We turned off the main road onto a private drive lined with tall, evenly spaced palm trees, like the old Hollywood mansions in black-and-white films. The gates slid open without him touching anything at all. Some invisible sensor recognized the car, or maybe just him, or maybe a discreetly hidden security guard. The place was grand enough to warrant a security team. We glided down a white stone path, past more trees and a riot of colorful tropical flowers.
The house, no, this was a mansion, and not a suburban McMansion, a luxurious estate with more windows than I could count at a glance, appeared at the end of the curve.
The sprawling Spanish silhouette rose against the bright afternoon sky—even the air seemed cleaner up here. Red clay roof tiles and cream stucco walls, with intricately carved double doors. Most of the windows were open, the sheer curtains fluttering in the softest of breezes onto the many balconies.
It was beautiful in a way that took my breath away. As if stories I’d love to read had already played out there, and new ones were just waiting to happen.
Rurik parked in a pebbled courtyard, cut the engine, and turned to me.
“Welcome home, Clem,” he said.
The words landed like stones in still water, and ripples spread through me. Home. That was a word I stopped thinking would ever apply to me again when I left Vermont. I swallowed hard, trying to force down the sudden knot in my throat. This was temporary, just like the hotel and the crappy apartmentbefore that. Same as the slightly less crappy apartment I was waiting to get into.
He got out, circled around, and opened my door before I could remember how doors worked. His hand hovered near my elbow, not touching, just there. I stepped out on legs that felt borrowed from someone who’d been sitting in a lotus position for too long.
Inside, the foyer stole the breath I’d been saving to work up to one more protest. Holy cow.
High ceilings rose thirty feet in the air, crowned by a massive chandelier that dripped with crystals. Polished white marble gleamed underfoot. A sweeping double staircase swathed in a green velvet carpet curved upward on either side, inviting and intimidating all at once.
I stood frozen, clutching my purse like a shield. It was a hell of a sight better than the hotel with its untrustworthy vending machine. This place was better suited to a royal wife than to a forced, temporary one.
Rurik watched me, his expression unreadable, but there was a tiny upward tug at the corner of his mouth.
“Too much?” he asked.
I shook my head, then nodded, then shook it again. Words refused to form properly.
He let out a soft chuckle and guided me forward with the lightest pressure on my lower back. The touch burned through my blouse, searing into my skin, like he was branding me to make me his as well as capturing my signature. I should have stepped away. Why wasn’t I?
He showed me three guest suites, each more impossibly perfect than the last.
The first had pale dove-gray walls, enormous windows overlooking a private terrace, and a bed so large it could have swallowed us both whole. No, not going to think about us in bed together. Crisp white linens, a velvet chaise, a bathroom with a tub deep enough to drown my many problems in.
The second was warmer, with caramel wood floors and a gas fireplace with a reading nook tucked into the corner. The lamps on the side tables had glass shades shaped like flowers and bright artwork on the walls.
The third was soft blues and creams, with a canopy bed draped in gauzy fabric that swayed when he opened the door, as though the room itself were breathing.
I stood in the doorway of the third one, fingers trailing the doorframe. What was this little tour all about? Was I really going to be living here? I couldn’t decide if I was waiting to wake up from obviously sleeping in, or wanting to stay in this dream forever.
“Pick whichever you want,” he said behind me. “For now.”
The phrase hooked into me. For now. I turned to look at him full on, for the first time since I crashed into his office, expecting all this to be a joke. But Rurik didn’t joke around.
His eyes were deep moss green as he took in the thoughts I hoped weren’t written all over my face. I couldn’t explain what I was feeling myself at that moment; there was no way I wanted him to misconstrue anything.
“When the Koboyashis arrive, we’ll have to share, so of course you’ll move into the master suite. They’ll expect to see us together.”
Have to. The words echoed in my skull. Was I more infuriated at the command or disappointed that he might view it as a chore. Oh God, I was thinking about it again.
My pulse kicked up again, loud in my ears. Share a room. Share a bed. Share the fiction that this marriage was real in every way that mattered. The off-limits kisses wouldn’t be so off-limits anymore, would they?
Yes, of course they would.
Because this wasn’t real.
I should have been horrified. I should have been outraged at the audacity, the presumption, the sheer arrogance of orchestrating all this without asking.
Instead, disappointment won, sharp and unwelcome. Because part of me, the stupid, reckless part, had imagined… what? That the marriage certificate meant something more? That when he said “our house,” the ‘our’ carried weight?