Page 133 of The Secret

“Speak to me though these. Can you hear me?”

She nodded but her eyes were glued to the view as we rose up from the heliport, huge concentric circles breaking the Hudson’s calm water underneath us from the enormous blades slicing the air. She gripped the arm rest from the sharp left turn we made, taking us off to the west, for the next stop.

“Holy shit, the view is amazing! Are we doing a flyover?”

I shook my head, “No, but we’ll come one evening and do a proper circuit.”

Her face dropped slightly. “Oh, where are we going?”

I leaned forward, taking hold of her hands in mine, kissing each fingertip. “You’ll see soon enough.”

Twenty minutes later, we dropped onto the helipad at Teterboro, where a golf buggy was waiting to whisk us safely across the tarmac, pulling up in front of a black plane with the exact detailing the helicopter had, a more recent purchase of The Tuesday Club LLC.

I couldn’t match the width of her grin. “Murray! Where are we going?”

“Kit Isobel Hawkes, you should know by now I don’t ruin my surprises.”

She shook her head, but her eyes glittered with amusement, and she ran to it as she had the helicopter.

“Good morning, ma’am, Mr. Williams.” Bryan, our steward, was waiting as the bottom of the steps.

I shook his hand. “Hi, mate, how’s everything looking?”

“Everything’s good. Captain Niven says it’ll be a quick and easy flight.”

I winked at Kit. “That’s good to hear.”

Motioning for her to walk up the steps, I followed. She sat down silently and I knew from the light furrowing between her eyebrows she was trying to figure out where we were going. An hour and fifteen minutes later, she spied the globally recognizable landmarks of the Washington Monument, the glistening water of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, The Capitol, and The White House.

“We’re going to DC?”

I nodded. “We are.”

“Oh cool. I haven’t been here for ages!” Her eyes sparkled at me before she turned back to the view.

I chuckled so quietly she wouldn’t hear. She still had no idea what we were doing. She’d guessed incorrectly twenty seven times. She was none the wiser as our car drove through downtown DC, along Pennsylvania Avenue - where the blossoms were well past their peak but still in impressive bloom - down toward the Smithsonian, then round The Capitol and the Library of Congress, until we reached our destination.

The huge sign outside the white, mausoleum style building of The Folger Shakespeare Library stopped her guessing.

“Here?” Her head flicked between the sign and me. “Seriously? You’ve really brought me here?”

“I really have.” Since she’d told me about the research role she’d accepted at Columbia, the one which focused on Shakespeare and his influences, I knew I’d be bringing her here as one of our dates because I’d been planning on bringing her here since our very first walk in the park.

She launched herself at me, flying into my lap, her lips landing with precision accuracy on mine as though we’d practiced it thousands of times, which I had no objection to.

Her excitement at getting inside meant I had less of a kiss than I wanted. “Thank you, thank you. This is an incredible surprise!”

Our driver opened the door and we were greeted by Quincy Philips, the rotund, studious looking gentleman curator and Shakespearean expert I’d been chatting to over the past few weeks.

He peered at us over the top of his thick rimmed bifocals. “Hello, Mr. Williams, Ms. Hawkes.”

I shook his outstretched hand, the formality between us hadn’t dropped once in the time we’d been conversing, and seeing him, I understood why.

“Mr. Philips, thank you so much for accommodating us this morning. It’s much appreciated and very kind of you to arrange this for us.”

I wasn’t about to bring up the six figure donation I’d gifted in order to make this morning happen. Quincy Philips drove a harder bargain than I did, and more than once during negotiations I’d been tempted to offer him a job, although I doubted anything would part him from his beloved manuscripts.

“Please, please, do follow me.”

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