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Cole gave me a house tour, showing me one wing at a time. We started in the East Wing at the theater, making our way to the bowling alley before we landed in the solarium.
“It’s a sunroom,” I said as we entered the glass room with a vast terrace.
“Yeah.” Cole laughed. “Solarium is just a fancy name for it.”
The solarium was bigger than any house I lived in with my dad. You could have built another house on the patio and still had room. This place was unreal, a dream come true.
We stopped at the library, which was two stories and had a domed ceiling and stained-glass windows. There were more books than I could ever read lining each wall. Ladders attached to the shelves went up to the top floor. I wasn’t afraid of heights, but climbing that high for a book worried me.
“When I’m home, I spend most of my time here,” Cole said. “Feel free to take any books you like. If there’s something specific you want to read, and we don’t have it, we’ll order it.”
I’ve died and gone to heaven.
I saw myself getting lost in the library, buried under thousands of books. Growing up, I didn’t have much entertainment. My grandfather only let me read. That was the one pleasure he never denied me because he believed reading was a superpower. He said the world’s smartest and wealthiest people read daily, and I would be wise to follow their lead.
So I did.
That was the reason I chose Library Science as my major. I hoped one day to be free from my family and use my college education to become a librarian.
“If there’s ever a time you can’t find me,” I said on our way out of the library, “there’s a good chance I’m trapped under an avalanche of books.”
A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “At least we have one thing in common.”
I let his words linger as we headed toward our next destination. Did we have other things in common?
I doubted it.
Cole had a normal life with friends and a real family. His father wasn’t a terrorist, a painful fact that haunted me.
Am I like him?
Am I evil, too?
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” Cole said, returning my attention to him. “I’m usually one of two places—the library or the game room.”
He pushed open the door to the game room. Like the other rooms, it was equally impressive and looked as if it had every game ever invented.
A sectional couch that could fit thirty people comfortably sat at the center of the room. They even had a bar with stools that took up half a wall. I didn’t feel like I was in someone’s home and wondered how often this stuff got used.
On our way to the West Wing, we passed the great room. I glanced at the spot my grandfather stood when I met the Marshalls. I was so relieved to be rid of him.
When my adoptive father left for his assignment, he hugged me and said, “It’s only temporary, Gracie. You’re a strong woman. You can survive a few months without me.”
“But how do I survivehim?” I tipped my head at my grandfather, who waited inside the limousine impatiently.
“He won’t hurt you,” he assured me. “There’s a reason the old man has kept you around this long.”
No one knew why, though. That was the billion-dollar question. My cousin Bastian was older than me and should have been in the line of succession. But for some reason, Fitzy chose me.
“Mark Marshall is my oldest friend,” the Colonel added before we parted ways. “He will take care of you. You will always have a home with the Marshalls.”
I snapped out of my thoughts as we approached the natatorium, an enclosed pool house larger than the one at my father’s last duty station.
“When my friends come over,” Cole said as he held the door open for me to see into the room, “we usually hang out here. Everyone in town wants an invite to Fort Marshall.” He gave me a cocky smirk. “I’m known for having legendary parties.”
I’d never been to a party or had friends. My family kept me sheltered from the outside world, fearful of my biological father finding me.
After leaving the natatorium, we stopped at the scullery, which Cole explained was a butler’s kitchen. They also had an entire room dedicated to the pantry, hidden behind a paneled wall with enough food to feed an army.
