THE FORGOTTEN HEIRESS

In her room upstairs, Eleanor urged Elvis to tell him what he had come up with.

Elvis did not waste any time either as he outrightly said, "I think we will need Aunt Lauren to achieve our plan."

"What are you saying?" Eleanor’s eyes widened in disbelief.

"Don’t you know that once aunt Lauren knows about our plan, it is as good as telling mom everything?" She hissed and went back to brushing her doll’s hair on the bed. "I thought you had come up with a better strategy."

"Hear me out first. I don’t know why you are always eager to jump to conclusions," Elvis scolded disapprovingly.

"But you know they don’t keep things from each other, remember?" Eleanor pointed out almost immediately.

"I know that. We will not let her in on the plan, but if she eventually finds out that we are using her, I will make her an irresistible offer."

"What’s the offer?"

"You know aunt Lauren has been complaining about her family forcing her to get married."

"Mm hmm." Eleanor’s head bobbed up and down. "What has that got to do with our plans? Are you going to get her married to our father?"

Although she liked their godmother very much, she didn’t want that to happen. Such a handsome man can only belong to their mother.

Also from the picture they have seen about both of them on the news, mom didn’t seem to hate him either.

She had already started visualizing how good they will all be together when they go out as a family and she, being carried in the strong arms of her handsome father.

It felt so beautiful that she didn’t know when her lips spasmed in a smile.

"Can you just listen?" Oblivious of his sister’s adventurous thoughts, Elvis, whose patience had finally worn out, yelled. "I think I’d better keep this to myself."

Eleanor was forced to cut short her train of beautiful thoughts by her brother’s angry voice and wasn’t happy with that either.

"Why are you being so overworked? What is wrong with the question I asked?"

"Everything, Eleanor," snapped Elvis, and turned his back against Eleanor, his two small lips coming together in a tight grim line.

Being equally angry with Elvis, Eleanor decided she was no longer interested in what Elvis had to say either.

He can keep it to himself and she will see how he will be able to carry out whatever plans he has without her help.

But her curiosity soon overcame the anger she felt. ’Isn’t my brother too cruel, leaving me hanging like that? Which good brother does that to his only sister? I guess I have to beg him,’ she muttered to herself.

From where she was seated on her bed, she reluctantly mumbled a faint "I’m sorry, brother," without looking up.

When Elvis still did not say anything, she changed her approach.

She stopped her action of brushing her doll’s hair and gave her brother a long doleful look, her voice turned soft as she coaxed him.

"Brother, you know I can’t help but ask so many questions especially when I am confused, and as my only loving brother who understands me the most, you wouldn’t mind that much, right?"

Elvis was disarmed by her pitiful voice and turned around. Though he knew she was just acting, the sad look on his sister’s face still pulled at his heartstrings.

Reneging on his earlier statement, he perched himself on the edge of Eleanor’s bed. "Alright, I will tell you about it."

"Yeah..." came Eleanor’s happy voice as her face instantly lit up in a smile.

"But you have to promise that you won’t interrupt me unnecessarily again."

"I promise." Was it not just a promise? Only she knew if she would be able to keep that promise or not.

After getting Eleanor’s eager promise, which he doubted she would be able to keep, Elvis started to unravel his plan.

"Once we are sure that Aunt Lauren has started working in that company, we will pay her a visit at her place of work."

"But that will be on a day when it’s only the driver and Mrs Carr that comes to pick us from school."

"We will go there under the pretense of picking her from work to see mummy."

"That way we will be able to enter the company and neither the driver nor Mrs Carr will suspect anything."

"Sorry brother, but how do you intend to enter the company and what will happen after we enter the company?"

As expected Eleanor who had been dying to ask some questions as Elvis laid out his plan couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Surprisingly Elvis was not offended, probably because he understood how hard it might have been for Eleanor to refrain from butting in for this long.

Another possibility might be because he was carried away by how the plan was taking shape in his mind.

"Remember I look so much like that man," he waited until Eleanor nodded. "What do you think will be people’s reaction when they see me?"

Eleanor cocked her head to the side as she seriously pondered on Elvis’s words.

A smile suddenly broke forth from her face as realization dawned on her. "Oh, oh, oh, I see. They will know for sure that you are dad’s son and before you know it the news will get to dad."

"Stop calling him dad! We don’t know yet if what mom said about him not abandoning us is true. It is only when that and other things are confirmed that we will decide if he qualifies for that title."

Eleanor pouted as she tried to make sense of Elvis’s explanations. Isn’t someone’s father meant to be referred to as dad, anymore?

Anyway, as far as she was concerned, the handsome man was their father and she would always call him dad.

With her little analysis, she concluded that he deserved to be called dad.