BONUS Epilogue

Drake

Eighteen Months Later…

“Baby girl, you’ve done me proud!” Leonard gushed, hugging Belle. “You’re so smart and now you’ve got that diploma to prove it.”

Mrs. Johnson was just as effusive as we settled into the presidential suite at the nicest hotel in Kanagawa. Part of me would appreciate a bit more help with unloading the bags. After all, who worked for who around here? However, I could tell that Mrs. Johnson and Leonard had been holding back for a while. UC San Diego hadn’t allowed Belle to invite anyone who wasn’t immediate family to a crowded graduation. As if blood really mattered. In fact, judging by my parents, that didn’t make much of a difference after all. However, even with every string I’d tried to pull and, okay, threaten out of the board of trustees, Leonard and Mrs. Johnson had to settle for the DVD of the ceremony.

Now that we had some time to rest and relax on our Japanese vacation, they had time to also tell Belle how proud they were of her, to treat her like the puffed-up momma hens they basically were for her.

“I’m serious, Belle,” Mrs. Johnson continued, sitting down next to my fiancée on the sofa and patting her knee. “I only got through junior college. I can’t imagine how hard all the math involved had to be. Algebra was my limit.”

Leonard nodded as he sat down in a nearby chair. “What are your plans now? Do you have a job lined up?”

She blushed. “Actually, I was going to take a year off at least. I want to see more of the world and grad school burned me out. When I’m rested up, I’ll plunge into the job hunt, but I figured it was stupid to be so invested in conservation when I hadn’t even seen enough of the world to know what I wanted to conserve.” She nodded over to me, her sapphire eyes sparkling. “Eventually, I’d love to help run the center in the Bahamas. I did an internship there.”

“And it was hard to get,” I added, pouring myself some sake. “I hear the guy who owns that joint can be a real bastard.”

Mrs. Johnson and Leonard winked at each other before turning and chuckling in my direction. “Agreed!” they said in unison.

Belle giggled into her hands, struggling to hide her face, but failing. Great, even my own fiancée was against me. She’d completely become the third musketeer alongside Penelope and Leonard. Of course, that was a good thing for me. It was best to have a team of people who could and would call you on your shit. Besides, Leonard and Penelope were like the parents I wish I actually had and Belle was my whole world. I’d learned a lot over the last almost three years, and the biggest thing was that the world didn’t matter if you didn’t have a family you loved to share it with you.

No matter how many billions you had.

“Okay, so I walked right into that one,” I said.

Belle grinned and nodded. “Maybe set yourself up a little for that, honey. This is what I want to be doing. I’d love to see the Great Barrier Reef and the Amazon, the whales down in Patagonia and the Dead Sea. It’s like for the first time in a long time I can see any part of the world I want and I want to see all of it. Japan’s just the beginning!”

Mrs. Johnson grinned. “You should think about seeing Nottingham. I was born there years ago. It’s one of the most beautiful cities in England. If you love Robin Hood, you have to go.”

“And men in tights,” I said, draining my drink. “Princess, while you’re planning your world tour, should I have a pen and paper so we make sure that you have every city marked off the list correctly?”

“Well, I liked to dress up for Halloween and pretend to be Maid Marion,” she replied coyly. “That’s definitely a place to add.”

Leonard brought a hand to his chest. “If you want tropical wildlife and variety, don’t be skippin’ Haiti either!”

“All right, then we’ll visit every country Penelope and Leonard have a connection to, check,” I said, winking at them.

“Ooh, say Paris, too!” Mrs. Johnson said. “I haven’t been there since I was in my twenties. I think we should all go there.”

I shook my head. “So, just so I’m clear, we crossed that line from you’re traveling as my servants to just touristing it up with me, right?”

Leonard, Mrs. Johnson, and Belle all shared a look before breaking into wide grins and echoing back at me, “Of course!”

Damn, good thing I had years of military training because I was clearly outnumbered.