Darwin, northern Australia.
It was the afternoon of January 13 when a dusty convoy rolled into the parking lot of the Diamond Beach Casino Hotel on the seaside in the south of the city. Plenty of passersby couldn't help stopping to watch.
It was a convoy that clearly had come a long way. Eleven vehicles in total: eight off-road SUVs, plus a fuel tanker and two container trucks.
Every vehicle was coated in grime, and a few of the SUVs even bore obvious dents and scrapes.
Anyone who'd been through something similar could probably tell at a glance. This convoy had likely just crossed the Australian continent. Whether locals or foreign travel nuts, people in Australia loved checking "crossing the outback" off their list.
Only compared to other travelers, this group could only be described with one word: filthy rich.
Forget the lineup of top-end off-roaders. Who the hell traveled with a fuel tanker and shipping containers?
Simon pushed the door open and stepped down from a Mercedes G460. He wore a plain T-shirt and jeans, heavy-soled boots on his feet.
A full week of trekking across Australia's mountains, rivers, canyons, badlands, and deserts, on top of the earlier Antarctic trip, through snow and ice, wind and sun. His skin had darkened a shade, and there was a raw, masculine edge to him now that was hard to miss.
Everyone, more or less, dreamed of seeing the world.
Simon was no exception.
In his previous life he'd never had the means. Now that he did, of course he was going to make some old dreams come true.
Driving an off-roader flat out across endless stretches of Australia's red sandstone wilderness, that feeling of tearing through heaven and earth with nothing to hold you back, it really did make your blood boil. More than half a month straight after Christmas, from Melbourne to Antarctica, then across the entire Australian continent. The blazing energy a twenty-year-old was supposed to have came roaring back on this trip.
Simon had already decided. Every few years, he was going to do something like this again.
The moment Simon got out, the hotel manager hurried over with a beaming welcome. People from the other vehicles gathered around too.
A week of travel, thirty-one people in all.
But the ones who actually counted as the hosts were only six: Simon and Janet, the Johnston family's fourth son David Johnston and his girlfriend Leslie Wickett, the fifth son Patrick Johnston and his girlfriend Sarah Keaston. Everyone else was bodyguards, drivers, and other attendants.
If you could afford it, you gave yourself the best protection.
The Australian interior was no joke.
And Simon didn't feel the slightest bit that having more staff around ruined the fun.
His first real event after arriving in Australia had been a formal engagement ceremony. Raymond Johnston had insisted. The old man was traditional to the bone.
After Christmas came the Antarctic trip, just Simon and Janet.
Well, if you didn't count the attendants.
They'd spent New Year's on an Antarctic cruise ship, and it had felt a lot like a tiny honeymoon.
Then they returned from Antarctica and kicked off this continent-crossing journey.
Unlike the two-person world of Antarctica, this time they'd brought the Johnston family's fourth and fifth sons, plus both their girlfriends.
David Johnston claimed he wasn't interested in traveling and said he had a paper to write. After he offered that excuse, the entire family unanimously agreed to drag him along anyway. Patrick Johnston had wanted to tag along on Simon and Janet's Antarctica trip but had been refused. This time, of course he wasn't going to miss it.
While everyone was greeting each other, Janet leaned over from the passenger side and waved the satellite phone in her hand at Simon and the others. "Mom says she's already started preparing dinner. She wants us back at the estate to eat tonight."
Patrick Johnston had been murmuring something into his girlfriend's ear. The moment he heard that, he blurted, "Why go back so early? Sis, how about Bali? It's close. Two hours and we're there."
Janet rolled her eyes at her brother. "You've been drifting around for half a year, Pat. This time when we get back, Dad's putting you to work."
Patrick Johnston was actually three years older than Simon. He'd been studying at the University of Birmingham in the UK.
Only compared to David Johnston, the Cambridge brainiac, Patrick could basically be described as an academic disaster. From the day he enrolled, he'd spent six years screwing around and still hadn't gotten a degree. On top of that, his record was a mess. Last year the school forcibly kicked him out. He'd loafed around London for another half year after that, and only at the end of the year did the old man haul him back home by force.
Janet ignored Patrick's demand completely, wagging a finger at him as she laid down the rules. "One hour. Shower, change clothes, then we go home. If you don't come back, you can stay here and drink seawater. Dad will freeze your credit cards."
After that, Janet didn't bother responding to his protests. She looped her arm through Simon's and followed the manager toward the hotel.
Darwin Airport was near the hotel. A little over an hour later, the group boarded Simon's Boeing 767 at the airport. The convoy left behind would be handled by other people.
Once the plane leveled out, Patrick got restless and wandered all over the cabin. Before long he came back to a small lounge in the middle of the aircraft where everyone had gathered.
