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“I can’t believe you had a kid and didn’t even know it,” Bethany marveled before jabbing her elbow. “But good job on getting knocked up by a future billionaire.”
She gave her coworker a speaking glance before Bethany decided it would be more fun to pick up a few mercenaries.
Even Pedro showed up with Hannah Cho on his arm. Emma couldn’t think of an odder couple, but she knew they were probably thinking the same thing about her and Garrett. In the end, she just hugged him and thanked them both for coming.
Sometime during the festivities, Emma and Garrett broke away from the crowd to show Stella her room.
Ian and Elias had put all the stuffed animals they’d brought to the airport in the bedroom across the hall. The king-sized sleigh bed she had slept in was gone. In its place was a smaller white four-poster bed complete with a pink bedspread. The filmy canopy curtains were artfully tied to the posts, completing the picture.
Stella squealed in delight. “It’s the princess bed from the picture!”
Emma didn’t know where Garrett had found it, but it was the same dream bed they’d found on Google, which she had saved by texting him the image.
Stella pushed out of his arms. Mariana managed to intercept her long enough to wrangle her shoes off. Their daughter broke away to leap onto the bed, giving it the trampoline treatment with the biggest smile on her face.
“I was going to wait to replace the bed,” Garrett explained. “But the other one was just too high. I wanted to make sure she wouldn’t hurt herself if she fell out of bed.”
“You also added carpet.” It was plush and thick with extra padding underneath. If Emma jumped where she stood, she’d bounce too.
“A wise move in retrospect, don’t you think?” he asked, his headmovements tracking the amount of clearance Stella’s feet were gaining with each jump.
He had a point.
She was about to tell Stella to stop jumping. Plush carpet or not, she shouldn’t be encouraged to go buck wild like this. But when she turned back, Stella was curled up on her side, fast asleep.
“What?” she asked in disbelief.
“Yeah, she can go out between blinks,” Mariana informed them matter-of-factly. “And she sleeps like the dead so be prepared to shake her awake when she’s enrolled in school again.”
She and Garrett stared at her mother, his expression of shock mirroring her own.
Mariana smirked. “The reverse happens too. She’ll wake up and go from zero to sixty in nothing flat. Make sure to have your coffee first.”
Emma snickered. “We’ll remember that.”
Garrett slipped a key into her hand. “I thought we would walk Mariana to her place as a family, but this might be a good time, while Stella is napping.”
She turned to her mother. “What do you think? Do you want to see your new home?”
Mariana smoothed her hands over her shirt. “Sure,” she said. But her voice was hoarse.
Garrett grinned. “Follow me.”
But her husband’s guests made a smooth exit impossible. After the second time they were stopped, Emma tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. I think my mom might prefer to see it without an audience.”
It was the right choice.
When Mariana entered the apartment downstairs, she covered her mouth with shaky hands, her eyes shining with unspent tears.
“Holy shit, look at this place.”
The three-bedroom apartment was much smaller than the penthouse, but the clean lines, wood floors, and large picture windows deliberately echoed the space above.
Her mother drifted through each room, which hadbeen sparsely furnished with elegant and comfortable-looking furniture in neutral shades. Emma had been assured everything was stain-resistant.
Garrett had shown her pictures of everything on the plane, but she hadn’t been prepared for the open brightness of the space. It was a literal clean slate, furnished just enough to be livable right away.
“Garrett said you’re welcome to change anything you want,” she assured her mother. “He has this decorating firm he’s going to use to finish Stella’s room. They’ll do whatever you want in here. But the kitchen and the bathrooms are already stocked with food, linens, and toiletries. I think you’ll like the bed in the master bedroom. Also…”