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“Fill them with children?” Elizabeth countered, her tone lifting hopefully.
Caroline’s knees wobbled slightly as she pictured three blond children running up the stairs shouting wildly. She glanced to Simon for his reaction, but he had his attention focused on the front door as if he couldn’t wait to escape. She let out a quiet breath and went exploring, still wrapped in her fantasy.
To her left was the living room and beyond that a sunroom. The living room was wallpapered in a soft blue-gray to accent the gray and cream furnishings. The fireplace surround was white marble, veined in the same accenting gray. Crown molding emphasized the first floor’s eleven-foot ceilings and succeeded in making the rooms feel cozy at the same time. Tall white pocket doors separated the living and dining room. Caroline drifted through the opening. While not the size of a ballroom as in the Holcroft home, the dining room comfortably held a table that would seat twelve.
From Simon there was no comment. Caroline glanced around as she passed through the kitchen and peered out at the courtyard at the back of the house. He was nowhere to be seen. She circled back to the foyer and found him standing beside the staircase, his expression unreadable. She caught his hand and tugged.
“Come upstairs and see the bedrooms,” she urged, a little breathless.
Simon grunted, but let her draw him to the second floor. They glanced into three rooms before finding the master bedroom. It had a screened veranda that overlooked the courtyard and one wall was exposed brick. Caroline was completely charmed.
“You realize we cannot accept the house,” he told her.
She turned from admiring the bathroom and regarded him in amazement. “Well of course we can’t. Did you think I didn’t realize that?”
“You seem rather taken with it.”
“I love it.” She lifted her eyebrows at him. “But we’re not engaged to be married, and I hope you see now why—”
Her lecture was interrupted by the arrival of Hannah and Sarah. Frustration welled. She’d missed another opportunity to drive home the importance of telling his parents the truth about their relationship.
“Did you see the murals in the hall?” Sarah inquired. “They are beautiful.”
“So, Simon, what do you think?” Hannah sat down on the bed and bounced on the mattress. “A couple million?”
He set his hand on his hip and raked his fingers into his blond hair. “Two point one would be my guess.”
“See,” she jeered. “I told you that you were Mom’s favorite.”
Simon glared at her. “We’re not accepting a two million dollar house as an engagement slash wedding present.” He blew out a breath. “Besides, I’m perfectly capable of buying my bride to be a house in this neighborhood if that’s what she wants. But we are not moving to Savannah.”
Caroline stared at him and wondered if anything she said got through his thick skull. His bride to be? They weren’t engaged, and he needed to tell his family that before things got any worse.
“Whether you accept the house or not, Simon,” Hannah continued, “that’s not the point I was trying to make. Mom and Dad bought this house for you.”
“She’d buy you one too if she thought it would convince you to move five blocks away.” Simon noticed Caroline frowning at him and pointed a finger at her. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t told my mother how much you loved this damn city, she wouldn’t have run out and bought this house.”
How dare he turn this whole thing on her. She would have been furious if it wasn’t so ludicrous. “They didn’t buy the house,” she reminded him coolly. “They only put a contingent offer on it. And of course, we don’t have to take it. We’re not going to take it.”
“You’re not even going to talk about it?” Sarah looked from them to Hannah. “Then can we have it?”
“No!”
“No!”
Simon and Caroline locked gazes after they erupted with the same emphatic negative. Caroline wasn’t sure when she’d become so possessive of the house—probably the instant she’d turned the key in the lock and opened the door—but she had no right to deny Simon’s sister the home. Yet she felt something tear inside her at the thought of not living here. That wrenching told her she had ventured too far over the line. It was time to go home and the sooner, the better.
“We’re all adults here,” Caroline soothed. “We can buy our own houses. Come on, let’s go downstairs and tell Elizabeth and Charles the bad news.”
Simon’s mother took one look at the subdued group returning to the first floor and sighed. “I thought for certain you’d love it.”
“It’s amazing,” Caroline told her, wrapping Elizabeth in a tight embrace. Tears burned her eyes as the older woman hugged her back. “But as wonderful as the gesture is, you can’t buy us a house. Simon and I have lots to discuss about our future. If we can’t pick a wedding date, how are we going to decide where our first home will be?”
Caroline had meant to use the word house, but home slipped out instead. She had very little trouble visualizing living here with Simon. She had no doubt that making a home with him would come to her as naturally as making love with him had been.
“Then you’ll at least discuss the house?”
Simon piped up from behind them, his voice ringing in the towering two-story foyer. “Oh, we’ll discuss it at length.”
