Chapter 51
COOPER
Stephanie immediately walks to Amber’s headstone and runs her fingers over the words on the bench, “Please sit awhile and rest from your burdens.” She smiles a sad smile. “I’ve never seen a headstone with a bench on it, and I love it. Who thought of it?”
“It was Amber’s idea. She wanted visitors to have a place to sit, especially Lou.” I walk over and stand next to Stephanie, who is still inspecting everything about the headstone.
My heart rate kicks up as she starts paying attention to the gemstones above Amber’s name.
“I’ve never seen anything like these before. The red is so rich and vibrant. Deeper than any ruby I’ve ever seen. I wonder what they are.” She takes her phone out and snaps a photo of one. “I’ll bet ChatGPT can figure it out.”
“They’re a gemstone called painite.”
She glances at me then puts her phone down. “Do you know a lot about gemstones?”
“Not really. But I know a lot about these. I can tell you that in the 1950s, painite was considered the most rare gem in the world. Some might argue that these,” my eyes flick to the gems, “helped bring us together . . . sort of.”
Stephanie slowly sits down on the bench. “Continue.”
“Stephanie,” I pause, because there’s no going back once I tell her.
She already knows some, but I plan on telling her everything—not just about the gems. This is the part of my life I’ve kept the most private, and logically, I should be nervous to tell her, but I’m not.
I want to tell her. My excitement builds at the thought of her possibly sharing this with me.
“You already know that when we realized Amber’s cancer treatments weren’t working, Deke and I sold our company and he moved to the island with the girls. ” Stephanie nods.
“On my first visit, I was on my phone trying to find something to help Amber with the pain. I made some kind of typo, and what I searched for instead was ‘painite.’ A photo of a deep-red gemstone popped up on my screen. Lou was sitting with me. She was two or three, so you can imagine how it caught her eye. We sat for a while, searching through all the photos of painite, and Lou said they reminded her of her mom—because red is her mom’s favorite color and they were as pretty as her mom.
That began my deep dive into finding out everything I could about the gemstone.
If Lou was going to lose her mom, and they reminded her of how beautiful Amber was, then I knew I had to get some for her.
I started searching, but the only ones available were too small.
I wanted something bigger, and I became a man on a mission.
I don’t remember how it morphed into putting them on her headstone, but that’s how it ended up. ”
“So you’re obviously the one who got these?”
I nod. “Looking for those was why I ended up getting my jet. It gave me the freedom to go wherever and whenever I needed to as I kept trying to find a source with the biggest gems possible. Everywhere I went was a dead end—until I heard of a remote place in Myanmar. There was a small mountain village there that ended up being able to make these.” I gesture to the gems. “I found them just before Deke and Sam got married, and I stayed in Myanmar until they finished the first gem so that I could bring it to Amber. It took them almost four weeks—that’s why I didn’t make it to the island until the day of the wedding.
” She leans forward as she continues to listen.
“After the wedding, Maverick and I immediately took off to go back to the village—even though I’d met an incredible woman I wanted to stay behind and get to know.
” I give her a knowing smile. “We took a lot of supplies with us to hopefully make their lives easier. I also dug them a well, among other things, so that they didn’t have to walk down the steep mountain every day to get fresh water.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I need you to understand what I do. And that it’s important to me. Finding and buying these gems was the first thing I did with my money that didn’t make me hate it.”
“Did you pay a lot for them?”
“Painite usually goes for fifty to sixty thousand dollars per carat, and each of those,” my head tilts to the headstone, “is between forty to sixty carats. So you can do the math.”
“Cooper!” Stephanie jumps to her feet. “That’s millions of dollars for five stones—that very few people will ever see!”
“It was well over ten million, plus the jet and improvements in the village. But Lou loves them, and you should see what my money was able to do for the people. I’d say it was money well spent, and I have no regrets.”
“Again, why are you telling me all this?” I can tell she’s genuinely rattled by the amount of money I’m talking about.
“Because projects like this have become the biggest part of my life in the last several years. They bring me more happiness than anything else I’ve done, and they give me a purpose that my life lacked for a while.
I need you to understand the scope of my finances, because at some point, I hope you’ll be a part of this with me.
” A bolder statement than I was planning to make.
She’s not running for the hills, so I guess I’ll keep going.
“If you genuinely hate the idea of being a part of something like this, I need to know.”
Her jaw had dropped when she’d realized the price of the gems—and it hasn’t gone back up since. Her lack of a poker face is on full display, and I can read all kinds of emotions on her face: disbelief, shock, surprise, curiosity, interest.
