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Chapter 8 - The Villa on the Water

Grandma Rose refused to move that night.

""I am eighty-six years old,"" she told Marcus with sweet but unyielding stubbornness. ""I do not pack my suitcase twice in one evening, and Emily already paid for this room. We will sleep here, and we will thank you properly in the morning.""

Marcus had blinked, thoroughly unaccustomed to guests turning down a four-thousand-dollar-a-night private beachfront villa to sleep on a polyester floral bedspread at a budget motel, but he bowed respectfully and promised to return at nine o'clock the following day.

True to his word, Marcus arrived at nine sharp with two porters. Within twenty minutes, Grandma and I were being ushered through the soaring, marble-columned lobby of The Grand Azure. Fountains bubbled softly, classical music drifted through the air, and floor-to-ceiling glass walls looked out over an emerald lawn that rolled straight into the turquoise sea.

Our accommodations weren't just a room; it was a standalone private villa nestled directly into the dunes. The back patio was made of warm, polished teak wood, positioned mere feet from the high-tide line. The waves crashed rhythmically against the rocks right beneath the railing.

""Look, Emily,"" Grandma whispered, clutching my arm as we walked onto the private terrace. ""Arthur's brochure. It really had the waves on the porch.""

The resort staff treated Grandma like visiting royalty. A chef came out personally to ask how she liked her eggs; the pool concierge brought her extra plush towels and a pair of tinted sunglasses; and Marcus had arranged for a specialized beach wheelchair with enormous balloon tires that allowed Grandma Rose to glide effortlessly across the sand right down to the water's edge whenever she pleased.

For three days, we lived inside a dream.

Grandma sat on that teak patio from sunrise to sunset. She wrote postcards to her church friends back in Ohio, ate fresh shrimp cocktail with her fingers, and watched the pelicans dive into the surf. Every afternoon, we took the beach wheelchair down to the wet sand, where she sat with her bare feet submerged in the warm Atlantic brine, talking to Arthur as if he were sitting right beside her on a folding stool.

On the fourth evening, while Grandma was napping peacefully in an enormous king-sized bed wrapped in eight-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton, the doorbell to the villa chimed softly.

I walked to the entrance and opened the door.

Standing on the threshold was Victoria.

She was dressed in a simple, elegant black linen dress, completely free of jewelry. Her hair was pulled back in a neat, unpretentious ponytail, and her face was fresh, clean, and calm. She looked nothing like the snobbish, terrified woman from row fourteen.

May you like

""May I come in?"" she asked quietly.

""Of course,"" I said, stepping aside and opening the door wide. ""Please.""

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