Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75323 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
We were going to drop in on a development site she was working on, then we were getting a car and driving all the way back to California. We planned to stay at all the same hotels and hit up all the same restaurants on the route we’d originally fallen in love on.
It felt like a fitting way to celebrate the beginning of our marriage.
And we were excited for all of it. But Lula wanted us to do a quick once-over of the yacht before we invited guests on the following evening.
“Everything is as you wished,” Zayn said as he welcomed us onto the yacht.
“And all the… illicit stuff?” Lula asked.
“Gone. Not a trace of cocaine anywhere.”
“Cocaine?” Lula gulped. “I was talking about the weapons.”
“Oh, right. Well, yes, those have, of course, been removed.”
“Why was there cocaine here?”
“Oh, you know. A little cocaine, a little molly, some mushrooms if someone wants to partake in those kinds of party favors.”
“Our guests will not be partaking in those party favors,” Lula, who had grown to understand how direct you needed to be with Zayn, said carefully.
“Understood. Nothing here but what you ordered.”
We did a tour of the yacht, checking out the guest rooms to make sure they were fully stocked, then moving through the common areas. The planner we’d hired in Miami had done a great job setting everything up to our specifications—including a set of photographs I’d taken of Lula and both of us on that original road trip years ago.
“And the staff?” Lula asked.
“Thirty-five crew members specially trained in their hospitality fields… as well as special forces training,” Zayn explained.
“Special forces?” Lula whispered to me.
“International arms dealing billionaire,” I said, shrugging. I’d always known he had more than the highly capable Daniyal keeping an eye on him, but I’d never been given those details before.
“Right,” she agreed. “Well, we and all our guests will feel very safe knowing that.”
“The medical crew is also fully stocked and prepared. The chefs are ready to get to work. The crew has been working tirelessly to make sure the vessel is in tip-top shape.”
“I really wish you would let us pay you for this,” Lula said.
When I’d first suggested the yacht, she’d been resistant because its sheer opulence.
“Those things cost between ten and fifty thousand dollars a day to run.” And with a trip as long as California to Florida, we were looking at over a quarter to half a million… just for part of our honeymoon.
It was interesting to see how her ideas on opulence had changed over the years. Even as she built her real estate empire and started to acquire more than enough money to be as reckless with it as she wanted, she got more conservative about how she spent it.
She dreamed differently now. I didn’t hear her talk about summer houses or lavish vacations. She talked about investments, retirement, about a safe, quiet life in our dream home with our kids.
She became passionate about helping revive not only parts of Shady Valley but also the other towns where she was starting building projects. About building not only wealth through her real estate development but enriching the lives of the people who lived there through developing public parks, community gardens, bike paths, sports courts, and orchards in areas where fruit trees could easily grow. The plans just kept growing.
And because those things cost more money, her investors were happy because it meant more ways for her to wash their cash.
She’d been working on layering those infusions of cash as well to protect herself and our future from any scrutiny from the government through stock portfolios, bonds, private equity investments, trusts, and retirement accounts.
I wouldn’t pretend to understand any of it but I knew by the way she slept increasingly better as time went on that she felt as close to certain as possible that nothing could ever be found out and traced back.
“It’s my wedding gift!” Zayn insisted. “You can’t pay me back for your wedding gift.”
Zayn sounded borderline offended by the prospect.
“In that case, thank you so much for getting this all set up for us. It’s absolutely perfect. I can’t think of a better way to spend the next few weeks.”
I couldn’t either.
And by the time we got back from the road trip to California, our home should have its finishing touches done and be ready for us to move in.
Just in time, too.
Because while we hadn’t told anyone, and while there were no obvious signs yet, we’d already gotten a jump on the family planning thing.
Six months from now, we were going to be a family of three.
Lula - 16 years
My grandmother had a lot of favorite phrases. But one I really remembered her saying a lot was, “If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.”