He craned over Janet and Leslie's shoulders to peek at the office renovation plans they were discussing, then strolled over to Simon, who was talking with David. Patrick perched on the arm of the sofa and said to Simon, "Mate, how about I go to Hollywood? You can arrange some job for me, anything. Preferably something that makes it easy to pick up girls."
Simon hadn't even replied when Sarah Keaston, sitting cross-legged in a nearby armchair playing a handheld game console, looked up and fixed Patrick with a stare. "I can hear you."
Patrick shot back without backing down. "Sarah, how about we break up?"
"Go tell your dad and my dad, you little bastard. You think I wanted to be your girlfriend?"
"We're adults, Sarah. You should have the courage to resist your father's arrangements."
"Sorry. I don't."
Sarah Keaston dropped her gaze and went back to her game, ignoring Patrick completely.
Simon listened with interest, then glanced at the girl beside him, dressed in an oversized black sleeveless T-shirt with a punk vibe.
Sarah Keaston came from the Keaston family in Western Australia, also in the mining business. The Keastons and the Johnstons were old family friends. Sarah's father, Louis Keaston, and Raymond Johnston were particularly close, the kind of close where people said they'd carried guns together and shared classrooms together, and so you got that old-fashioned childhood betrothal story.
But according to Janet, neither family actually meant it as an arranged marriage the way Patrick and Sarah talked about it. They were taking it as it came.
The problem was Patrick and Sarah had grown up together and never gotten along. They fought as kids, sniped at each other as adults, occasionally went cold on each other for a while, yet somehow never actually separated. Later they went to Birmingham together, wasted six years together, and last year they got kicked out together without degrees. A truly bizarre pair of bickering soulmates.
From spending time with them recently, Simon could tell that this black-haired, heavy-eyeliner, quiet girl, with a Shakespeare quote tattooed on her right arm, "all devils are here," was very clearly the one controlling the tempo in their relationship.
Patrick got no satisfaction from his girlfriend, forgot his own request in a blink, and turned to Simon again. "Mate, what's the password for the front cabin? I want to take a look."
Simon tipped his chin toward Janet. "Ask your sister."
Patrick looked over.
Janet answered casually, "123456."
Patrick sprang up at once and didn't forget his girlfriend. "Sarah, you coming?"
Sarah didn't even lift her head. "No."
Patrick ran off anyway, then came sprinting back a moment later, deeply wounded. "Are you sure it's 123456?"
Janet shot him a look. "That's my and Simon's bedroom. Why do you want to go in there?"
Patrick made an exaggerated gesture with his hands. "A bedroom that takes up a third of the cabin. Are you playing tennis in there?"
Janet couldn't be bothered with him anymore. She picked up a page of office design drafts and held it out to Simon. "How about this one?"
Renovation work had already started on the Daenerys studio complex in Los Angeles.
Some time ago, Leslie Wickett had been subtly testing the waters about getting an opportunity to practice her design, and she'd even nudged her boyfriend into lobbying for her.
Leslie Wickett had studied architecture at Cambridge, mainly to take over the family business. Her father ran an architectural design firm in London, not huge, but not small either, the kind of scale where they couldn't take on the entire Daenerys studio complex but could absolutely handle the administrative zone without breaking a sweat.
Of course, the studio complex itself had already been built. What remained was the interior design for the renovations.
That was the kind of work Leslie wanted.
Even though her major was architecture, Leslie preferred interior design. After graduation she planned to join the interior design division of her father's firm, so her studies had always leaned heavily in that direction.
Originally, Leslie had wanted to handle the interior design of the shell-shaped villa at the Dume Point estate. If she could build a resume line like "designed a residence for the richest man in North America" while still in school, it would be a massive boost when she started her career.
Simon and Janet wanted to plan the villa's interior themselves, but it was hard to refuse David the rare favor he'd actually asked of them. In the end, they gave Leslie the design work for one of the studio's office buildings, the one that would house Simon's own office.
Leslie was graduating next year, but she wasn't capable of completing an entire office building design on her own. So Simon simply had the Los Angeles side sign a formal contract with the Wickett design firm. That way Leslie could get proper support from her father's professional team, and the Wickett firm could also use it as a foothold to enter the North American market.
Simon only glanced at the draft before smiling and shaking his head. "Swap out the red sofa. Everything else is fine."
Leslie Wickett looked confused. "It's a dark burgundy, Simon. I think it matches the overall style of your office."
Simon swept his gaze around the room. "None of you know what a red sofa means?"
Janet and the others stared at each other.
Sarah Keaston, still playing her handheld, spoke up without looking away. "It's an unspoken rule from the big studio era in Hollywood. If an actress goes into an audition room and sees a red sofa, she strips and waits for the director or producer to show up. Then she gets the role."
Janet's eyes widened. "Really?"
Simon nodded.
Leslie Wickett hurriedly pulled the draft back. "Then I'll redo it."
Patrick squeezed back in beside Simon and dropped into a seat, draping an arm over his shoulder with blatant envy. "Even if it's not red, actresses would still be happy to get naked in front of you, right?"
