Chapter 26
HOLDEN
Jet engines rumbled beneath my feet the next morning, the cabin quiet and the flight to Key West expected to be completely smooth. Jimmy had nearly blown a gasket when I’d told him I was heading to the beach in Florida for a day, but this was something that actually mattered.
Ellora’s mom, Sara, sat across from us, calm and smiling. One of the plane’s soft blankets was wrapped around her shoulders, a mug of tea cradled in her hands. She looked out the window like she was already searching for the beach.
Back when my financial advisor had first suggested I buy a plane, I’d thought he was nuts. Over the years that had followed, it had come in useful once or twice, but I’d never appreciated having it at my disposal quite as much as I did right now.
Dr. Feldman and Bree were off to the side, chatting about medical stuff—half of which sounded like alien code to me—but they seemed relaxed enough. That alone felt like a small miracle.
I hadn’t been sure what to expect from Sara on this flight, but after the way Dr. Feldman had looked at me when I’d first asked if taking her to the beach was possible, I hadn’t expected everyone and everything to feel so completely calm and normal.
Ellora was tucked against my side, her head resting on my shoulder. She was nervous, though. I could tell, even if she was trying to hide it. Her fingers kept twisting the hem of her sweater and every few minutes she glanced over at her mom, checking to make sure she was okay.
But it was also like I could feel the relief radiating from her. The gratitude. Maybe even a spark of joy she’d been too tired to feel lately.
As she snuggled into me, hell, I would admit it. I felt like a king. Not because it was my jet or because I’d pulled off a last-minute trip across the country, but because I got to do something for her—only because I could.
“I still can’t believe we’re sitting in a plane right now,” she said as if she’d read my mind, tilting her head up at me. “It’s incredible, Holden. Really. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“You don’t have to.” I grinned. “It’s not like I’m flying you to the moon.”
“You might as well be,” she murmured. “She hasn’t smiled like this in months.”
I looked over at her mom again. She was laughing at something Bree had said and her whole face was lit up, alive and happy.
Although she’d been relaxed all morning, there had also been a haze in her eyes and a certain slackness to her features, but right now, I could see flashes of the woman Ellora must’ve known before the illness.
The woman who had raised her, loved her, and helped her start her business.
It didn’t seem like she was quite lucid, even now, but she seemed like less of a shell, a ghost of person, than she had yesterday.
“That smile’s worth the trip,” I said, genuinely meaning it. “Maybe I should fly her to the moon next. I have a buddy who might be able to help us take her to space, if that’s something she might be interested in.”
“Good luck getting that past Dr. Feldman,” she said dryly.
I laughed. “Fair enough. Although he might want to come along for the trip. I’d let him if it meant getting to see your mom smile like this again.”
It was strange how much that woman’s happiness meant to me. I didn’t know her from a bar of soap, but she looked so much like Ellora, sounded so much like her, that my affection for her had grown in leaps and bounds.
In another life, this woman might’ve interrogated me over dinner before she gave me her blessing to date her daughter.
She might’ve loved me or hated me, gone wedding dress shopping with Ellora if we ever ended up there, or she might’ve been the one offering her advice now, helping her get Second Story Sundays off the ground.
There was a whole world in which she might’ve been part of my life in an entirely different way, and regardless of the fact that I didn’t know her, I found myself grieving the loss of that possibility.
Meanwhile, Ellora looked at me like she was trying to memorize this moment. “You really didn’t have to do this, you know. I would never have asked or expected it from you.”
“I know,” I said. “That’s part of why I want to do it.”
That much, at least, was also true. Shannon, and every woman I’d been with since, had expected me to serve them the stars on a sparkling silver platter simply because they’d thought it might be pretty.
When I’d married, I’d been young and dumb, and Shannon had been this leggy blonde with a propensity for whispering dirty things in my ear in public.
I’d met her shortly before I’d officially become a billionaire, and although a lot of those flirty things she’d whispered had been about what she wanted to do to me, I was pretty sure she’d rather have done them to my bank account.
Ellora didn’t give a shit about that. Unlike most people I met, men and women alike, she’d never really asked me for anything at all. Not favors with her business, money, social clout, or anything else.
She exhaled and leaned her head back against my shoulder again, quiet but smiling. Outside the window, the gray clouds eventually gave way to blinding turquoise water and sunlight.
The flight touched down just after noon, and by the time we taxied to the private hangar, the Florida sun was blazing and a black SUV limo waited on the tarmac. It was ostentatious and probably seemed silly, but it had felt like the right vehicle to rent at the time.
“Of course, you got the biggest car possible,” Ellora said as I helped her inside.
I grinned. “How else would we get to the beach?”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. Bree and the doctor slid in behind us, and Sara took the window seat, her face pressed to the glass like she was an excited kid on a field trip. “Are we almost there? I think I can smell the ocean.”
“You and me both,” I said, and it was true. Salt and sunshine had been thick in the air as soon as the airplane doors had opened.
Sara grinned at me like she and I shared a secret because we’d both caught the scent. I settled in and grinned back at her, grateful for the opportunity to get to know her even a little bit.
The drive was only about half an hour and Ellora’s hand brushed mine on the seat between us for the entire trip, neither of us ever moving away. When we pulled up to the stretch of private beach I’d arranged, she blinked hard, like she couldn’t quite believe it.
“Holden…” she trailed off, awed and disbelieving as she looked out at the tent that had been set up for us.
A soft white canopy with gauzy sides drifting in the breeze, a few big cushioned sofas and lounge chairs beneath it. Tables held pitchers of iced drinks, fresh fruit, and every beach snack imaginable. Servers stood by, ready to bring whatever we wanted.
