” Lucky explained. “Anyway, she had already figured it out at the reception.”
“You know what they say, it takes one to know one,” Luke mused. He laughed at the shocked expressions on their faces. “You thought you were the only ones who knew her marriage to Jax was a sham?”
“How did you know? Did she tell you?” Liz asked.
He shook his head. “Nah, she doesn’t exactly confide in me. I just nosed around a little and put the pieces together. You know what I always say, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Besides, they weren’t exactly the pillars of discretion that they thought they were. That whole Four Musketeers thing they had going on was just too suspicious. They all became friends much too quickly, and they always went everywhere together. It was weird. Plus, whenever I saw them, Natasha was always making cow eyes at Ned, and Jax and Chloe would be mooning over each other, too. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together.”
“Well,” Lucky sighed, reaching for Liz as he backed away from the house. “You made our lives hell, lied to us, made us lie to everyone we knew, and spied on us everywhere we went, but I guess we can’t deny that it worked.” He turned to smile down at her, then looked back at his parents.
“Aren’t you glad I only use my powers for good?” Luke joked, wrapping his arm around Laura’s waist.
He merely laughed and pulled Liz towards his car. “Good-bye, guys.”
“Hey, one question!” Luke shouted after them. They stopped and waited. “How did you know what we did?”
Lucky smirked at him as he got into the car. “You guys should watch what you talk about while your daughter is home. The walls in that house are pretty thin.”
Liz laughed and climbed into the car, waving as he pulled out of the driveway. Luke and Laura just looked at each other, dumbstruck.
“Why, that little spy...” Luke muttered.
Laughing, Laura pulled him to the house. “Like father, like daughter.”
~*~
“Oh, I could definitely get used to this,” Liz sighed, leaning back in the patio chair and closing her eyes. Lucky walked out onto the balcony and smiled at how peaceful she looked.
“Monte Carlo seems to be agreeing with you,” he said, taking the seat next to her. He set down his glass of tea and leaned back in the chair. Liz rolled her head to the side and tilted her sunglasses up to look at him.
“It’s not Monte Carlo,” she said with a smile. “It’s the company that agrees with me. Thank you.”
“For what? Nikolas and Emily gave us the trip.”
“For being you. For loving me. For everything,” she said sincerely.
Lucky reached over for her hand. “You don’t have to thank me for that, Elizabeth. You know that I would give you the world, the moon, the sun and the stars if I could.”
She nodded, squeezing his hand. “You already have, Lucky. As long as I have you, I don’t need anything else. You are my world now, and you always will be.”
“Good, because I don’t plan on ever letting you go,” he teased. They smiled at one another for a minute, then Liz stood up and walked to the railing, leaning her arms on it to look out at the countryside. Lucky got up and stood next to her quietly, just watching her as she gazed out at the landscape in front of them.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she sighed after a few minutes.
Lucky nodded, tearing his eyes away from her to survey the panoramic view they had from their penthouse hotel room. “Yeah, it is.”
“Part of me wishes we could just stay here forever, but then I remember everyone back in Port Charles that I would miss too much. Your parents, Lulu, Nikolas, Dom, Michael, even Carly.”
He moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her and leaning his chin on top of her head as they continued to admire the breathtaking countryside. “I’d miss them, too. Well, maybe not Carly...”
Liz laughed and turned around in his arms to face him. “Oh come on, she’s your cousin. Just admit it, you love her.”
He wrinkled his nose for a minute, then smiled. “Okay, maybe a little. Just don’t ever tell her I said that, or I’ll have to kill you.”
She laughed, still looking up at them. They stayed like that for a few minutes, silently staring at each other as the warm breeze ruffled their hair and the afternoon sun shone down on them, warming their faces. Finally, Lucky sighed.
“It is pretty peaceful here, isn’t it?”
Liz nodded sadly. “Yeah, I’m going to hate to leave, but we have to go back to the real world sooner or later, right?”
“Right, but no one ever said we had to stay there.”
She looked at him strangely. “What do you mean?”
Lucky grinned and tightened his arms around her, pulling her body against his. “I could buy a house for us here, and we could come back whenever we wanted.” He laughed softly. “Maybe next time we’ll actually leave our room.”
Her eyes lit up at the idea. “Are you serious?”
“I told you, I’d do anything for you, Elizabeth. I can see how much you love it here, and I just want you to be happy.”
“As long as I’m with you, I’m always happy, Lucky,” she whispered, tears shining in her eyes.
“So you don’t want to get a house here?” he asked, hiding a small smile.
“Are you crazy? Of course I do!” she laughed, reaching up to kiss him. “You are the most wonderful man in the world!”
“Isn’t that why you married me?” he teased.
She pretended to think for a minute, then shook her head. “Nah, I think it was just all the booze. I’ll do pretty much anything when I’m drunk.”
“Is that so?” He backed away from the railing, pulling her with him towards the patio doors that led into their suite. “Well, I think I saw a mini-bar in there...”
Liz laughed and followed him inside. “Then what are we doing out here? Just don’t expect to drink as much as I did in Jersey!”
“Why not? I think you were cute when you were completely smashed!” He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled her onto his lap.
“How would you know? You still can’t remember that night.”
“But I’ve seen the video,” he joked with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “You know, that could be good blackmail material one day. I bet our kids would love to see it when we’re old and gray.”
“Our kids?” she asked softly, smiling down at him. “You want to have kids?”
“Of course I do! I don’t know if I ever told you, but I was kind of disappointed when you found out you weren’t pregnant before. I was sort of looking forward to being a father.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him. “You’re going to be a wonderful father some day, Lucky. I can’t wait to have our first child.”
He looked up at her, his eyes full of love. ”Really? You want to have kids right away?” She nodded, and he grinned and rolled her onto her back, leaning over her. “Then let’s get started!”
Liz laughed as he rained kisses down on her neck. “I love you so much, Lucky.”
He lifted his head and smiled tenderly, placing a soft kiss on her lips. “I love you too, Elizabeth. You can always count on that, no matter what.”
