Page 74 of The Romance Adventure

“Yeah, and I’m a millionaire. But what do you think he meant by starting on the eighteenth? That’s a few days after Valentine’s Day.”

“If you’re hinting that you’d like chocolate, I’ve already talked to Bean.”

Isla bounces over to me and wraps her arms around my neck. “Humble and romantic. Ooh la la.”

I grip her arm and make a pathetic attempt to loosen it. “I detect sarcasm.”

She winks. “Maybe so, but not criticism.”

The TV blares the news in the background, and I want to shut it off, but Isla gazes into my eyes. Hers are bright today, sparkly despite the storm raging outside.

My gaze drops to her lips, but instead of moving in for a kiss as I expect, she says, “And what do you suppose he meant by avoid the sand and, well, the rest of it?”

I give my head a little shake, prepared to bore her with anything other than the stupid letter from Chip. “I majored in law and minored in finance. I have a mind for numbers, but lived for the thrill of the judge dropping his gavel.”

“Have you read the Bible?” she asks.

I blink a few times. “In its entirety? No.”

“I meant, have you looked at the one Chip left for you?”

With a shrug, I nudge it across the counter toward her. It’s thick and leatherbound. Isla lifts the cover with care, reverence. I half expect a moth to flutter out, the thing is so old. A faint smile traces across her lips as she skims her finger along the inner cover.

“It’s hard to believe this survived so long. I mean, it’s not because it’s the living truth of God’s breathed word. But I mean this particular copy, having belonged to João and Márcia Sousa. They had five children.” Isla tries to pronounce their Portuguese names.

Not going to lie, it’s adorable.

Then I do a double-take, a double listen?

“Wait, the Bible has my great, great, grand something’s names in it?” Peering over Isla’s shoulder, I read through the genealogy, confirming that CJ and Magnus’s accounts of our ancestors is correct. João and Márcia and five children and numerous grandchildren, including Flávia. She had two children, Carlos and Lorena.

My voice is a whisper when I say, “That makes Flávia my grandfather’s mother, my great-grandmother.”

“Maybe the story of the lost crown of tears isn’t so farfetched,” Isla says.

Snapping to, I give my head a little shake. “No, it’s nonsense. This record of my family’s genealogy doesn’t confirm much of anything.” I don’t mention how I’ve been pondering the underlined passage from Matthew for weeks now. There’s something there that my grandfather wanted me to see. No matter how hard I squint at the horizon, I just can’t spot it.

Isla rolls her eyes like she’s merely entertaining my disbelief. “Okay, numbers guy, what do you think Chip meant by the eighteenth?”

Ignoring the repeated inquiry and what it might mean if, like CJ, she’s sniffing around for treasure, I continue, “I’m a self-made man. Worked hard and saw to it that justice was served every day because losing my parents felt incredibly unjust. I couldn’t stop and wouldn’t stop taking cases because if I won enough⁠—”

Isla’s eyes are wide, her expression pinched with concern.

I’ve said something out loud that I shouldn’t have. Revealed too much of my interior. In that same letter she references, Chip said to keep my wits.

“But you no longer practice law.”

I keep my lips zipped, but winning cases was a hedge against further loss in my life. Being that busy kept my family at length.

Instead, I tell Isla, “I went to Wall Street. I was better with numbers than keeping track of the ever-changing statutes and codex. Numbers don’t shift course midway through a case.”

“Do you mean codex like codes? Do you think what Chip wrote were codes or clues?”

“No, he just liked to mess with us. It was a sport to him, really. Send us on quests with riddles and maps.”

“As a lawyer, if you’re familiar with wills and such, why didn’t you stop me from embarrassing myself when I read your grandfather’s?”

“My focus was on corporate law.” On that day, not long ago, my attention was on the injustice of my grandfather tricking us into attending what amounted to his funeral, rather than sparing the messenger embarrassment. Funny, how now that’s flipped. I’m less angry now and more just want to rebuild the resort because it could prove to be a lucrative investment. Then I’ll move on with my life—with or without Isla in it.