“This is incredible,” she finally managed, her head shaking before she swallowed hard and brought tear-filled eyes up to mine. “You didn’t have to go this far.”
“I know,” I said again, stepping out of the car and offering her my hand. “I wanted to. We came all the way here. I figured we might as well make it worth the trip.”
Sara took my hand when I offered it to her after I’d helped Ellora out, and once she was standing on the curb, she just stopped. For a second, I thought maybe it was all too much, but then she lifted her hands to her mouth, her eyes wide and wet.
“Oh, Ella,” she whispered, reaching for her daughter. “We made it.”
Ellora froze. “Mom?”
Her mother turned to her, the fog in her eyes clearing like clouds breaking apart. “You used to love the beach. You always wanted to build the biggest sandcastle, remember?”
Ellora nodded, her voice breaking as she took her mom’s hand. “I remember, Mommy.”
“I want to go see the water,” she said, already shuffling toward the shore.
Bree caught up to walk with her and the doctor followed, but Ellora hung back for a second. She turned to me, tears spilling over her cheeks, but she smiled through them. “She recognized me. She actually knows who I am right now.”
I smiled and brushed her tears away with my thumbs. “Sand, sea, and sunshine, huh? Sometimes, that’s the best medicine there is.”
She threw her arms around me, and for a moment, the sound of the waves and her soft, relieved laughter felt like the only things that mattered. I held her close, but it was only a few seconds before her mother called her name and Ellora let go.
I helped my driver and the servers carry our things from the car to the tent while Ellora, Bree, and Sara stood by the water, the waves lapping at their toes.
We spent about an hour on the sand before Ellora ran up to me.
Her red hair was a bronze curtain sailing out behind her and a wide grin beamed on her face.
“We’re going swimming,” she said excitedly, pulling off the sundress she’d changed into after we’d arrived to reveal a bikini that nearly made me swallow my tongue. “Come with us!”
I didn’t hesitate, setting my drink down on the table beside me and rising to pull off my shirt.
Already wearing swimming trunks myself, I took her hand and jogged across the hot sand with her, laughing.
We splashed into the water side by side like two kids who had cut class to come down to the beach instead.
The water was warm, the kind of blue that almost didn’t look real.
Ellora and her mom were elated, Bree had kicked off her shoes and waded in up to her knees, laughing as Sara splashed her, and the doctor stood farther up the beach, the perfect picture of professional discomfort. It was a day for the books.
As Sara and Bree laughed, Ellora and I drifted a little farther out, just far enough that the water lapped at our hips. She tilted her face to the sky, her hair slicked back and her eyes closed.
“She looks happy,” I said quietly, watching her mom laugh again. “I’m glad this is going well. I was a little nervous after the way Dr. Feldman reacted yesterday.”
She opened her eyes and turned to me as she smiled faintly. “Yeah. I can’t remember the last time she looked this peaceful, but I was worried too. I guess she really just needed the beach, though.”
I nodded and we went a little farther out. I flopped onto my back and she did the same thing. For a minute, we floated side by side, the swells gently pushing us closer together. “You did this for her. For us. I’ll never forget it, Holden. Seriously. Thank you.”
“I think I needed it, too,” I admitted, the sun warm on my skin and all my worries and responsibilities a million miles away. “I never do stuff like this and I honestly can’t tell you why. It’s amazing. I mean, this is living, right?”
“Right.” I saw her paddling closer to me, her arms wrapping around my neck as I straightened out of my float. “You really are something else, Holden Langton.”
“A good something else?”
“The best kind,” she said, smiling before pressing her body to mine and pulling me closer to lay a soft, lingering kiss on my lips. “The very, very best kind.”
When our mouths met again, the kiss wasn’t frantic or wild. It was slow and deep, and when she finally pulled back, she stayed close, her forehead resting against mine. “Thank you for giving me this day.”
“Thank you for letting me be part of it,” I murmured, swallowing the lust that shot through me like a lightning bolt for having her body pressed so close to mine. “We should get back to them.”
She sighed through her nostrils but nodded. “You’re not wrong.”
Her mom called out suddenly, waving at us from the shore. “Ella, look. Seashells!”
Ellora laughed and broke away from me. “Come on, I’ll race you to the shore.”
She took off swimming and I let her go, wading back behind her but knowing I needed a minute for my body to calm down.
Whenever she touched me, I was hard as a rock and ready to go, so I stayed in the water while they walked along the wet sand, only joining them once there was no more tent in my trunks.
It was a delicate balance, this thing she and I had going. On the one hand, she made me feel like a teenager. Not only because my libido had been pushed into a gear it had last seen when I’d been sixteen, but also because it felt like I was on the cusp of something great, and new, and exciting.
But on the other hand, it went so, so much deeper than that.
I felt her pain like it was my own and I knew she was going through something unbearably difficult.
This wasn’t just the casual start of a potential new relationship.
It felt like we were being forged in fire, the lust and excitement of something new mingling with the deeper, shared understanding of a relationship that had grown through the trials of life.
As we walked, the doctor kept watching from a polite distance and Bree laughed as she collected shells in the hem of her dress. Ellora bent down and picked up a perfect pink conch, polished smooth by the tide. She handed it to her mom, who held it like it was treasure.
“For me?” Sara asked, genuine, childlike wonder in her voice. “It’s beautiful. Are you sure you want me to have it?”
“Always,” Ellora said.
Her mom smiled and tucked the shell close to her chest. “Then I’ll keep it forever.”
Ellora looked up at me through wet lashes, and for one perfect moment, everything felt still and meaningful, like time itself had decided to take a breath and let her have this. Just one last afternoon on the beach with her beloved mother.