64. Emma
Chapter Sixty-Four
EMMA
T hey had flown to Colorado on an airline that was part of Garrett’s investment portfolio. But when their numbers doubled, he made arrangements for a charter flight to take them back to San Diego.
As impressive as first class had been, flying commercial didn’t hold a candle to traveling on a private plane.
“It seats eight, but this way we can take all of Stella and Mariana’s essentials,” Garrett explained when they arrived at the tarmac and saw the gleaming Gulfstream jet. “The movers can deal with the rest.”
Keeping an excited Stella in her seat proved to be a challenge, but Garrett managed to corral her long enough for take-off and landing.
Once they were safely on the ground in San Diego, he unclipped her seat belt, taking her little hand so the cabin crew could safely open the door without a five-year-old barreling into them.
“Goodbye, sweetie!” the flight attendant said, pushing open the door to reveal a ladder leading down to the tarmac of a private airstrip.
“Bye!” Stella chirped, swinging her and Garrett’s clasped hands, her smile so big and bright it lit up the cabin.
Garrett murmured his thanks to the pilot and crew before stepping into the bright San Diego sunshine just ahead of her and Mariana.
The sound of cheering caught them all completely off guard .
Pausing on the top step, Garrett turned back to her with a grin. “You gotta come see this.”
He swung Stella into his arms, carrying her down the stairs to hoots and hollers.
Bemused, Emma followed more slowly. Her lips parted at the sight of the crowd holding balloons, toys, and a huge banner that read, “Welcome home, Stella!”
Rainer and George were there, a huge stuffed bear tucked under Rainer’s arm. They were surrounded by the Auric co-owners and their soldiers, many of whom she’d met at the wedding.
Elias Gardner whooped, pushing his cousin Ian forward. In his arms, he held a huge pink unicorn. The pair swooped in with coordinated movements, almost as if they were attacking someone—which in a way they were.
Stella’s happy squeal could be heard over the crowd as Elias presented her with the unicorn like a knight bestowing a prized steed to his regent. He even kneeled.
“Who are all these people?” Mariana asked in a bewildered voice. “And why are they reenacting Beatlemania?”
Emma sniffed, waving a hand over her watery eyes. “These are some of Garrett’s friends and business partners.”
Mariana scanned the crowd with wide eyes. “Jesus, where did they grow them?”
“I think a lot of them are ex-soldiers,” Emma said, acknowledging the hit to the hormones the men made as a group.
Every single man in the crowd was six foot or taller, all fit and muscular.
“They work at a private security company Garrett invested in. He also trained with them at one point.”
She explained the history a little until she noticed Mariana’s anxiety.
Emma leaned over. “None of them are going to judge you for keeping Stella’s identity a secret. There was no way for Garrett to know she was his before now. They’re all aware of this.”
Mariana’s brow smoothed a touch. “I guess that’s true. ”
Emma gave her mother a reassuring squeeze before herding her toward the group.
A small figure broke away from the crowd. George ran over, intercepting them to give Emma a fierce hug. “She’s so beautiful I want to cry.”
Emma nodded, instantly tearing up again. “She is. She looks like his mom.”
“I know! I saw the side-by-side pics.” George wiped her eyes, turning to Mariana. “Hi! I’m George. I live next door to Emma and Garrett with my husband Rainer. But you’re going to be just below us—right next door to my dad.”
Mariana thanked her, before jerking to face the crowd when Stella squealed.
Emma turned to see her daughter being passed around from man to man, occasionally tossed high in the air by the burly ex-soldiers.
Being Garrett’s daughter, Stella lapped up the attention as her due, giggling and screaming her delight to the world.
“I don’t care how big they are,” Mariana said. “If they drop her, I will be kicking some ex-soldier butt.”
“They would never,” George swore. But she turned around and scolded them to stop.
Garrett took Stella back from a blond man named Mason, another familiar face from the wedding.
He hoisted Stella on his hip, displaying his baby girl so proudly it brought tears to her eyes. The men clustered close around them, their genuine joy at the friend’s good fortune written all over their faces.
George put a hand over her heart. “Oh my God, I think my ovaries just exploded.”
“Agreed,” Emma said. “Mine physically hurt.”
They went to join the crowd, the festive atmosphere turning into a parade, then a party at their penthouse.
George and Rainer had warned the chef they shared to prepare a feast, but the crowd consisted of a literal army, so they quickly plowed through the trays of mini beef Wellingtons, charcuterie, dumplings, and other finger foods.
More food and drinks were ordered from a wide selection of restaurants. Their choices were dropped off by a steady stream of delivery people until the crowd was finally satisfied and then some.
They would be eating leftovers for a week. Even the arrival of the De Olla crew didn’t make a dent.
“I can’t believe you had a kid and didn’t even know it,” Bethany marveled before jabbing her elbow. “But good job on getting knocked up by a future billionaire.”
She gave her coworker a speaking glance before Bethany decided it would be more fun to pick up a few mercenaries.
Even Pedro showed up with Hannah Cho on his arm. Emma couldn’t think of an odder couple, but she knew they were probably thinking the same thing about her and Garrett. In the end, she just hugged him and thanked them both for coming.
Sometime during the festivities, Emma and Garrett broke away from the crowd to show Stella her room.
