I was a little tentative. I never doubted his business was profitable since he had a good-sized staff and never complained. But investments? I had no inkling of what would even interest him as an investment outside his business.
He nodded, “Over dinner at the restaurant of your choice tomorrow night?”
Done.
Leighton
Iwent down at 4:30 to pick Samantha up for our dinner date the next afternoon. After dramatic (and hot, hot, hot!) kisses—during which quietly colorful fireworks somehow seemed to go off around us, I asked, “Can we stay here a minute?”
I didn’t want to do this in public. Never had. Never would.
The look on her face had me reassuring her, “Oh, nothing bad. I just don’t want to talk about this on the street or in a restaurant.”
That worried her more! “It’s answers to what you asked me a couple days ago. Really! No bad stuff!”
She pulled out a couple of work stools and we sat holding hands in her kitchen.
“When I was 23 or 24, I heard something about the lottery for the first time. I was in a store buying something I have since totally forgotten. I was waiting in line at the cashier’s, when someone said, ‘The lottery has one rule: You can't win if you don't buy a ticket,’ so … I bought a ticket from the clerk. Just one. My first ever. And my last.”
Samantha’s hazel eyes twinkled, “Aw, only one? You didn’t win, you looked up the odds ofeverwinning and that was that. Right?”
Keeping my voice sort of quiet, “Wrong. I won the jackpot and didn’t ever need to play again. It was for nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars. Before tax, of course.”
I stopped talking. I figured it’d take a minute for what I said to register.
It did.
She thought I was kidding. So I told her which game and where and when, “Look it up. Genevieve used the state anonymity rule to keep our name out of the papers, but you’ll see it online as a one-person win.”
I thought my darling would faint.
“Believe me. Like you right now, I felt faint all over. I felt like I was out-of-body for days. Overnight, I had hundreds of millions of dollars in cash to my name …aftertax.”
Her jaw dropped, “Hundreds of …”
“Millions, yeah. All I thought back then was, ‘Now I don't need to worry about funding my inventions!’ Silly, huh?”
That made Samantha come out of her stunned state! She laughed and shook her head, “Watch out Iron Man—here he comes.”
We sat there with my breaking news for a couple of minutes.
“Baby, I don’t even know where to start asking you about this. You seem so … nonchalant about it.”
I reminded her, “I’ve had ten years to get used to it. And to make the money grow. We've parlayed it, so to speak, into something over a billion dollars. From this business till now; it's been really, really successful. But more and more moving forward, it will be from the real estate. And well … my family and I never, ever talk about it in public or to others. I think, besidesthe tax advisors and attorneys Genevieve found, you’re the first one outside my family I’ve told.”
She got me teary-eyed when she did that cute lip-zipping thing. Samantha got a worried look on her face, “Istillwant to be with you!" She grabbed up my hand.
Then she got impish, "However! Don’t worry.Eventhough you’re a …” She did a fake gasp and swoon, “… multi-ba-zillionaire … Your secret is safe with me!” and zipped her lips again.
Melted my heart, and then turned me into a puddle when she slipped off the stool and wrapped herself around me.
That went well! Whoo-Hoo! I beamed.
With a straight face and a light swat on my arm, she added, “Now don’t let that go to your head, even though you’re giving Mister Tony Stark a run forhismoney.”
I felt relieved to have finally told her.
We sobered. “It’s been a few years, but I’m still sort of shell-shocked about it,” I admitted.
