34. Hibiscus – Meaning Delicate beauty Peace and happiness Rare beauty
34
HIBISCUS
(QUEEN OF TROPICAL FLOWERS, SHOE FLOWER)
MEANING: DELICATE BEAUTY; PEACE AND HAPPINESS; RARE BEAUTY
MICAH
________
B lindfolds on my wife were distracting.
I wanted her to be blindfolded for an entirely different reason, and I fully planned on using them in the future. For the moment, I couldn’t strip my gorgeous Omega naked and worship her body, even though I was tempted.
She reached out her hands, hesitantly stepping forward, and Cameron caught her. “Are we almost there? I hate feeling like I’m going to trip over something.”
“We’re not going to let you fall, sweetheart,” Cam said. “But yes. We’re almost there. I think you’re going to love it.”
In front of us, the glass doors to the catwalk slid open, and the fresh scent of flowers washed over all four of us. Not just flowers, but overpowering freshness and sweetness that encompassed the millions of flowers currently in the building that was, literally, the size of a small country.
Ocean froze and inhaled, mouth parting in shock. “Where are we?”
“Ready to see?”
“Yes.”
Cameron kissed her hair. “Take a look.”
She pulled down the blindfold and gasped, eyes going wide. “We’re in Almere ? You brought me to Almere?”
Without waiting for confirmation, she darted out onto the catwalk above the warehouse floor, looking down at the flowers being moved by the staff in giant shelves and carts organized for the auction.
The Royal Flower Auction in Almere was the biggest flower auction in the world. Millions of flowers moved through here daily, and even I was impressed by the solid fields of flowers laid out below us.
Everett had the idea to bring her here to see it. There wasn’t much we could do except walk around and take in the flowers, peek into the room where the brokers were bidding against each other for the flowers—which was more tame than I’d imagined since most of it happened digitally.
“I’m a bit disappointed the auction isn’t people hurling flowers at each other like papers at the stock exchange,” I said. “But yes, we’re in Almere.”
The joy on Ocean’s face was palpable. We hadn’t seen her look like this before. Pure, unbridled happiness. That was the expression I wanted on her face for the rest of her life. If I could make it happen, I would.
“There’s so many,” she whispered. “It’s so beautiful.”
Below us, the scene was like a patchwork quilt of flowers. Squares of different colors arranged and rearranged. I could recognize some, like the roses, but there were many I didn’t.
Everett trailed behind us, watching everything with sharp eyes. We had Ocean blindfolded since we got off the plane because this wasn’t far from the private airport. There had been photographers waiting for us.
The press was something we dealt with, and we would deal with it. But we weren’t going to let them steal Ocean’s joy by following us inside. So he was on guard.
I pressed my body into hers against the railing. “What do you want to see, princess?”
“Everything.”
Laughing, I brushed her hair away from her cheek and leaned around to kiss it. Just like when she wanted to know about me. “Everything, huh?”
“Mhmm.”
“Then we have just the person for that.” I pulled her away from the railing and gestured to the tall woman who now approached us. She was a Beta who smiled, and whose light accent lilted. “Welcome to the Royal Flower Auction. You are Ocean?”
“That’s me.”
“Are you ready for your tour?”
Ocean looked up at me with wide eyes. “Really?”
There wasn’t a chance in hell I could resist leaning down to kiss her. “Really. We’ll be right behind you. Don’t slow down on our account. See what you want to see and take all the time you want.”
Her cheeks turned pink, and she smiled. “Okay.”
She followed the guide, and the rest of us slowed our pace. Cameron shook his head. “She’s so fucking adorable. Well done, Rett.”
Everett smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes as we followed our wife, happily chatting with the tour guide. “Aiden texted. Nothing concrete yet. I asked him to add Frank to his list of things to investigate with connections. But we’re at that point, so I need to ask you both.”
Cam and I looked at him, and I frowned. “Already?”
“It makes sense. If they’re looking to take down a company the size of ours, especially not voluntarily, they need to be careful about it. And we do too, but in my opinion, if we get the information, no matter how, it’s to our benefit.”
I sighed. He meant that the means employed to get what we needed might not be legal anymore. If it came to an actual legal settlement, what we found wouldn’t be usable. But… “I say yes, with the usual limits. If we know it exists, we can get it legally if we need it. But I’d rather know how they’re trying to screw us. Especially since Ocean is involved now. Not directly, but because we married her. I don’t think Joseph wanted us to marry her.”
Tilting his head, Cameron’s brow furrowed. “You think he had his own candidate?”
“Maybe. If we’d gone to the board and told them ‘okay, yes, we’ll do it,’ then I don’t know if they would have just left us to our own devices, given us a timeline, or possibly offered someone they knew as an option.”
We turned down a different catwalk, still trailing Ocean. Everett shook his head. “I’m not sure how that would help them. Unless they’d planned to do what Frank is trying to do to Ocean and force that person to provide information. Which, for the record? Violates one part of our agreement with him. If we can prove it.”
“I hope that’s true,” I said. “But in the end, what we really need to know is why they were so desperate.”
The three of us met while we were in college, and in that way that packs formed, we were drawn to each other. We knew as soon as we met that we were it. There wasn’t a question or hesitation. And everything else as far as the company was a bit of skill and a lot of luck. Everett was the business mind, and I was the designer. Cam was the architect behind the feel of our brands. He understood people in ways neither Rett nor I did.
Though we were ruthless in going after what we wanted, we didn’t want to step on people to do it. Every employee was paid what they were worth or more. Happy employees did more for a company than shiny profit reports ever could. And yes, because we had success, we had enemies. But we didn’t make them on purpose.
Even with Frank, though we hated him for what he’d done to our wife, we made the deal fair. Well, mostly fair.
The point was, there were plenty who would love to see us screwed over, or help someone screw us over. But why now and in the last decade? “Why now ?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Everett asked.
If we hadn’t been so taken with Ocean and the wedding we would have dived into all of this sooner. I didn’t regret a single second. But if someone was coming for us, and therefore our wife, it needed to be dealt with.
“Not to mention—” Rett stopped mid-sentence like he’d remembered something.
“What?” Cameron asked.
Everett pulled out his phone and typed something quickly. “Nothing. Well, nothing yet. Just a thought. I’ll let you know.”
I watched him carefully. If Everett thought something but didn’t want to say it until he was sure, it had the potential to be explosive. “Please do.”
We trusted each other implicitly and always had. There wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for each other, and now, for Ocean.
Like I’d called her name. She looked over her shoulder at us and smiled. It lit up the whole damn room.
I touched Everett’s arm. “Everyone’s asleep on our side of the world. Let’s catch up with our wife.”
He smirked and put away his phone. “Don’t mind if I do.”