Chapter 6 - The Secret Honeymoon
By midnight, our guests had danced themselves ragged. The lemon-lavender cake was devoured down to the silver platter, the open bar had exhausted its supply of top-shelf gin, and Grandma Julia had danced two separate swing numbers with Daniel’s cousin Marcus before retiring gracefully to her suite.
Daniel and I slipped out through the garden arbor at twelve-thirty, boarding a black town car waiting by the terrace gate.
As the driver pulled onto the highway, leaving the glittering lights of the resort behind, Daniel reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out two pale-blue boarding envelopes.
He slid them onto my lap.
I looked down at them, puzzled. “Daniel… what is this? I told the travel agency to cancel everything once Mom tampered with the file.”
“You told them to cancel the *public* file,” Daniel said, his eyes glittering in the amber glow of the passing streetlights.
I looked at him, my heart hitching. “What did you do?”
“On Wednesday,” Daniel said, leaning back against the leather seat, “after you showed me the eleven-thousand-dollar charge on your corporate card, I called Mediterranean Escapes from my office phone. I spoke directly with the regional director, told him about the identity theft, and explained that my mother-in-law was attempting to hijack our booking.”
He tapped the blue envelopes.
“We didn't cancel Greece, Bonnie. We just let your mother *think* she canceled it.”
I picked up the envelopes with trembling fingers. I pulled out the tickets.
*Passenger: Bonnie Keller.*
*Passenger: Daniel Keller.*
*Flight: Emirates EK230 — Seattle to Athens (First Class Suites).*
*Departure: Tomorrow, 2:15 PM.*
“Daniel…” I breathed, my hand flying to my mouth.
“The director flagged Brenda’s call as unauthorized tampering,” Daniel explained, a slow, triumphant grin spreading across his face. “They created a dummy cancellation file under your maiden name to keep her pacified, while transferring our actual itinerary, our seat selections, and our villa deposit into a private, password-protected account under my name. With a twenty-percent VIP courtesy discount for the inconvenience.”
I stared at the tickets, then at my husband. “You knew? The entire time Khloe was screaming on the dance floor about stealing our tickets, you knew we still had them?”
“Of course I knew,” Daniel laughed softly, pulling me across the seat until my head was tucked under his chin. “Did you really think I was going to let your sister steal our dream trip? I wanted you to have your moment on that stage. I wanted you to strip them of their power with ninety-nine witnesses watching. But I was never, *ever* going to let them take Greece from you.”
A single, hot tear broke over my eyelashes, soaking into the lapel of his tuxedo. It wasn't a tear of stress or grief—it was pure, unadulterated relief. For twenty-eight years, I had been the protector, the shield, the one who absorbed the blows and balanced the books so nobody else would suffer.
Now, someone was protecting me.
“We fly in fourteen hours,” Daniel whispered, kissing the crown of my head. “Our phones go on airplane mode the second our wheels leave the tarmac at Sea-Tac. No family calls. No group chats. No wire transfers. Just twelve days of white cliffs, blue water, and you.”
I closed my eyes, letting the hum of the car engine vibrate through my bones.
Back at the resort, Brenda was likely staring at an eight-thousand-dollar cleaning bill. Khloe was likely screaming at Tyler in their rented two-bedroom apartment, realizing she had sixty days to learn how to pay rent.
May you like
And tomorrow afternoon, Daniel and I would be sipping Dom Pérignon at forty thousand feet over the Atlantic Ocean, leaving the ashes of their entitlement behind.
***
