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Chapter Twenty-Five
Whoa. Vance’s house wasn’t a mansion but it was sure as hell bigger and nicer than anywhere she’d ever lived. By a lot. Didn’t he get lonely in this big place when it was just him? What the hell did a single guy need with so many floors?Fourof them? That seemed excessive.
When they’d finally returned to Clover City after he’d picked her up and then driven another two hours back, it was dark and late but he was giving her a tour anyway. While carrying most of her bags. It was kind of funny.
They’d poked their heads into the den which was on the same floor as the garage before heading upstairs.
“Kitchen, obviously. Help yourself to anything you find. If you use the last of something or there’s something you want that we don’t have, just say, ‘Jeeves, add plums to the grocery list.’”
A device on the countertop lit up and then responded in a crusty British accent, “Of course, sir. I’ve added plums to the grocery list.”
She couldn’t help but giggle, and Vance grinned back.
“I can’t afford a real butler, but Jeeves does alright. Don’t you, Jeeves?”
“Whatever you say, sir.”
Oh, she and Jeeves were going to have some fun.
Vance showed her the living room, the dining room, a powder room—was that just a fancy way of saying tiny bathroom?—some closets, and then headed up another flight of stairs. No wonder he had such strong thighs and a nice rounded backside, her barrel-chested bubble-butted daddy.
“What the hell do you have in this thing anyway, rocks?” he asked over his shoulder as he did a bicep curl with a small duffel.
“Um…” Her cheeks got warm because while she’d left more of her things out and about at the cabin, she hadn’t unpacked that particular bag. If he was a dick about this she was definitely going to feel as though coming here had been a mistake. She didn’t want to feel that way. She wanted to stay wrapped up in this buzzy excitement. “Not rocks, exactly. They’re crystals.”
“Huh. Like the ones that mean different stuff?”
“Yes.”
She knew a lot of people thought crystals were hooey. And maybe they were. But she also knew that the placebo effect was real and if she liked having pretty rocks around, then she was going to have pretty rocks. If her amethyst geode happened to help her sleep, her black tourmaline made her feel grounded, and her desert rose reminded her anything was possible, then great. Otherwise, they were good for bludgeoning mean old poopy heads.
She steeled herself for Vance to make a flippant or snarky remark but he didn’t. Just nodded.
“Cool. You’ll have to show me your collection sometime.”
She ducked her head, a smile shaping her mouth. There weren’t a whole lot of things she could teach her daddy, she didn’t think, not with the fancy schools he’d been to and all the money and legal mumbo jumbo he said on the phone sometimes, but she could definitely do that. She’d read books and looked stuff up on the internet. Not exactly an expert but not a newbie either.
“Okay, Daddy.”
Continuing the tour, Vance showed her his home office, a guest suite, the laundry room, and an area at the front of the house with a big window that just seemed to be for…being empty. Rich people were so weird.
He’d said on the way here that unless she wanted her own space, he wanted her to be in his room, sleep in his bed, and that sounded pretty good to her. She loved waking up with Vance’s heavy limbs around her, snuggled into his soft, furry torso. He was like a giant teddy bear and she fucking loved stuffies.
On the top floor was a staircase to the roof deck—was this place for reals?—which he said he’d show her tomorrow in the light, and some built-in linen cupboards and bookshelves that lined the hallway.
They were headed toward the master suite when Lilith noticed a door that her daddy hadn’t pointed out or mentioned. It was ajar so she didn’t think it was some sort of dungeon or torture chamber—unless it was the fun kind, of course—but she was curious so she pushed the door open and flicked a switch just inside.
It was an empty room, and unlike the rest of the place it didn’t look like it had been painted or styled or anything. Just the generic beige walls and inoffensive speckled carpeting a builder would put down when something wasn’t a custom build. Boring as heck and not spendy like the rest of the house.
Lilith felt a tiny bit bad about snooping, but this wasn’tBeauty and the Beastand there would be no forbidden West Wing situation, oh no. So she looked to Vance who was standing in the hallway, still laden with all her bags, looking muddled.
“What is this?”
Vance shrugged, looking like an apologetic bear.
“I thought when I bought this place that it would make a good nursery. Like a little girl nursery, not an actual baby nursery,” he clarified. “But I’ve never been with anyone for long enough or seriously enough that I felt like furnishing it. Would’ve been handy for sure to have some generic stuff to play with, but, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to do that for my little girl. Not just any little girl.”
Oh.
