Chapter 9 - The Atlantic Crossing
The master bedroom suite of the Gulfstream G650 was larger than most Manhattan studio apartments, featuring a king-sized berth, a private marble washroom, and an entertainment console that currently played a looping cartoon for an extremely captivated toddler.
Maya sat cross-legged on the plush white carpet, her red sneakers kicking the baseboard rhythmically as she chased a toy airplane across the floor.
Emily sat on the edge of the leather sofa, wrapped in a cashmere blanket, staring out the oval window at the endless, starry expanse of the Atlantic Ocean ten miles below us.
"Frankfurt?" Emily said, turning her head to look at me as I poured two cups of hot chamomile tea from the private bar. "Cole, you dragged me, my daughter, and my entire life across an ocean because of a German antitrust audit?"
"I didn't drag you, Emily. I invited you," I corrected gently, handing her a ceramic mug. "And technically, we're combining business with pleasure. Once the audit is signed off on Thursday morning, we’re taking a week off in the Swiss Alps."
Emily took the mug, wrapping her hands around the warm ceramic, though her brown eyes remained narrowed with skeptical amusement.
"The Swiss Alps? You think you can just kidnap me into a European vacation like a corporate potentate?"
"I'm not kidnapping you, Emily. I'm courting you," I said, sitting down on the sofa beside her, close enough that our shoulders brushed against each other. "Or did you forget that we never actually went on a honeymoon?"
Emily’s cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink. She looked down at the tea, a soft, involuntary smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"We were broke, Cole. Our honeymoon was a frozen pizza on the living room floor while you calculated tax depreciation schedules."
"Then let's consider this the retroactive honeymoon," I murmured, reaching out to tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear. Her skin was warm, soft, and smelled of the same wild mint that had haunted my memories for thirty months.
She didn't pull away. She leaned into my touch just fractionally, her eyes softening as she watched Maya babble happily at a passing cloud outside the triple-paned window.
"Are you ever going to propose properly, Cole?" Emily asked quietly, her gaze shifting back to mine with a teasing, challenging glint. "Or do you just expect me to move into your San Francisco penthouse because you bought my sister's apartment building and hijacked my career?"
My heart skipped a beat.
Inside my jacket pocket—hanging neatly in the wardrobe closet across the cabin—was the velvet ring box I had originally purchased for Claire Beaumont in Napa Valley.
I had called Marcus from the private tarmac yesterday morning and ordered it destroyed—replaced by a custom, bespoke three-carat yellow diamond designed specifically for Emily’s hand, currently being flown out on a separate courier flight to Frankfurt.
"I am going to propose properly, Emily," I said, my voice dropping into a low, unwavering baritone.
"When we reach the summit of the Alps, with our daughter running around in the snow, and every corporate balance sheet in Europe locked in a secure vault... I am going to get down on one knee and ask you to spend the rest of your life cleaning up my messes."
Emily let out a bright, musical laugh—the sound I had missed more than oxygen during the darkest years of my life.
She set her tea down on the mahogany table, turned toward me, and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me close.
May you like
"You've got a deal, Cole Meridian," she whispered against my lips.
And as the private jet soared smoothly through the starlit night across the Atlantic, carrying my family toward a new dawn, I knew that the empire I had built was finally complete.