Simon didn't answer. He simply flicked the hand off his shoulder.
Patrick hissed and jerked his hand back, then complained to Janet, "Sis, your man hit me."
Janet replied offhandedly, "You can hit him back."
Patrick eyed the back of Simon's hand, made a halfhearted gesture, and ultimately didn't dare. He kept talking anyway. "Mate, did you really break five guys' legs back then?"
At that question, besides Janet, everyone else in the room seemed to prick up their ears.
Simon only shook his head. "Too long ago. I forgot."
"Heh, you're even more than me…" Patrick cut himself off midway, then suddenly thought of something else. "Hey, how about we go out tonight? The Packer family opened a new place on the Southbank. I heard it's wild."
Simon was noncommittal. "Ask your sister."
"I got pretty tan this trip. Tonight I'm getting a spa, and Leslie and Sarah are coming," Janet said, then added to Simon, "You go play with Pat. Take David too."
David Johnston immediately shook his head. "I'm not going."
Patrick shook his head as well. "I'm not taking David. What if he starts lecturing everyone on fluid physics in the middle of it? How awkward would that be?"
The drive from Melbourne to Darwin had taken a week. Flying back to Melbourne from Darwin took only four hours.
By evening, everyone was back at the Johnston family's estate outside Melbourne.
Since it was Saturday, Anthony Johnston and Norman Johnston both brought their families for dinner, and Veronica Johnston came as well.
Dinner was still a little way off. After exchanging pleasantries, Simon and Janet returned to their room in the estate for a short rest.
Janet changed into a more homey light pink dress and came out of the closet to find Simon lying on the bed with his eyes closed. She climbed onto him, propping herself on his chest. "Tonight Dad and Mom are definitely going to talk about the wedding."
Simon wrapped an arm around her waist. "I'll go back next week and be busy for a while. You can start preparations here. A little over a month should be enough."
Janet scooted closer, cheek pressed to his. "If you think it's too rushed, we can push it back."
Simon smiled. "I want to make it before your birthday. After March, it'll feel different."
"Mmh. I'm going to bite you."
She nipped at his neck, then lifted her face again. "I realized something."
"Hm?"
"I think you're slowly becoming part of the Johnston family."
"Why do you say that?"
"Intuition."
"So you're just feeling good about yourself?"
She huffed softly. "Then you tell me."
"I refuse to answer that question."
He said it, but he did notice it too.
No one liked being alone forever.
Years had passed, and Simon's deep-rooted sense of distance from this world still hadn't completely faded.
But maybe because of Janet, and maybe because of Veronica as well, he had gradually begun to feel a subtle sense of belonging with the Johnston family without even realizing it. Because of that instinctive belonging, he didn't feel any real resistance toward the marriage coming up.
He hadn't even clearly noticed it himself, yet Janet had felt it.
He tightened his arm around her waist. Neither of them spoke again.
They didn't know how much time passed until Leslie Wickett knocked to tell them dinner was ready. Only then did they link arms and head to the dining room.
With the whole family gathered, the meal was lively and loud.
Raymond Johnston did bring up the wedding, and he'd even chosen the date: March 3, a Saturday, exactly a month and a half away, enough time for preparations.
Simon and Janet had no objections. Everyone immediately began chattering over the details.
Dinner ended a little after eight.
Janet couldn't wait to drag the other women off for a spa, insisting she didn't want her skin tone still uneven when she got married.
Anthony Johnston still wanted to talk with Simon about Cersei Capital, which had just finished its settlement for this period, but Simon was hauled out of the estate by Patrick.
A little after nine, they drove from the suburban estate to the Southbank on the Yarra River. The "place" Patrick had mentioned on the plane turned out to be a fighting arena the Packer family had just opened near Crown Casino.
Simon had visited the nightclubs around Crown Casino with Janet last time. Patrick must have given advance notice, because this time the Packer heir, James Packer, came personally to accompany them.
Compared to the middle-aged man he would later become, the one who'd get entangled in marriage talk with Mariah Carey and even throw punches in public over Miranda Kerr, James Packer was still just a brash guy in his early twenties. The Packer family was still firmly in the hands of his father, Kerry Packer.
Judging from how James Packer and Patrick were slinging arms around each other, they were clearly familiar. Their spoiled playboy traits were probably a close match.
The fights in the ring were mixed martial arts.
James Packer smoothly called over a group of girls, chose the best viewing spot under the ring, and asked Simon if he wanted to place a bet.
Since he was here, Simon watched both fighters for a moment, then wrote a $10,000 check and placed a token wager on one of them.
After that, watching the fighters struggle and clash under the lights, listening to the cheers erupting from hundreds of people around them, everyone quickly got pulled into the heat of it.
After a few matches, Patrick suddenly leaned close to Simon and egged him on. "Mate, want to go up there and have a go?"