A Billionaire for Christmas

“Two hundred what?” Jesse exclaims.

“You’ll see,” my father says, taking Jesse by the arm and leading him away. “You’ll see.”Chapter NineteenJack Dumas keeps his massive, fatherly hand firmly on my shoulder as he directs me down a long, narrow hallway. We stop in front of a closed door and Jack kinda spins me around to face him. Both massive hands are now both gripping my shoulders as he looks down at me from his superior height.

He’s a big dude and I have to tilt my chin up pretty high to meet his gaze.

I feel like we’re about to have a moment.

About his daughter. Or about me. Or about his wishes for her future. Or my level of commitment.

Something to make this event… I don’t know. Worthy, maybe.I proposed to Emma last summer. I didn’t hide a ring in a cupcake, or drop it into a glass of champagne. I didn’t have a plane write it in the sky or do it in front of a restaurant filled with people. I didn’t make up a dance or recite her a poem. I didn’t do it in front of her family.

In fact, the entire event—important as it is in the grand scheme of my life, and her life, and many other lives surrounding ours—was a small, nearly wordless moment that involved a sailboat and a stretch of sand in the middle of the water, and didn’t even come with a ring.

Because I didn’t know I was gonna do it.

We had taken Luke’s trimaran out for an afternoon sail just after Johnny got back from his failed attempt to find Charlotte Kane. It was a warm, sunny day with clear, bright-blue skies. The water was calm and there was just a little hint of wind. We rolled out the sails after motoring a few miles west, but the wind wasn’t catching them. So we just drifted, and talked, and enjoyed the sun and the break from all the crazy that comes with the last name Boston.

It was just… a nice day. A really nice day.

Emma was in a new yellow bikini she had bought the day before from her family dive shop and the way it contrasted against her long, dark hair just kinda took my breath away. She was standing on the deck gazing out at the seemingly endless horizon, dark sunglasses shading her eyes, and smiling.

That’s what I remember most about that day.

Emma was smiling. Happy.

And I was thinking, How does she do that? How does she just… live in the moment and let the stress and worry of the wider world slip away?

Johnny came home from his trip. He brought a girl with him and she seemed cool. He seemed satisfied with her, at least. And he told us things were gonna change, but he couldn’t tell us why. He told us he failed. He told us that there’s a lot more to this story. And then he dropped it. Joey and I were confused, but also relieved.

Relieved that Johnny was handling things, I guess.

But the stakes were still high, the danger still real. And Emma had had no idea that I came with all this baggage. So how could she possibly be happy?

But then I thought, Well, I’m happy. So why can’t she be happy?

Does internal satisfaction depend on external factors?

You can’t ever know if you make someone happy. They can tell you with words or you can assume that you do, but you can’t ever really know what’s going on inside someone else’s head.

But in that moment, I knew.

I knew the meaning of happy.

Happiness comes from being right where you’re supposed to be. Happiness comes from that feeling of total acceptance and belonging. Happiness is a moment. It doesn’t come with a guarantee. There’s no promise of more to come, it just is.

And every moment of every day you get to choose to feel it or not.

I said, “Hey. You wanna swim out to that sandbar with me?” And I nodded my head in the general direction of a thin stretch of white sand surrounded by a swaying ocean of hidden life.

She turned, slowly, still smiling. Didn’t say a word. Didn’t say yes, didn’t say no. Just slid her sunglasses down her face, tossed them onto a nearby table, climbed up on the railing of the side deck, and dove straight into the water.

That’s when I realized something.

That’s when the meaning of happy hit me.

Emma Dumas is my happy.

I climbed up on the rail and dove in after her. She was floating on her back, just smiling up at the sky as she drifted in the middle of this massive body of water. A tiny speck in a universe of everything.

So small. But so big too. Because she was my everything.

We swam out, dragged ourselves out of the heavy water and collapsed onto the sandbar. My arm was underneath her and her head was resting on my shoulder. Our feet were still in the surf and every ten seconds or so, a wave would crash over our knees and remind us to be happy.