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She still harbored doubts about the woman, but she no longer felt right about meddling in Maddy’s life. She’d let her make her own mistakes, just like she had.
Next to her, Monty worked silently, occasionally jotting notes in the margin of the report he was reading.
Their lives had changed so drastically in just a few weeks—from the decision to rebuild Cavendish with the Sigma sisters to the whirlwind trip to Beijing and back.
She reached into the seat pocket and pulled out the quote from the German builder Monty had arranged. She couldn’t help but marvel at the plan—rebuilding on the English Manor site, but modeling it after Heidelberg Castle. Of all the ideas her sisters had proposed, Heidelberg had won by unanimous vote.
“It’s so surreal,” she murmured, putting a hand on Monty’s arm when he looked over. “Sorry to distract you. I didn’t realize I said that out loud.”
He smiled at her, then stretched, made one more note, and recapped his pen. He reclined his chair until they were side by side and he could pull her against him. “Not a problem,” he said. “Tell me what’s surreal.”
“It’s like Karol—or Jackal, I guess, whoever he was. It’s like he was a demon we had to exorcise, and now everything is going perfectly.” She frowned. “Almost too perfectly.”
“Does it feel you’re waiting for some unexpected plot twist?” he asked.
“Yes, like that,” she agreed. “And it’s not like there aren’t plot twists; it’s just that they’re all great. Like this.” She held up the papers.
“What about that?” he said, taking the papers and flipping through them.
“Well, when I saw it was a quote, I braced for the worst. And then it all came in on budget.” She reached over to flip a couple of pages. “Then we got the initial plans for the castle, and they fit perfectly on the existing foundation.”
“Well, that’s because they engineered it that way,” he said.
“Yeah, but…exactly? Plumbing and everything? That wasn’t a given,” she said.
“True.”
“And then the girls approved all the plans with no changes. Not a single one. That is a shock.”
“Well, it helped that you designed the offices with a nursery attached,” he said, turning back one page and tapping the area designated as Claire’s.
She sighed. She wasn’t used to having everything go her way.
They’d renewed their vows on the flight to Beijing. Monty had kicked ass in his meetings, as she’d known he would. Then they’d spent a lust-filled three days of a honeymoon on luxurious Jeju Island. In another plot twist, a German expatriate and former cabinet minister owned a mansion there, and Montgomery had called in a favor so they could stay.
Now they were headed back to Seattle to oversee renovation plans before returning to Berlin.
“To be fair, the architect did a great job of making everything work on the Manor property,” Monty said, paging to the specifications on the front elevation. “Look at that. It’s the perfect marriage of the Gothic and Renaissance architectural styles of Heidelberg, which is a subtle mix of the personalities of you and your Sigma sisters. How could they not love it?”
She leaned into him, pointing to either side of the structure. “I researched it online, and he’s duplicated the gardens exactly. But was it too much to add the ruins?”
“Why?”
“Because the entire estate is a ruin,” Hartley mused. “We’re just lucky guests won’t see much of it from the road.”
“I don’t see it that way,” Monty said, lifting his arm so she could wiggle closer against his chest. “The Heidelberg Castle has ruins. It’s authentic to duplicate them, especially since it’s likely some of your future clients might have seen the real thing.”
She thought about that. “You can’t have beauty without sacrifice,” she finally said. She could feel him nod.
“Or without imperfection, or pain,” he agreed. “It’s the reality of life.”
“It’s like us, too.” She craned her neck to look up at him. “We were a ruin, and now we’re something beautiful.”
“You know, I used to look at love as something that crushes. But at its purest, it just grows and grows. It changes, as it should,” he murmured, squeezing her. “I think I’m finally able to see that change as growth and not devastation. But what do I know? I’m certainly not a poet.”
“You’reabsolutelya poet, my love,” Hartley replied, tears tightening her throat.
“If you say so.” His firm hand cupped her neck as he kissed her. “You’re beautiful, Mrs. Meyer. You’re my heart.”
