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“‘Sophie, don’t get too excited about the property,’” I mimicked his earlier pronouncement.
“Good accent,” Tom remarked, but his grin faded when Neil cleared his throat. Tom swallowed and continued, “As I was saying, the compound sits on forty-nine acres, has ocean views, a beautiful beach front—”
“We would live…on the ocean?” I got dizzy just imagining it. When I’d been younger, I’d dreamed about one day owning a camp on Lake Superior that I could hang out at on the weekends. That had been some far off dream that I’d happily abandoned when I’d moved to New York. But the ocean? Only rich people lived by the ocean.
That’s when it hit me for the very first time: I was a rich person. Even though I’d been living with Neil for a year, even though he’d bought me designer clothes and ridiculously expensive jewelry, I’d never really thought of his money as my own. Except for that one time in Hermés. But shopping for a house together, the house we would live in, our family home that would have both names on it… That really drove the point into my brain.
Neil was giving me a life I had never bothered to dream about, and he was doing it just because he loved me. I would probably never again have to stress over bills. I’d never find my career limited by how much money I could spare for the commute. I wouldn’t have to eat Ramen ever again, unless it was by choice.
This was the life Neil wanted to give me, and I’d been stubbornly rejecting it, but still reaping the benefits. I’d been utterly blind to the privilege that had been plunked into my lap. Why? Because I thought it made my love mean less if I was grateful for his money?
“What was the price again?” Neil asked as the agent pulled into the circular drive and parked beneath the portico.
“Eighty-three million,” the agent said easily. Like it was a number he could rattle off any day.
I grabbed Neil’s hand and squeezed it.
He squeezed back.
“There are six other exits,” Tom explained, like he was the chief flight attendant for the house. “The previous owners directed deliveries to the kitchen, through the porte-cochére at the other end of the house. That’s also where you’ll find the eight car garage—”
“Only eight?” Neil asked, and my eyes boggled. What in the name of sweet baby Jesus would require us to own more than two cars? He caught my look and
said, sheepishly, “For my collection.”
“Your collection is in England,” I reminded him.
He smirked. “It can be moved.”
“There is plenty of acreage if you’d like to add a hangar to house them,” Tom suggested easily. As though it would be just like putting a ceiling fan in. No big deal, build a hangar on the weekend. Fill it up with a man-sized Hot Wheels collection. People just did this, in our world.
“There is a state-of-the-art security system, as well as an intercom from the panic room,” Tom said as we walked the three wide, terraced steps to the door. He entered a security code and slid the key into the lock before ushering us inside. “I’ve already been in and had a walk around tonight, but there is a master control for the built-in lighting in the main living areas.”
The moment the door opened into the foyer, I knew I was in over my head. The room was an octagon, open to the second story, with windows that looked even taller than they were, due to the vertical lines of framework that divided each of them neatly in two. The floor was pristine wood that glowed a gorgeous, deep red.
Tom opened a door to our right to show us the walk-in coat closet. He pointed out that it could easily double as a coat check during parties.
Way over my head.
The living areas blew past me in a bit of whirlwind. The place came furnished, from the elegant prairie style dining and living room sets—“Vintage Stickley,” Tom informed us as I trailed my arm along the back of the sofa—to the sumptuous leather upholstery in the den. There was a second, less formal living room with a native stone fireplace and a loft accessible via an upstairs bridge.
“That’s set up as a very nice office,” Tom explained. “But there are plenty of rooms on the lower level that could be converted.”
“The lower level?” I asked. “Isn’t this the ground floor?”
“There’s a walk-out lower level,” Tom explained. “We’ll get to that in a minute. What I really want to show you is the master bedroom.”
The master bedroom, bathroom, and twin dressing rooms were situated on the ground floor, down a long hall. I was pretty sure the entire apartment could fit inside the suite. Enormous windows looked onto the vast side yard, and through two large, arched glass doors was a conservatory in a round turret with ocean views.
“This is insane,” I said, pressing my hand to the glass. Then I thought about the handprint it would leave. And then I thought about how much I didn’t care, because I could leave a handprint on a door in my own damn house.
We were going to live here.
I opened the door and stepped into the huge space, done up like a parlor. There weren’t any plants; I would have to change that. The graceful arch of a polished wood staircase rose in an unbroken swoop up to an open second floor that encircled the entire tower, and I wandered over to it. “Can I go up?”
“Certainly,” Tom said. “There’s a door to the deck, if you’d like to go out.”
“Would you mind giving us a moment?” Neil asked Tom.
