Page 49 of State of Ruin

Not having to drag myself away from him at the end of the evening. Instead, I stayed, and I got to find out for myself that the Sinclair Voss is one hundred percent a snuggler.

I surface from the sleep of the dead in his cloud-slash-bed when he gathers me in his arms and entangles his legs with mine. With my head tucked under his chin and my face buried against his chest, I’m in the coziest, hairiest, best-smelling cocoon ever. And when he rolls me over onto my back, and pins my wrists over my head, and fucks me slowly, lazily, I gaze up at him and wonder how it can feel even more intense between us here. There’s something about being out of the city, about being totally marooned with him, that could almost have me believing that it’s him and me against the world.

Afterward, when we’re recovering from our earth-shattering orgasms, we lie facing each other on the mound of pillows and he strokes across my forehead. Down my nose. Along my jaw. “Wanna know something crazy?”

“What?” I ask.

“When I’m not with you”—he clears his throat—“I, uh, can’t see your face. In my mind, I mean. I try so hard, and I can bring up the essence of you, but your actual features are a blank. It’s as if my brain knows just how badly I need to see you and shuts it down. It’s fucked up.” I stare at him. “I think maybe I try too hard,” he continues. “I want to see every single detail, and I can’t. And it kills me, because when I’m with you I feel like I could commit every eyelash to memory for all eternity. It’s one of the—many—reasons I hate letting you go at the end of the night.”

I don’t know what to say about the weird visual brain-fail he gets or the intensity of his words, so I murmur, “I’m sorry. I guess I have the advantage here—every time I want to see you, I just google you.”

His face softens. “Yeah. Or just pull up Page Six, right?”

“Exactly.”

“Can I take your photo?” he asks, stroking some stray hairs off my face. “I’ll keep it PG. I just—I wanna remember you right now, as you are.”

“But I just woke up,” I protest. “I probably have sleep in my eyes.”

“When I say you couldn’t be more perfect right now… You have this glow about you, and I’d like to think I put it there.”

I smile shyly. “I’m pretty sure you did.”

“Damn right. So I’d like a little memento.”

“Okay,” I say, rolling onto my back and tucking the sheet under my armpits so I don’t give him a boob pic. I trust Sinclair, but the thought of him having something that intimate of me long after he’s walked away is too painful. Being photographed like this is intimate enough, in a way my modeling career hasn’t prepared me for.

But once he’s snapped a few photos, smiling at me like I’m gifting him the moon, he shows them to me… and in an instant, I can see that every single feeling I have for him may as well be written across my face in black Sharpie.

Brunch is excellent scrambled eggs and sautéed spinach and even more excellent coffee in Sinclair’s kitchen. And then he says, “Would you like to see the main house?”

I sit up straighter. “I’d love to.”

I’m nervous, in a strange way. The Lindens feels like Sinclair’s sanctuary, but I imagine Fairwater itself to be more like a museum filled with artifacts of old money and unthinkable power, the likes of which I cannot imagine. The very fact of knowing how unknowable it is to the American public makes looking around it feel forbidden, even if I’m here as a guest. I can’t help but wonder if Sinclair’s family knows I’m here. I can’t help but think what they would make of me. Nothing good, I guess. His mom would probably be horrified that her son let a regular girl from Jersey set foot in her family’s palatial home.

But they’re not here, and I am.

We make the short walk from The Lindens across the main stretch of lawn, clutching travel mugs of coffee. I can’t imagine how incredible this yard is in spring and early summer, when the grass is bright green and all the trees and flowers are in full bloom. It must be like a Martha Stewart wet dream. The back of the house—the side facing the water—is all mellow gray siding and the crispest of white pops on the windows and pillars. It’s a much bigger version of Sinclair’s house, and it should be so grand it’s terrifying, but it’s not. It’s so… organic, maybe? Like it’s an extension of its environment. It’s just beautiful.

“It’ll be cold,” Sinclair warns as he lets us through a door at one end of the house. “The heating won’t be on.”

I hold up my coffee. “I’m good.”

We enter via a huge utility, and my first thought is that a whole load of processing must go on in here, given the endless wooden work surfaces, washers, dryers, and floor-to-ceiling cupboards. From there, we find the kitchen. It is huge beyond all belief and very Long Island, I guess, in its style: off-white cupboards and high ceilings and the biggest industrial range I’ve ever seen—it might actually be two, next to each other. Yeah, that looks like sixteen burners right there.

It’s beautiful, but not in a flashy, magazine-type way. More like a real family has grown up in it… even if they’re mega-wealthy and do a ton of large-scale entertaining. You can tell it’s been here forever and gets updated in fits and starts. The big dresser over by the far wall is a different shade of white from the rest of the kitchen, and the bay window has seats cushioned in blue-and-white ticking. I can easily imagine a younger Sinclair, all towheaded and sandy, racing through this room to beg a snack on his way back from swimming or sailing in the sound, and that makes me feel gooey inside.

“This is a happy room,” I tell Sinclair.

“Yeah.” He looks around, hesitating. “I guess it is. My mom doesn’t actually cook, but it was always a good source of food. Our chef when I was growing up, Bernadette, was an epic cook. There were always sheets of oatmeal cookies over there. She was a feeder.”

We walk out into the main hallway. Its paneled wood is barely visible beneath an endless muddle of paintings (mostly of sailboats), framed certificates and rosettes, and family photos.

“My mom’s shrine to our illustrious sailing careers,” Sinclair deadpans. “And by that, I mean hers, too. The woman is obsessed.”

“She still sails?” I ask, tugging him by the hand toward a cluster of photos.

“God, yes. Every day in the summer, pretty much.”