Page 3 of The Billionaire's Lost Family

Sometime during the twelve hours from Miami to Brazil, his lids succumbed, and he fell into a restless slumber. An abrupt male voice broke into his sleep.

“Mr. and Mrs. Bassett, we will be arriving in Calma within half an hour,” the pilot announced. Wesley stirred. It took him a few minutes to remember they were thousands of feet in the air. In the seat beside him, Hazel rolled to face him. Her long, dark hair had taken on a bit of curl and her beautiful smile was the only sunrise he ever needed.

“Hey,” she said, stretching her arms above her head. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Some,” he said.

With an inhale, she positioned her seat upright and then sashayed over and settled herself onto his lap. Wesley breathed her in, her vanilla scent, and rubbed the smooth skin of her arms. She combed her fingers through his hair and laid her head against his chest. “Good morning, husband.”

Wesley stroked her back and stretched his legs. He was surprised he’d gotten some sleep after all, though with her in his arms, sleep was the last thing on his mind. He blinked a few times. “I like the sound of that.”

She kissed him and then attempted to scurry away, but he wrapped his arms around her, keeping her a little longer.

“I’ve got to check the itinerary—stop that. Wesley!” She giggled. After another attempt to leave, Wesley convinced her to cuddle a little longer and get lost in his lips.

Several minutes later, resting her forehead against his, with her hands on either side of his face, she was more beautiful than she’d ever been.

“I really do need to check something before we land,” she said softly.

He captured another kiss and then loosened his hold. “Go on, then.”

With another quick peck on the mouth, she rose to her feet. He watched her some more as she rifled through her insanely obvious cow purse that matched her luggage.

“Tell me something,” he said, leaning forward and desperately wanting to brush his teeth. Hmm, maybe that was why she’d pulled away.

“What?” She sat on the seat and held her bag in her lap, still digging.

“Do you pet your bag? Maybe feed it some alfalfa?”

“Oh, be quiet.” She chucked her pillow at him.

Wesley caught it with a laugh and sank back against the seat. The pilot came over the speaker again and encouraged them to wear their seatbelts and prepare for descent. Hazel complied almost instantly, and Wesley buckled his seatbelt.

“Aha!” She retrieved a folded piece of paper. The plane’s altitude lowered, and in spite of himself, Wesley gripped the arm rests. Hazel jerked in her seat as well at the turbulence but proceeded to open her paper.

“Where to first?” he asked.

“We’ll check in at our hotel in Calma. Tomorrow, we’ll try to find others who worked in the warehouse where this receipt—” She pulled it from her bag as well. “Shows that my mother possibly worked before I was born.”

“It’s a start,” he said. Thirty years was a long time, and as far as he knew, Le Chapeau hadn’t made any purchases from that warehouse in at least half of that time.

The next thing Hazel retrieved was a small, thick book with foreign words on the title Wesley didn’t understand. Hazel didn’t seem to have the same problem. She flipped to a certain page, tucked a finger in as if to hold her place, and began repeating phrases as if trying to learn them by heart.

“Meu nome é Hazel,” she said aloud, peeking into the little dictionary and trying a second time. “Meu nome é Hazel.”

“What are you doing?” Wesley asked, unable to be anything but charmed by her.

She opened a single eyelid to peer at him. “Practicing.” Again, she referred to the little dictionary. “Você sabe Elina Silva?”

The plane jostled. Wesley’s stomach did the kind of flips indicative of lowering altitude, but he kept his eyes on his wife. “What does that one mean?” he asked.

“Do you know Elina Silva?” she repeated, saying it again a few more times in Portuguese.

Wesley couldn’t help but be impressed. He wished he’d taken the time to do something similar. Navigating their way around this little town would be much easier if they knew more of the language. “How do you say, ‘I love my wife’?”

Hazel pinched her lips against the smile he knew he’d won from her. “You’ll just have to look it up yourself,” she said, ending the statement with a little squeal as the plane lost a little more altitude. Out the window, Wesley caught a glimpse of the coast alongside a hilly terrain. Different colored houses clustered along the hills. Soon, the houses grew larger the closer to the ground they got. They landed and emerged down a personal staircase that slid right up to the side of the plane. Wesley had never experienced anything like that before. He’d always boarded planes through long tunnels from a gate at the airport.

The August sun didn’t blaze as he expected it to. Rather, it was quite a bit cooler and less humid than Arkansas, which was saying something this time of year. He regretted wearing shorts and did a mental check if he packed a jacket or not.

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