Chapter 4 #2
“I’m not sure I can walk. I’ve never eaten so much in my life, and it was delicious.” She smiled at him. Ben said something to one of the stewards and he disappeared. It was eleven o’clock and Charlotte thought she should go back to the hotel and go to sleep. They had work to do in the morning.
“You’ll never forget it once you’ve been there.” It sounded intriguing. She could see that there was a van waiting for them on the dock with one of the deckhands to drive them.
Ben gave her a hand into the van after they left the boat, and they set off a minute later.
The deckhand seemed to know where they were going, and Charlotte let herself be taken wherever Ben wanted to go.
She had enormous respect for him after hearing about his childhood and his otherworldly meteoric ascent to success, almost beyond human standards.
There were few men who had gone as far as he had, and none with his background and the heartbreak and hardships he had faced.
It was a rare combination in one person.
She could understand now why he never got attached to anyone, because no one had ever been attached to him or protected him as a child.
Children were a mystery to him, a puzzle he had no urge to solve.
Science and technology were of much greater interest, and safer than anything involving emotion and unreliable humans.
They drove for twenty minutes and stopped in front of a small white wooden church.
People were filing in dressed in their Sunday best, others were dressed in rags.
The poor were mingling with the rich, and a pastor stood outside greeting them.
He nodded at Ben with a warm smile of recognition.
It was obvious Ben had been there before.
Charlotte glanced at her watch and realized it was midnight mass.
The organ was playing softly, and got louder once the church was full.
A choir filed in once everyone was seated, and the pastor welcomed them all, and wished them a blessed Christmas.
Charlotte glanced up at Ben and he smiled at her with a knowing look as the choir began to sing.
Their voices soared toward the roof of the humble church and within minutes a joyful sound filled the church as people swayed and clapped, and the choir sang gospel songs as Charlotte had never heard them before.
It was the most exquisite sound she had ever heard.
The choir sang Christmas carols and hymns, and the congregation was invited to join in.
She and Ben sang, and the voices in the church blended into what sounded like heavenly music.
Charlotte felt herself lifted out of the sadness she had felt earlier into a kind of bliss that transported them.
She left the church with Ben, and he reached for her hand and held it.
“Oh my God, Ben, that’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I told you that you’d love it,” he said, beaming. “Merry Christmas, Charlotte.”
“Thank you, Ben,” she said softly, as they got back into the van and drove to her hotel. He walked her into the lobby, and she felt like she was floating. “I can’t thank you enough for tonight.”
“You don’t have to. I loved it too. I would have been sad eating Christmas dinner all by myself.
” It was an evening she hadn’t expected, and he was so different from what she had thought he would be, so much more of a human being.
“I’ve never told anyone everything I told you tonight about my childhood.
Somehow, I think I always felt the hand of God in my life, leading me in the right direction, bringing the right people to me.
Looking back, it all seems very predestined.
” It was so different from her traditional early life with ordinary loving parents, although they had died young and left her alone, so she could relate to some of what he’d been through, and the loneliness he’d experienced on the streets.
Other things in his life she couldn’t fathom without having experienced them.
He had come through all of it a decent human being and relatively whole.
There were scars he would never lose, but most of them had faded, and they had made him what he was now.
He was so much more than the money he had made, his success, and even the magnificent yacht.
Karma seemed the right name for the boat. His had been extraordinary.
“See you tomorrow,” he said gently, and hugged her, and then he left and she went to her villa, thinking about what an amazing night it had been with an incredible man. She couldn’t think of a single person in the world like him.
—
When Lillith stepped off the plane in St. Martin, there were two crew members waiting for her with the van that was kept on the boat to use in port.
She saw the two handsome young crewmen in their white uniforms as she went through customs. She had nothing to declare.
They came toward her immediately, as she left the customs men checking people through.
“Miss Jones?” one of them asked her. John had described her perfectly.
Long dark hair, green eyes, five feet four, slight build, in her twenties.
The crew were intrigued that a young woman was coming on the trip but staying in a guest cabin.
She smiled at the crew members, who were both about her age and looked like the men she usually went out with, tall, blond, and handsome, somewhere in their twenties.
Men still seemed juvenile to her at that age.
Sooner or later they did something really sophomoric that impacted the relationship, or they cheated on her.
Once they did, it was over for her. She hated cheaters, and had been thinking that she needed to date someone older, but she never had.
And she didn’t think of John in that way.
He was so much older that she thought of him more like a father figure, a very generous one since he had invited her on the boat.
“Mr. Williams is waiting for you on Lady H,” one of the deckhands said respectfully.
She was a very pretty girl and they would have liked to pick her up at a bar on their night out, but she had an entirely different status as their employer’s guest, whatever her age.
They treated her like someone much older, not their equal.
She could tell from their accents that they were both Australian.
They chatted quietly between themselves on the way to the boat, something about the crew schedule, as Lillith looked out the window at the scenery slipping by.
It was exciting being here. She was wearing jeans and a soft white cashmere sweater when she arrived, and carrying a down jacket.
It was like being transported to Paradise, away from the cold weather.
There had been a lit-up sign at the airport that said “Merry Christmas,” and a Christmas tree, but there was no other sign of the holiday on the way from the airport, which was something of a relief.
She didn’t have to think of families celebrating together, wrapped gifts under the tree, everything she didn’t have in her life.
Instead she had a miraculous benefactor who had invited her to his yacht.
It was almost too good to be true, except that she was here now, and it was real.
For the past two days she had worried that he would change his mind, call her with some plausible excuse, and cancel the trip, once he thought better of it. But he hadn’t.
Lillith was lost in her own thoughts when they reached the port.
She’d been thinking about her father and his girlfriend, skiing in Canada.
She saw the impressive yachts tied up along the quay, with the crews busy on deck, cleaning, hosing down the boats, getting the salt water off the surfaces.
The yachts seemed to get bigger as the van drove along, and they stopped in front of an enormous sailboat with tall masts reaching up toward the sky.
There was a man in a blazer and jeans standing at the rail, and as she got out of the van, she was startled to realize it was John.
He was dwarfed by the enormous boat, with half a dozen uniformed crew members working near him as he watched the arriving cars intently.
The boat was a dozen times bigger than she had expected.
She had thought of a big sailboat in her mind’s eye.
She had never seen one as big as this one, and John’s face eased into a broad smile and he waved when he saw her.
She was shocked by the majestic graceful splendor of Lady H.
She walked across the gangway onto the boat, took off her shoes, and left them in a basket, as the two crew members who had picked her up took charge of her luggage, and John appeared rapidly next to her.
He hugged her and she got a whiff of his cologne as he did.
Everything around her seemed overwhelming, and he was still smiling as he greeted her.
“Welcome aboard!” He led the way up the stairs to an upper deck where a stewardess had champagne waiting for her.
“The boat is incredible!” Lillith said with a look of awe, and he handed her a glass.
“It’s my favorite place to be,” he said, as the crew got busy, getting underway.
He was eager to get to St. Barth and show her around.
The deck furniture was all upholstered in blue and white stripes.
John watched with a keen eye as the crew threw off the ropes, carefully inching away from the berth between two large motor yachts.
Lillith watched the delicate maneuver with fascination.
The van had already been put onboard. It was an efficient operation with a huge crew.
“Did you have a good flight?” John asked as they sat down.