shocked whistle.
“It is amazing, though,” he said. “Although I’m not sure I’ll ever stay anywhere like that.”
“Me neither. I mean, you would literally have to be a millionaire if you wanted to st-stay . . .” I stared at the screen again. “I am a millionaire,” I said out load, as if it were only really dawning on me now. “I’m literally a millionaire!”
“Oh. That’s right. I keep forgetting!”
“Me too!”
I stared at the road in front of me, thinking about all that money I had sitting in a bank account somewhere. I had done nothing with it. All I’d done was save it for later, although I had no idea what “later” really meant, or what I was meant to do with it “later.” I had used it to pay for my studies, I had used it to buy my apartment and I used some of the interest each month to live off, because that salary they paid me at the agency was not even enough to furnish me with one month of the organic, non-GMO, nutritionally balanced meals I got delivered. But other than that, and buying a club full of random people shooters, I’d never actually done anything with it. I’d never splashed out. Thrown caution to the wind and spent way too much on a handbag or a night in a luxury hotel. And God knows, I probably deserved to spend that money!
“You know what! Let’s do it!”
“Do what?” Noah asked.
“Let’s stay here! Let’s live it up and stay here for the night, and who cares what it costs.” I looked at the screen again and a feeling rose inside me. “And it has two bedrooms, so that’s . . .” I paused.
“Good,” he said.
“Yes. Good,” I said, and for some reason it came out sounding like a question.
“Yup. Good. It is,” he said back, and, strangely, his statement also sounded like a question. What was he asking?
What was I asking?
And what was the answer?
CHAPTER 64
“Now this is more like it,” Noah said, as we were escorted into the palatial room. And it was palatial. Gold-and-white marble floors. Crystal chandeliers and, the best part, that plunge pool on the deck overlooking the sea.
“I’ve never been anywhere so fancy before,” Noah said.
“Me neither.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you have all this money, that you rightfully deserve, and yet you’ve never spent it on anything. You’ve never treated yourself to a night like this before, or an overseas vacation, or . . . anything.”
His question floated through the room towards me. It seemed like a simple one. But it wasn’t. It was very loaded, and it summarized the life that Zenobia had led in many ways.
“That’s just who I was,” I said softly.
“Was?” he asked.
I turned and smiled at him. “Well, the old me would never have smoked weed, even if it was accidental, the old me would not have gone down waterslides, and certainly wouldn’t be staying in a place like that. So, yes, was. Or at the very least, getting there.” I watched Noah, and his look seemed to draw me closer towards him. I reached out and took his hand. It felt so comfortable in mine. Like I’d been taking his hand forever.
“I like you like this,” he whispered. “It suits you.”
“Thanks, and I have you to thank for that,” I whispered back.
“No. I had nothing to do with this. I was just there when it happened. You—you—did all of this. I’m just along for the crazy ride.”
I smiled, and this time it was huge.
“You’re incredible.” He stepped forward and slowly placed a hand on the side of my face. This was exactly like the moment that Amanda Stone and Sheik Khalifa had shared . . .
Wait?
Why did I keep referring to that book? That book wasn’t real. It was someone’s else’s made-up romance, it was not my romance, and I was no longer going to live inside the pages of someone else’s bloody love story. I was going to live my own love story. I was going to experience it and feel it, not as Amanda Stone, but as me. Zoe! The new me who was more than capable of writing the words to her own real romance and feeling whatever she wanted to feel, not what some character had felt.
“You’re the bravest, strongest, most adventurous person I’ve ever met in my life and, quite frankly, I’m a little in awe of you.” He reached out and touched the other