The moment she threw the curtains wide open, she saw fireworks soaring into the air, bursting into their most beautiful shapes as they reached their peak.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—
The sound of the fireworks was deafening. Ashley Bowen's first instinct was to look up at the sky. Her second was to cover her free ear so she could still hear the person on the phone. Only then did she finally look past the villa's walls.
A line of cars was already parked in front of the villa. Before the lead car sat a man in a wheelchair, phone in hand, looking up toward her window.
Ashley Bowen was so stunned she clapped a hand over her mouth, at a complete loss for words.
'He… How could he be here… so late at night?'
The staff in the villa, Mary Preston included, were all woken up by the car headlights shining in from outside and the deafening roar of the fireworks.
When Mary Preston and the staff opened the villa's ground-floor door, she was just as stunned as Ashley Bowen.
