EPILOGUE
Maya
Thirty years later…
The Aurelia hasn’t changed. It’s the same white stone archway gleaming in the sun, the same palms swaying lazily in the breeze, and the air still smells like salt, sunscreen, and the faint trace of heaven.
But everything else has changed.
This isn’t like the first time we fell in love here. This isn’t like our honeymoon either.
It’s all different, but just as wonderful. A different kind of wonderful.
There’s laughter all over our private beach. Kids and grandkids running wild across the sand, chasing waves and each other, throwing the football, tanning, snoozing, and reading in the shade. The beach that once felt like our own secret oasis is now alive with the sound of family.
My heart swells as I sit under the tiki hut, toes buried inthe warm sand, watching the love of my life building a sandcastle with our grandkids. Adrian is down on his knees in the surf, silver hair glinting in the sunlight, tanned and strong and still unfairly gorgeous.
Like the fine, expensive wines in our cellar back home, this man keeps getting better with age.
“We need some shells for decoration,” he says.
“We’ll get some!” our twin grandkids, Amelia and Tanya, shout at the same time. They run down to the surf with their buckets to find some.
Adrian digs a moat around the sandcastle with our youngest grandson Tyler, burying his hands in the sand and scooping it out.
I shiver when I think about all the times those hands were on me, drawing primal sounds out of my body that I didn’t even know were in there. Those man’s hands are something else.
We’re much older now, but we still can’t seem to keep our hands off one another. We’ve travelled the world, steaming up hotel rooms in dozens of countries, but this place is still our favorite. There’s nothing like The Empire Suite at The Aurelia.
This time, we’re staying one week with the family, and then they’ll leave and we’ll have the suite to ourselves for another week. Just the way I like it.
My body is already craving that time we’ll have alone.
It’s been over thirty years and this man still makes me feel like that special girl in the red dress on our first wondrous night together. We’ve done so much in the past three decades, it’s felt like a whole lifetime has gone by.
We had four children, seven grandkids, opened six charities, and donatedbillions. I wouldn’t trade a single day of it.
We built hospitals, funded schools, created programs that changed lives—but my favorite thing we’ve ever built is our rock solid relationship. The foundation is stronger than concrete and I just know in my heart it will never break.
Amelia and Taylor return with some shells and decorate the sand castle as Tyler watches with that mischievous look.
“How about you go find a feather for the top of the tower?” Adrian tells Tyler. “It can be the castle’s flag. I think Nana found one before.”
Adrian winks at me as Tyler runs over, kicking up sand behind his little feet.
“Nana, do you have a feather?”
I pull out the long gray feather I found on the beach this morning, left behind by a brown pelican and Tyler’s bright blue eyes—the same eyes as his grandfather—go wide. “Wow.”
“Will this work?” I ask with a big smile.
He nods and grabs it. “Thanks, Nana!”
I feel so full of love as I watch him run back to Adrian and the girls. He proudly sinks it into the sand tower and they all stand back to admire their work.
The kids are looking at the sandcastle, but Adrian is admiring his other work, proudly gazing down at his grandkids with a warm satisfied smile on his face.
God, I love that man.
