I’ve heard of that one. That’s usually where the large groups of loud college kids in the airport are going to. It’s a discount resort. The lowest tier resort, just above a hostel. It’s not somewhere that a girl like this belongs. She should be bathed in luxury. She should be spoiled rotten. She deserves the best this world has to offer.
“Where are you staying?” she quickly asks, trying to change the subject from Breezy Winds and how horrible it will be.
“The Aurelia.”
Her mouth drops open in shock, but she quickly recovers.
“I read an article about that place while I was researching Isla Verdanza,” she says. “It’s stunning. I thought that place was only for billionaires and royalty.”
She laughs as I shrug my shoulders. “Occasionally, they’ll let some riffraff like me in.”
I doubt that’s true with the price of the rooms. I’m staying in The Empire Suite and it has a price tag of forty thousand dollars a night.
“Well, if the Breezy isn’t to your liking, you’re welcome to stay with me.”
I reach into my leather bag and hand her a card. She turns my crisp ivory business card around in her fingers like she’s contemplating it.
“Just in case,” I say with a casual smile. “If not, you can use it as a bookmark.”
She smiles as she slips it into her book. “Thanks.”
My heart is thundering as the plane starts rolling again, lining up with the runway.
For the first time in years, I’m not thinking about where I’m going—only about the woman sitting beside me.
She doesn’t know it yet, but fate brought us together. This is destiny at work.
And by the time the wheels hit the ground on Isla Verdanza, she’ll officially bemine.
“What do you do for work?” she asks as she cuts into her roast beef.
We’re halfway through the flight, eating lunch, and the time is going by way too fast. It’s stressing me out. I keep contemplating going into the cockpit and offering the pilots a million dollars to take the long way to Isla Verdanza. Maybe they can circle around Australia a few times before landing.
We’ve been chatting the whole time and if I wasn’t taken before, I am now. I’m completely captivated and bewitched by this girl. She’s everything I never knew I needed.
“Officially, I’m retired,” I tell her as I eat my shrimp risotto.
“Retired?” she says, tilting her head. “But you’re only like forty.”
“Forty-two,” I say, hoping that’s not too old for her. “I still do some occasional speaking gigs, but I don’t have ajobjob.”
She smiles, a slow, curious smile that makes my pulse skip. “So, you’re one of those mysterious, early-retirement guys who made a fortune doing something no one understands?”
I laugh softly. “Something like that.”
Her fork hovers midair. “Okay, then what was it? You can’t just drop a bomb like that and not tell me. Bitcoin millionaire?”
I made over fifty million on Bitcoin, but that was just abonus. I already had my empire set in stone before I touched that.
“Tech,” I say, keeping it vague. “Software stuff. Nothing exciting.”
“Software?” She squints like she’s trying to picture me hunched over a computer. “You don’t look like a tech guy.”
I raise a brow. “No?”
“You look like…” She trails off, eyes flicking down my chest before darting away. “Like the guy who hires and fires the tech guys. The one in charge. The boss.”
God, I like the sound of that coming out of her mouth. I lean a little closer. “What makes you say that?”