Ian and Elias had put all the stuffed animals they’d brought to the airport in the bedroom across the hall. The king-sized sleigh bed she had slept in was gone. In its place was a smaller white four-poster bed complete with a pink bedspread. The filmy canopy curtains were artfully tied to the posts, completing the picture.
Stella squealed in delight. “It’s the princess bed from the picture!”
Emma didn’t know where Garrett had found it, but it was the same dream bed they’d found on Google, which she had saved by texting him the image.
Stella pushed out of his arms. Mariana managed to intercept her long enough to wrangle her shoes off. Their daughter broke away to leap onto the bed, giving it the trampoline treatment with the biggest smile on her face.
“I was going to wait to replace the bed,” Garrett explained. “But the other one was just too high. I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself if she fell out of bed.”
“You also added carpet.” It was plush and thick with extra padding underneath. If Emma jumped where she stood, she’d bounce too.
“A wise move in retrospect, don’t you think?” he asked, his head movements tracking the amount of clearance Stella’s feet were gaining with each jump.
He had a point.
She was about to tell Stella to stop jumping. Plush carpet or not, she shouldn’t be encouraged to go buck wild like this. But when she turned back, Stella was curled up on her side, fast asleep.
“ What ?” she asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, she can go out between blinks,” Mariana informed them matter-of-factly. “And she sleeps like the dead so be prepared to shake her awake when she’s enrolled in school again.”
She and Garrett stared at her mother, his expression of shock mirroring her own.
Mariana smirked. “The reverse happens too. She’ll wake up and go from zero to sixty in nothing flat. Make sure to have your coffee first.”
Emma snickered. “We’ll remember that.”
Garrett slipped a key into her hand. “I thought we would walk Mariana to her place as a family, but this might be a good time, while Stella is napping.”
She turned to her mother. “What do you think? Do you want to see your new home?”
Mariana smoothed her hands over her shirt. “Sure,” she said. But her voice was hoarse.
Garrett grinned. “Follow me.”
But her husband’s guests made a smooth exit impossible. After the second time they were stopped, Emma tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I think my mom might prefer to see it without an audience.”
It was the right choice.
When Mariana entered the apartment downstairs, she covered her mouth with shaky hands, her eyes shining with unspent tears.
“Holy shit, look at this place.”
The three-bedroom apartment was much smaller than the penthouse, but the clean lines, wood floors, and large picture windows deliberately echoed the space above.
Her mother drifted through each room, which had been sparsely furnished with elegant and comfortable-looking furniture in neutral shades. Emma had been assured everything was stain-resistant.
Garrett had shown her pictures of everything on the plane, but she hadn’t been prepared for the open brightness of the space. It was a literal clean slate, furnished just enough to be livable right away.
“Garrett said you’re welcome to change anything you want,” she assured her mother. “He has this decorating firm he’s going to use to finish Stella’s room. They’ll do whatever you want in here. But the kitchen and the bathrooms are already stocked with food, linens, and toiletries. I think you’ll like the bed in the master bedroom. Also…”
She tugged her mother’s hand and led her down the hall. “I know I should show you your room first, but this one is important too.”
Emma opened the door, revealing a spacious bedroom with high hermetically sealed windows and no balcony. A second child’s bed dominated the room. This one had an elaborate headboard shaped like a circus tent complete with pastel-striped curtains that stretched over the top half of the bed.
“Holy shit!” her mother exclaimed. “Your honey bunny doesn’t do anything halfway.”
“No, he doesn’t. Also, for the love of God, please never call him that again.”
Her mother laughed. “Yeah, it sounded bad to me too.”
“We didn’t think you’d mind if we carved a space for her here straight off the bat,” Emma began when Mariana walked around the bed, touching the bedspread almost reverently.
“We want Stella to know she has the option to come and be with you whenever she wants.”
“Of course I don’t mind.” Mariana turned with tears in her eyes. “I know, I shouldn’t have tried to be her mother, but thank you for not taking her away from me completely.”
Emma walked over to bed and sat down on it, gesturing for Mariana to do the same.
“Stella needed you to be her mother. I wasn’t capable of it when she was born. Hell, I’m not entirely sure I am capable of it now. I’m still going to need your help. And not just with Stella. With life. But now you’ll hopefully have a chance to find the one you want for yourself too. Whatever that looks like, Garrett and I want you to have it.”
Mariana rose, reaching to run her hand over the satiny surface of the dresser. “It’s like winning the lottery. I don’t know that I deserve all of this.”
Emma snorted. “I know the feeling. But Garrett deserves to have the wife he loves. And Stella deserves her dad. So, the two of us are going to have to find a way to accept our good fortune without beating ourselves up about it.”
Mariana bent to pick up the stuffed unicorn Elias must have brought down, hugging it to her chest like a shield. “I guess we do.”
“I think Garrett was right.”
“About what?”
“We all need therapy.”
Mariana wrinkled her nose. “Therapy? Really?”
Emma wound her arm around her mother’s. “It can’t hurt.”
“I don’t want to,” her mother admitted. “But if you think it will help Stella…”
“I do.” Emma tugged her to her feet. “Why don’t we go see your room now?”
Mariana grinned, the anxiety in her expression melting away. “I’m excited.”
She didn’t have to tell Emma it had been a long while since she had felt that way.
She stood and put her arm around her mother’s waist, leading them across the hall.
“That’s probably the right reaction,” she said before pushing the master bedroom door open.