Total pages in book: 37
Estimated words: 34442 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34442 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 172(@200wpm)___ 138(@250wpm)___ 115(@300wpm)
What on earth is that?
It wasn’t until the huge, vibrant mass started to inflate into a balloon-like shape that I realized it was connected to a basket. Immediately, my brain connected the dots and solved the mystery—a hot air balloon.
At first, I just curiously watched the men work from my spot on the balcony.
But eventually, my mind took its investigation further and started to remind me of all of the facts.
A hot air balloon.
On the beach.
Right near your resort.
Once I factored in all the crazy shit that had happened since we’d arrived in Cabo, panic seized my throat.
Oh, hell no. That was not going to happen. We would, without a doubt, crash and die.
At a damn near sprint, I ran back inside our suite and dove straight onto the bed, shaking my husband’s shoulders. “Kline! Kline!” I shouted his name, too worked up to gently ease him awake. “You have to get up, and we have to get the fuck out of here!”
“W-what?” he questioned, groaning and blinking his eyes open.
“Baby, someone is getting a hot air balloon ready on the beach!”
“Okay?”
“Kline, you need to wake up and understand what I’m saying,” I said, voice still gripped by anxiety.
“What is happening right now?” he questioned, rubbing at his eyes, clearing his throat, and sitting up enough to rest his back against the headboard.
Once his still-sleepy eyes met mine, I reiterated my point. “There is a hot air balloon being blown up just outside our resort.”
“Okay?” He was still confused. “What does that have to do with us?”
I just stared at him and gave him a moment to put the pieces together.
“Wait…you think Thatch is behind this?”
“Just…think about the past two days. Really think about them.”
He blinked again.
“Baby, I love you, and I’m so thankful for this trip you tried to plan for us. But it’s time we get away from this fucking getaway. And we need to do it before we end up thousands of feet in the sky in a fucking wicker basket,” I said, my voice rising octaves with each word. “We’ll die, Kline!” I exclaimed and hopped up from the bed, pacing the floor beside it. “If we stay here, we’ll literally die in that hot air balloon.”
“Fuck,” Kline muttered and ran a hand through his hair. But to my surprise and relief, he got out of bed and tossed on a pair of boxer briefs. “You start packing, and I’ll handle getting the flight home.”
He grabbed his phone from the nightstand, scrolled through his contacts, but before he hit send on a call, he paused. “Shit. We can’t fly on the private jet, baby.” He looked at me, eyes serious. “We have to fly commercial.”
“What?” I asked as I grabbed our suitcases out of the closet.
“Thatch has infiltrated every goddamn aspect of this trip,” he explained. “Who knows if he has some of the flight staff in his pocket, too? I mean, fuck, Georgie, there could be a fucking petting zoo or something waiting for us on the jet.”
Holy hell.
This getaway had been such a shitshow that my calm, clever, incredibly rational husband had officially become a conspiracy theorist, paranoid that Thatch was like some corrupt politician, buying favors from his own staff. Yeah, it was time to get home.
“Okay. A commercial flight it is.” It wasn’t like I hadn’t been flying coach for my whole life.
“I’ll let the flight staff know they can head back without us,” he said, voice determined. His fingers tapped across the screen of his phone in rapid succession.
A few moments later, he had us two last-minute seats booked on a flight to Newark.
And it didn’t take long for us to pack our bags, put on our best disguises in the form of sunglasses and hats, and get the fuck out of Dodge.
The magnificent, five-star Diamond resort had officially lost its luster.
New York Tri-State Area, Saturday night, May 27th
Twenty-four hours earlier than I’d planned, Georgia and I found ourselves at home, sitting on the couch, with Walter and Stan cuddled up on either side. A just-delivered pizza and breadsticks and drinks sat on the coffee table in front of us, and Georgia scrolled through the latest Netflix releases, trying to find a movie to watch.
We’d left Cabo in a rush this morning, all in the name of getting away from our “perfect little getaway” before more disaster occurred. The fucking irony. We’d literally had to escape the early Valentine’s surprise that I’d planned to show Georgie that her supposed curse wasn’t real, and in the process, I’m pretty sure that shit had blown up spectacularly—right in my face.
The only way our trip could have gone any worse was if we’d stayed to finish it.
Other people could call us paranoid all they wanted, but until they’d experienced being stalked by actual mariachi monkeys and doused by the sprinkler system in their hotel room in the name of Thatch’s idea of romance, they had no right to comment on the matter.