The Perfect Life (The Perfect Stranger #4) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,1

knowing how accurate any of the information was, but I trusted the source and I thought I would go ahead and act on it. I put in $2 million, a big portion of what I had, and figured that if I lost it, then I would be the biggest idiot the world.

The truth was that I had a lot to lose. I had an apartment and had a car. The money was not really anything that I needed to live on anymore; it was just all a numbers game. It would've been really awful if I lost it, but I would have survived.

After losing Isabelle, I realized that I could survive almost anything.

Well, I did not have to survive that decision. It paid off handsomely and I more than tripled my investment. I made a few more moves and quickly I had made $19 million, enough to buy the marina.

I saw the marina advertised in the back of a sailing magazine. Sailing is something that I have always toyed around with. When I was little, I had one of those little laser sailboats they used to teach little kids to sail.

When I got older, I subscribed to a sailing magazine and watched YouTube videos about people who forsook everything and lived on a sailboat to travel around the world.

It was always a dream, one of the things in the back of my mind that I wanted to do but for some reason I never did.

The marina called me. I inquired about the price and the financial statement. The sales agent was hesitant of me at first, since I wasn’t really someone who was famous in the Seattle social circle.

When I showed him my financial statements, he got a lot more friendly very quickly. I didn’t know if there were other people competing to buy this place but given the operating costs and the profit/loss statement, as well as the tax returns, I knew that this was a good price for it.

I met with Mr. Elliott at a restaurant. We finished three bottles of wine and shook hands.

During our long lunch, I got the sense that he was not happy with his grown sons and what they chose to do with their lives. The marina was his baby. He’d loved boating all of his life and he made me promise that we would go sailing up near the San Juan Islands.

I admire his dedication to his business. Business shouldn’t be all about money. That's a perk, of course, but there's so much more to life than making money. I can say this because I've made a lot of it.

I think that's why I was attracted to buying the marina and the hotel. I was getting tired of day trading. I was getting bored with stocks, annual reports, and quarterly statements. I want to be somewhere where I can put my hands on a business, where I can actually dive in and get involved.

Over the last year, I regimented and scheduled every last minute of my life to try to maximize my returns and I have been very successful.

Now I want to take a break. It's not that I don't think that the Elliott Marina and Hotel won't be work. I know that they will be. It's just a different kind of work and is exactly what I'm looking for in my life.

I walk over to the sailboat section and head to the Beneteau Oceanis at the far end. It's broad, glistening white, and absolutely magnificent.

She's fifty feet long and I have yet to take her out on the water. Mr. Elliott presented her to me as a thank you for not wasting his time with too much negotiation.

I climb aboard and stand at the helm. I watch the foam-tipped waves curl and break one upon the other.

I have everything I want. I escaped from prison and started a new life as a multimillionaire with ownership of one of the oldest marinas in Seattle.

I am happy, to a degree, but my thoughts keep going back to the person who should be here sharing this new life with me.

“Isabelle Nesbit, where are you?” I ask into the wind.

Leaning over the side, I listen for an answer, but nothing comes.

Isabelle

A year earlier…

I continued going to work, but now I dread it even more than I did before. Trisha gave me two weeks’ notice so that I could keep my appointments and have some time to find another job.

She didn't mention anything about severance pay