December 2007

A lot had happened in the last three years, since the birth of Rose, they had two kiddies now, Rose had been followed eighteen moths later by Todd. Where Rose had been a near perfect little baby so quiet and very much a little girl, Todd was a typical little boy, boisterous, loud, into everything. His Wife was making noises about one more baby and he really had no objection at all, he was concerned about her though, the childbirth had not been particularly hard she had said, but he did not want them tempting fate in terms of her health. So in the end he had given his blessing, it was her that had to make the final decision. Outside of family and child-rearing, their own lives had thrived.

The business was going well, he was quite happy to leave a lot of the day to day logistical and administrative duties to his two partners. It was his main job to deal with the worst cases they were presented with or in the case of the last two jobs he was tasked with, the worst and most difficult customers. Both customers had exhausted the capabilities of the two representatives assigned to them in one case the job had come from a competitor that had seen it more in terms of giving him a headache and tying his business resources up with a problem, they had come through that and not only had he satisfied an otherwise hard to please customer but he received follow on work and recommendations from that customer to three other prospective clients. Of course it had required a bit more attention than what he'd planned but he'd made sure that his Wife and his family came first. The other Customer was taken over by a larger entity that they already worked for and as a result the new larger Customer incorporated and integrated them and their programmes into the larger system by default.

My Husband had been working quite hard this last year, he had though made sure that both his wife and his two little wonders were well taken care of. It was our intention to take time off for us over the coming Christmas holiday break, it would be a week and a half and both of Our respective sets of Grandparents and both of our married Sisters were now organising times and spots for our Children to stay. He had been explicit to them all that there would be time for all of them to have our two babies visit and that arguments were not allowed. Goodbyes I found weren't as hard as I thought they would be, our little two were settling into a new lovable environment very quickly.

We had put a bit of planning into our holiday and had finally settled on Aruba. It had been a toss up between Aruba and Curacao, Curacao and the place we would be staying at seemed to be more exclusive and private in its location with amazing facilities, where as the resort we had chosen in Aruba did not offer the same level of privacy, was centered pretty close to the downtown area of Oranjestad it was adjacent to a marina on one side also Cruise Liners berthed on the other side of the marina. A Casino and a Mall Shopping Complex was also next door and between the main highway and the resort was a park. The resort had a variety of rooms and suites available and we booked ourselves into admittedly the most expensive ocean front suite, but I wasn't going to complain about that at all. The main reason we chose this resort over a more luxurious resort? Easy, it catered to family's and although we could of carted our kids there, he insisted it be time away for me to recharge after a hectic two year's, despite that the need to be in a family environment was something neither of us wanted to give up.

What I hadn't told my Wife was the way we were getting there, she had entrusted that I had everything in order as I had promised, but she was starting to panic as there were no tickets appearing. I calmed her and told her everything was in order, that we would receive our boarding passes on arrival at the gate, that seemed to calm her and she was happy with that answer. However she was not happy when we drove right past the main entrance to the overseas flight terminal and kept going to the other side of the airfield and through a security gate to an area that was posted as Kerridge Private Executive Jet Park . We were met by aircraft loaders who directed us to a vehicle storage park and then took our baggage to the Bombardier-Grumman Gulfstream II aircraft parked on the hard-standing. My Wife looked on at me incredulously, “Honey when did this all happen, and since when do we have a private Jet at our disposal?” “Since we took up the account with Blindstaple-Magnusson Plc. It's their aircraft at our disposal for the trip there and back. While we're down at Aruba it will be delivering other B-M management executives around South America and Europe, oh and they've laid on a car and a driver for when we arrive.”

I had to shake my head, this was all a bit unnerving, I'd come to believe that I always had things under control and knew what was going on intimately, but this was straight out of left field. I understood the latest contract had been important because it was with a large company but I never knew it was a European Consortium as my husband was now explaining. I was stunned right up to the point that a gorgeous sandy-haired young male Flight Attendant placed a flute of Champagne in my hand, Welcomed me aboard and politely escorted me to the passenger area. Well I felt like a Princess and turned to show off who had me by my arm to my Husband when I realised he was getting the same treatment from a big-titted, long-legged, hour-glass-shaped, brunette Trollop, who I took the time to frown at, not that she noticed, to busy sharing a joke with my Husband. When we were seated and I, turned to my man and was about to bring up his little indiscretion with the Bimbo. He gently placed my head in his strong hands as I felt his lips find mine and his tongue invaded my mouth, “I love you my Darling, now just sit back, enjoy and relax, welcome to your holiday.”

The Pilot came back to let us know that we would be re-fuelling, picking up two exec's who were going on to Belize and clearing Customs in Miami, and we should be in Aruba about ten p.m local and also that our Drivers name is Andrew, and was there anything else we wanted? You could not fault this Company's attention to the detail.

The flight was a dream, we were fed the finest cuisine and were continually asked whether we wanted drinks, but to be honest I didn't want to drink too much, at the risk I'd go to sleep and miss something. Well I met the Bimbo and she turned out to be absolutely lovely, we even exchanged emails. Suzanne is Belgian although she is all over the world with her job, and more lately based semi-permanently in the US, hence why we exchanged emails and cell numbers. I'd invited her to come stay with us if she could find the time, it was a part of the US that always intrigued her, but she knew no one who lived there, I told her I hoped she'd take up the invite, we really clicked, Oh and she said she had seen my look of scorn I'd given her and knew she could make it all right between us, it just took a little time.

We were wheels down at 22:03 and we would have been dead on time but we were following in the wake of a 'big,fat,heavy that had come out of Dallas-Fort Worth' was how Justin, the male Flight Attendant had explained it. Well we got off the plane after my darling Wife had gone round the whole flight crew and the two Execs and given them all kisses, I knew what the two Execs were thinking when they grinned at each other, 'Americans'. Well Andrew was waiting for us and he was not what I was expecting, not that I knew what Arubans looked like. However Andrew is actually from Trinidad and Tabago. Tall, I guess about six – seven maybe, well built - muscular but lean, very dark and huge hands and feet. And of course very well spoken with just a touch of the Carribean slow rhythm. He made us aware that he was here for us and that we could sms him any time day or night, we were not to go shopping without him being with us, I thought pretty much that that was for my Wife's sake more than me. He would also seek out best deals for anything we wanted to do all we needed to do was ask. So our adventure began.