“I mean,Iwill have to Google. I’m taking you out.”
“I’ll narrow some options down. Besides, you’re driving and it’s getting late, so we should probably find a place sooo—” And then something dawned on me, and I was so shocked I hadn’t thought about it before. “Where will we stay tonight?”
“Well, I know where I don’t want to stay,” Noah said.
“Where?”
“In a teenager’s basement again.”
I laughed. “Me neither.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Noah said casually. “Lots of places to stay around here.”
“True,” I said, looking back down at my phone and typing “Places to eat in Durban,” and then adding the word “romantic” after it and blushing to myself as I did.
Something popped up on my screen, a place that I knew from living here for a while. It was the most expensive and, arguably, most luxurious hotel in the area. It boasted a beach-front cocktail bar and restaurant, which was supposed to be wildly romantic. It was a little way outside of the city, just down the coast. I tapped my fingers on the screen and brought up the pictures of the rooms. Gorgeous, opulent rooms facing the ocean. One room in particular caught my attention, the most beautiful bedroom I’d ever seen. It looked sumptuous, romantic, so unlike the bedroom in my apartment. It was bursting with plants, and the walls were covered in this intricately patterned green-and-pink wallpaper depicting a scene from a jungle. The bed had an ornate golden headboard with the fluffiest pillows that existed in the world, I thought. A private plunge pool on a deck surrounded by tall, elegant-looking palm trees, looking out over the sea below. I read about the room; this was the presidential suite at the Lighthouse Hotel in Umhlanga Rocks. Built on two levels with its own private elevator, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a dining room for ten people. It was the ultimate in luxury and romance. My eyes followed the words and, when I came to the last line, I choked out loud as I read the price at the bottom.
“Oh my God.” I held the phone up for Noah to see. “Look how expensive this place it. One night is, like, my entire month’s salary.”
Noah was driving, and when he stopped at a red light, he glanced at the phone and gave a shocked whistle.
“It is amazing, though,” he said. “Although I’m not sure I’ll ever stay anywhere like that.”
“Me neither. I mean, you would literally have to be a millionaire if you wanted to st-stay . . .” I stared at the screen again. “I am a millionaire,” I said out load, as if it were only really dawning on me now. “I’m literally a millionaire!”
“Oh. That’s right. I keep forgetting!”
“Me too!”
I stared at the road in front of me, thinking about all that money I had sitting in a bank account somewhere. I had donenothingwith it. All I’d done was save it for later, although I had no idea what “later” really meant, or what I was meant to do with it “later.” I had used it to pay for my studies, I had used it to buy my apartment and I used some of the interest each month to live off, because that salary they paid me at the agency was not even enough to furnish me with one month of the organic, non-GMO, nutritionally balanced meals I got delivered. But other than that, and buying a club full of random people shooters, I’d never actually done anything with it. I’d never splashed out. Thrown caution to the wind and spent way too much on a handbag or a night in a luxury hotel. And God knows, I probably deserved to spend that money!
“You know what! Let’s do it!”
“Do what?” Noah asked.
“Let’s stay here! Let’s live it up and stay here for the night, and who cares what it costs.” I looked at the screen again and a feeling rose inside me. “And it has two bedrooms, so that’s . . .” I paused.
“Good,” he said.
“Yes. Good,” I said, and for some reason it came out sounding like a question.
“Yup. Good. It is,” he said back, and, strangely, his statement also sounded like a question. What was he asking?
What was I asking?
And what was the answer?
CHAPTER 64
“Now this is more like it,” Noah said, as we were escorted into the palatial room. And it was palatial. Gold-and-white marble floors. Crystal chandeliers and, the best part, that plunge pool on the deck overlooking the sea.
“I’ve never been anywhere so fancy before,” Noah said.
“Me neither.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“What do you mean?”
