Eighty thousand dollars.

Say it again – slower this time. I’ll do it with you.

Eighty. Thousand. Dollars.

It’s the amount Boris transferred into my account when he was trying to set me up. It’s a whole hunk of a lot of money. It’s more money than I ever expected to see in one place, at one time, in like… ever. I truly never imagined nor expected it to be mine!

But as far as I can tell, it is.

Landwolfe never asked for it back; that’s for sure. The second the truth about what had happened came out, they went into full damage control mode. I can understand why. Their reputation was at stake. That $80,000.00 was dirty money. It was proof that bank employees had been laundering drug money, and they wanted nothing to do with it.

Landwolfe couldn’t wash their hands quickly enough.

Paragon – that company Nate had worked for – well, after he gave his old boss, Natalie a call and told them to track the cell phone he had slipped into Carlos’s jacket pocket … let’s just say they were more interested in following that trail across London, until they caught up with all three of the Mexicans underneath the railway bridge somewhere just past Clapham.

They didn’t make it.

Nate poked all kinds of fun at some guy called Ryan, but I guess he must have done some shooting practice; either that, or Nate’s more intimidating than he realizes.

The cartel never knew I had the cash anyway; the only person who did know was Boris, and Boris died outside the front of a convenience store in Hoxton, riddled with bullet holes. In all truth, I didn’t feel very sorry when I heard he had died.

So, because no one seemed to want the money, I kept it. Wouldn’t you?

Eighty grand doesn’t buy you a house; definitely not a house in London. Do you know what it does get you? An absolutely, unbelievable vacation; the kind to tell grandkids about! (I’ll say more on that later).

Actually, I’m not sure I can call it a vacation. If it lasts three months – does that still count?

The truth is, I wanted to keep the cash. You know what I’m like, after all. I tried to argue that it would be better saved: Setting up a 401(k); that kind of thing. Nate just rolled his eyes at me. He made a few calls before we booked our flights, and told me I didn’t need to worry about it.

Easier said than done!

But as I’ve learned – both ways – before, Nate has a way of getting me to trust him. So since it’s mostly worked out fine for me so far, I decided that – just this once – I was going to go with the flow.

We booked flights to Morocco. It’s an amazing country. I don’t know how to explain it. The whole place is crazy. It’s a riot of color. It’s so different from where I grew up back home that it doesn’t just feel like a different country, it feels like a whole different planet.

The market in Marrakesh is one of the wildest places I’ve ever been. Tiny little alleyways stretch out between store after store – and men, mostly men – shout at you, advertising their wares. It’s not a scary place at all, but I sure felt safer with a guy like Nate by my side.

We headed down to the beach in a town whose name I can’t pronounce, in an area whose name I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter. It was the kind of place that will linger in my memory forever, even if all I remember is that Nate was by my side. We checked into a quaint little beach house, woke when the sun hit the horizon in the morning, and went to bed when it got dark; or we would lie outside underneath the stars instead and talk until the sun was tickling the sky again.

The bad news – if that’s what you want to call it – is Nate lost his job while we were away. The good news – and you can definitely call it good – is that he was going to quit even if he hadn’t been pushed out first.

I can’t say I was sad about it. Especially since, as far as I can tell, Nate’s missions all seemed to revolve around him going undercover and getting girls to trust him!

By the time three months were up, the sun had burned into my skin. I had never been this tanned in my entire life. I started to get worried about what in the world I was going to do when I got home, but Nate sprung a surprise on me.

It turns out, that when an international bank gets one of their employees embroiled in a major drug scandal that results in them being kidnapped, and nearly costs them their life, they certainly become very willing to settle.

Five million dollars willing to settle…

Here I thought eighty grand was a lot.

Heck, I don’t know what I’m going to do with it all. I guess that because I don’t have to work for a while – probably ever if I don’t want to – I have some time to figure it out.

I’m going to put major life plans on the back burner, though, just for a little while. Just for a few months. I guess while I was out in Morocco, I never thought about protection once. The truth of the matter is, I guess, I didn’t want to.

So Nate and I are having a baby!

I don’t know if it’s a boy, and I don’t know if it’s a girl. I don’t want to know, not yet. But if she’s a girl, I’m going to call her Alice, after Mama. I haven’t told Nate this yet, but if it’s a boy, I want to call him Tony. I hope he likes it.

I guess that’s about all I wanted to say. I should go, anyway. It’s the second trimester scan, today, and I wouldn’t miss it for the world.