“Well?” I prod for her thoughts.
“Well, what? What am I supposed to say?” She starts pacing back and forth. “You’ve got me thinking we need to hire around-the-clock security for those!” She flings an arm toward the painite.
“Don’t worry about that. Gem thieves aren’t secretly combing cemeteries on small Caribbean islands for rare gems.” This gets me an incredulous glare.
“So, when you told me you worked for a charitable company, this is what you meant?”
“Yes—and it is a legal charitable company. I wanted to make it easier for others to make a donation.”
“If you have so much money, why do you need donations?”
“I don’t. But others need the opportunity to do good things with their money.
So I go out and find the projects. Then I try to find people who would benefit from being part of it.
One example is the school you heard Adeline talking to Frank about.
That’s for an area I came across in a South African township.
Families there don’t have the money to send their kids to school, so I wanted to build one they could walk to.
I mentioned it to Adeline one night, and she became so emotionally invested that I let her take over the entire thing.
She’s trying to get a bunch of stuffed suits to realize the good they can do with their money, but it can be a hard sell sometimes.
If she can’t get them to donate, she still wants to fund it herself, so I’m letting her. ”
“You keep dropping these bombshells on me, and I don’t know how to process them.” She’s still pacing. “And what do these have to do with us?” Her eyes drift to the painite.
“Do you remember what happened between us after Deke and Sam’s reception?”
“When you freed my dress from my bra hook and scared the bejeebers out of me—so I slapped you? ” Stephanie stops pacing and gives me a look. “Yes, I remember.”
“Do you remember that I put a box down on the little table by the door and asked you to give it to Amber?” She nods. “That was one of the gems. I was there to give it to her.”
“You mean you left me ten million dollars in gems to watch over as if they were a can of Diet Coke?!””
I can’t help but laugh at her outburst. “It was one gem, so only two million.”
“Only two million dollars.” She repeats my words. “I’ll never get used to sentences that have both ‘only’ and ‘million’ in them!”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“Why would I ever get used to it?”
I need to rephrase. “I guess that’s what I’m asking: Would you be willing to get used to it?
” I take her hands in mine. “Because I’d love you to be part of this—as much as your schedule allows.
I spend a lot of time finding projects. Which means I’m either flying around to facilitate their completion or finding people who will.
And I spend and ask for a lot of money doing this.
I know you have a complicated relationship with money because of your dad, but .
. .” I give her a moment to breathe. “Would you be willing to get used to it?”
She appears a little stunned before a half-hearted laugh comes out of her mouth.
“Do you think that, after everything you’ve told me, I’m going to compare you to my dad?
Cooper, he flaunts it. He loves to spend money on things that make him look richer than he actually is.
You’re the exact opposite of that.” She steps into me and reaches up to run her fingers through my beard.
“And it makes me like you more. Even though I will freely admit that this kind of money makes my head spin—I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.
” Her voice drops to something sweeter, more tender.
“But I think spending money to help others might be the best job I’ve ever heard of. ”
“Does that include buying Jimmy Choos for someone?”
Her eyes are sharp, and one of her sculpted brows arches up. “I was talking about people in need.”
“You were in need of a new pair of shoes. What’s the problem?”
“Cooper,” she swats at my arm and sits down on the bench, “you know what I mean.”
“I do—and if I’m being honest, it only makes me want to spoil you more. I’ve never been with a woman who wanted to be spoiled less than you do, and it makes me want to spoil you even more. Please indulge me with this one thing.”
I can tell she’s wrestling with what I’ve said. “Fine. I’ll let you spoil me sometimes if you tell me how you got shoes delivered to your mom’s house in the middle of the night.”
I pull out a New Jersey accent. “I know a guy.” It’s my impersonation of Joe Jr from the movie While You Were Sleeping, and I guess I do a good job because Stephanie laughs in the way I’d hoped she would.
“That’s not an answer.”
“Then here’s my answer: if you stick around long enough, you’ll figure out all my secrets.”
“Deal.” She moves closer and leans in for a kiss but pulls back at the last second. “But you also have to promise to let me watch you jump rope.”
“You liked that?”
“Yes. I did. It was really, really sexy.” Then she smiles and we do very little talking at all.
The next morning, Deke, Stephanie, and I are around the kitchen table with Emma while Sam tries to sleep.
The charity concert is in almost five weeks, and we have a conference call with Alyssa and McKay to double-check that everything will be ready.
Not surprisingly, Alyssa and McKay have everything under control—which means we can relax, help with little Emma, and find all the stolen moments we can for five more weeks.
And so we do.