Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 164263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 821(@200wpm)___ 657(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 821(@200wpm)___ 657(@250wpm)___ 548(@300wpm)
I think I just had a dirty weekend with someone rich or famous.
Who are you?
The server walks past my table and puts a fortune cookie down as she hands them out to everyone. “A present for you.” She smiles.
“Thanks.” She moves on to the next table and with a heavy heart I crack mine open.
Make a wish
I hold the fortune cookie in my hand as I go over the weekend and all I can feel is the deepest sense of gratitude.
I know that I didn’t tick off Misty’s wish list.
But I sure as hell ticked off mine.
“Mr. Doe. I don’t know how, I don’t when….” I smile fondly and close my eyes as I make my wish. “May we meet again.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALORA
My phone dances across the table, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. “Hello,” I answer as I watch the swanky plane take off into the sunset.
“Hi, love.”
“Hi, Dad.” I smile. “How are you?”
“Not great.”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Uncle Edgar.” I can hear sadness in his voice.
“Is he okay?” I frown.
“No, he’s had a heart attack and has passed away.”
“Oh my god.” My face falls as I get a vision of my beloved uncle being in pain with a heart attack. “Was he alone?” I stammer.
“No, thankfully he was with friends and out to dinner, so he wasn’t alone. They’ve assured me that it was quick and relatively painless.”
My eyes well with tears. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.”
Uncle Edgar was my dad’s brother, he married a French woman and moved there to be with her over thirty years ago but unfortunately she passed away not long after they were married. He never met anyone else and he never left because France was where he felt closest to her. It’s the saddest love story of all time.
“I’m on my way home, I’m at the airport. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
“Oh, Alora, there’s so much to do…we have to organize the funeral, his house and everything….”
Poor Dad.
“It’s okay,” I try to reassure him. “I’ll take some time off and we’ll go to France and figure it out. I’ll help, it’s okay.”
He sniffs and my heart breaks, he was his only sibling and the last person alive in his family. We were all so close with him. “I’ll be there soon, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” he lies.
My eyes well with tears. “I’ll be home soon.”
“Sorry to ruin your weekend away.”
It was already ruined.
“Don’t be silly. See you soon.” I hang up as I visualize my beautiful Uncle Edgar, so enigmatic and eccentric, always laughing and the life of the party.
The lump in my throat begins to hurt as I glance at my watch.
I need to get home.
THREE WEEKS LATER.
“To my brother Kelvin Sorenson, who I love with all of my heart, I leave my villa in Paris, my estate in London and my car and jewelry collection.” My dad shakes his head in disbelief.
The lawyer looks over the top of his glasses. “To my nephew River, I leave my home in Beverly Hills in Los Angeles.” We gasp, oh my god, that is worth millions.
“To my niece Raylyn, I leave my apartment in Manhattan in New York.” Our eyes widen.
“And to my niece Alora I leave her my entire antique collection and my terrace house in Mont Boron, Nice, in France.”
We all exchange glances, is this for real?
“I leave you all a twenty-five percent share of my home in the Hamptons; it is my hope that you use it as a family vacation haven together. Please know how much I love you all. See you on the other side.”
Oh my god.
The car pulls up at an old run-down factory building and my dad, River and Raylyn and I all frown at each other in question. “He must have rented a storage unit inside of it.” Dad shrugs.
“Yes, he rented a space,” the lawyer replies with a heavy French accent from the driver’s seat. He parks the car and we climb out, we wait while he fumbles through the biggest key ring I have ever seen. Eventually he opens a huge, rusty roller door and we all stare in, clueless to what we are even looking at. There’s an entire factory packed to the rafters with all kinds of random things and antiques. Stuff is hanging from the ceiling and things are stacked dangerously high on top of each other.
My eyes flick to the lawyer. “What’s this?”
“Antiques.”
“Yes, but which ones were his?”
He holds his hands up. “All.”
“All,” Raylyn and I say in unison.
“All?” My father gasps as he looks around. “Surely not.”
“Yes.” He nods. “He loved his antiques so much.”
“All of these are….” I frown.
“Yours.”
My eyes widen. “But what the hell am I going to do with all of this?”
“I have no idea.”
It’s funny how life turns out.
You think you know how it’s going to go and yet somehow the choices are made for you. A higher power orchestrates your true destiny, regardless of what you imagined. No matter how hard you may try to fight it, what is meant to be yours, will always end up being yours.