My eyes light up. “Seriously?” I gasp.
He chuckles and tosses his arm around my shoulder. “Seriously.”
“Let’s go!”
We head down to the valet station where he retrieves his car, and I’m already seeing the differences in our lifestyles. He’s not just a pro baseball player, he’s also from abillionairefamily, whereas I’m barely making ends meet.
But this morning we discussed compensation as the executive director of The ARCH Initiative, and it’s looking like I’ll no longer be struggling financially. In fact, it’s a better deal than I was going to get from the partnership with Berkshire. It’s unnecessary, which I told him, especially since there will be a fair bit of onboarding and training, but he said he did some research, and the amount he offered me was the amount he was going to offer whoever he eventually put in this position.
He also made it clear that I won’t be paying rent if I’m living with him, and he has a personal chef who brings meals several times a week. It sounds like I’ll be eating good and living a brand-new lifestyle.
It’s a freaking dream, and somehow…it’s my new reality.
He doesn’t live terribly far from the Strip, and fifteen minutes after we slide into some fancy black Mercedes that’s apparently his, we’re pulling up to a gated community before I’ve barely had the chance to sink into the sumptuous leather seats.
He clicks a button, and the gates swing open for us.
He drives through the neighborhood filled with mansions and pulls up a long, long,verylong driveway toward the garage hiding in the back of the house. My jaw drops open as I look at the house that I’ll get to call mine.
It’s a freaking mansion. Seriously. Even the landscaping looks luxurious with the palm trees and succulents and fake grass that’s green all the damn time.
“How big is this place?” I ask, wonder not hidden in any way from my tone.
“Just under forty-five hundred square feet. Four bedrooms, five bathrooms.”
I literally choke at his words. My apartment is six hundred square feet. “Four bedrooms?” I repeat. “But you’re just one guy!”
He chuckles. “There’s my bedroom, two rooms that are used as offices, and one converted to a training room.” He shrugs. “Any of which can be easily changed into whatever you want. Or we could move. Find our own place together. Make it ours.”
My eyes are wide, and my mouth is hanging open. I need to pull myself together. It’s not like I’ve never seen a nice house before.
We head inside, and it’s equally astonishing and luxurious as the outside. The entire home is decorated in warm minimalist neutrals, a mix of light woods, light-gray stones, white accents, and clean lines. It’s simple and warm…sort of like its owner, I think, though most people don’t know that about him because he doesn’t allow anyone to.
“This is gorgeous,” I breathe.
“It’s home.” He says it so nonchalantly, like it’s not impressive when it absolutely is. “I bought it when I first signed with the Heat. I wanted something simple and modern, and it felt like the right place to settle. It came like this—furnished and everything. So props to whoever picked it all out. It was a model home, and I said I’d take it as is so I didn’t have to do any of the planning. It was move-in ready.”
“Smart.” And I suppose that means it doesn’t necessarily have Tatum’s touches. Even if it did, knowing Archer how I do…I imagine he would’ve cleared any of those memories out by now. I feel confident that he’s fully moved on from her and that he’s ready to embark on this journey with me now.
The primary bedroom is an actual dream, and it has enough space that there’s a couch and a coffee table along one wall. It’s perfect for reading, relaxing, or…you know, whatever sexually explicit activities we dream up.
Then there’s the shower.
“Why does one shower need eight different showerheads?” I ask.
He wiggles his eyebrows. “Oh, you’ll see.”
I giggle, but then he takes me into the closet, and I legitimately fall onto one of the soft cushioned bench seats in the middle of the room. My knees just seem to give out. This closet is as big as my entire apartment back in Illinois.
“Are you okay?” he asks, sinking down beside me.
I stare at the rows of his clothes that take up one little corner of this huge closet. It’s mostly Vegas Heat gear, a few suits that I’d love to see him in, a handful of hoodies, and enough shoes to open a sporting goods store, but surprisingly, I don’t see any jerseys.
“Why don’t you have a jersey in here?” I ask.
“We get a few team-issued jerseys for events, but our actual game jerseys are at the stadium. The clubhouse staff washes them, and they’re waiting in our lockers when we arrive for the game, fresh and clean.”
I raise my brows. “Wow. Top-tier service.”
