As the building went on, I made other preparations. I knew if I was going to attract people, I'd have to advertise it in some way, and there was plenty of other paperwork that would be involved. While Luke helped with the building, I worked on the business side of things.

I didn’t have much of a head for business, but when I'd had an idea, I'd looked into it. Not as extensively as Luke had made us look, but I wasn’t a novice. I had images from the architects, so I'd picked up what the houses would look like when finished, and I made use of those.

I had to hire a lot of freelancers, to open a website and fill it with content, handle the advertising for me. When I found the time away from the paperwork, and I wasn’t waiting on Luke, I went around, taking photos of the surroundings.

The graphic images went on the website first, though I had some specially made just for that and not the blueprint ones I got from the architects. We were still working out plans for the second half plot of the grounds, and I kept them mostly busy with that. I wanted the deadline for planning to be over when the walls of the first buildings started to go up, so we could stick to the plan. Luke tried to help with that when he realized what we were doing. But even though he could sort of understand from the pictures I got, he didn’t hear a big part of the negotiations until I had to translate for him later, and that grew annoying for him, but he still insisted on getting updates.

I talked to a few designers and suppliers of interior pieces. My grandmothers ended up helping me a lot with that part when I got around to introducing them to Luke and letting them in on what I was doing. They were both glad to help, and they became my unofficial employees. They were a lot more helpful than I could have imagined.

They were also the happiest I'd ever seen them. My grandfathers even appeared for a visit, and the four of them had grown closer in their friendship, now that they no longer had to worry about Greco anymore. The news had, of course, brought it home, and while I had gotten busy to the point I even forgot to tell them, they had heard about it on the news.

It was a chapter of our lives we were all looking forward to closing.

The photos I took of the surroundings went on the website next, once the word content was built up and I was sure I had the best compilations of photos. I'd walked all the way down to the beach, even though it was a bit of a long walk, to have some of that area as well. I could have brought in some professional, but it was fun learning something new, and it was an excuse to walk outside. Plus, I didn’t want some stranger roaming the grounds. Usually, Luke kept an eye on the workmen so they didn’t do anything stupid.

I'd have to remember to bring him to the beach with me sometime before people started coming in and the place filled up with people. I was sure he'd agree to go if he thought he could convince me to have sex under the palm trees.

I posted the best photos to the website, after getting instructions from the guy I put in charge of the website on how to change and edit it by myself.

There was some work with a lawyer, building up contracts, calculating the worth for each house and such. I'd been training to be a lawyer, so this was the easiest part of the whole thing, even though it was still long and tedious, but I still needed a professional's help. I used a firm recommended to me by my grandmother.

It all took longer than I would have thought. I'd added plenty of time in the plan, but it was still a surprise how it took months just to handle everything when I thought the building was going to be the most grueling task. By then, the houses on the first half plot were nearly all done, the ones from the other half of the grounds were getting close as well.

Once I had everything up and ready, and all the information on the website, all I had to do was wait and keep doing whatever other work was still there. Within a short time, I started to get bookings.

The first one was surreal, and I got it maybe a week after the bidding went live. I attacked Luke when he got home that evening and fell asleep crying in his arms. He freaked, of course, assuming I was upset because something was wrong.

But I was crying because it was so hard to put the happiness I was feeling into words.

The happiness I was sure I'd lost when I stopped being that naïve college girl. That I wasn't sure I ever would have gotten back if Luke hadn't been with me.