Page 61 of Fierce Love
Hollyn
We make the turn down the long laneway, and my mind ticks over. The trees have grown bigger and obscured the house more, but I’d know this place anywhere.
“You know who lives here?” I ask, wondering if he remembers.
“No one lives here,” he says. “I know who owns it, and it’s empty. Or emptyish—it has some furniture.”
At the gate, he rolls down his window to punch in a code.
“This is so fancy,” Kinsley says, even though she’s been to the royal palace with Brice and Maren and she understands whatfancyreally is now.
“I’ll hire security to patrol the property,” Nate says.
“I’ll pay for that,” I say.
“We can discuss payment,” he says, and his gaze sweeps over me in a way that suggests my payment plan won’t be in money.
As soon as we get close to the circular drive, my breath catches. It’s a two-story white colonial house with wraparound balconieson the first and second floors. It overlooks the ocean, and Nate and I used to drive past it in his boat when we were kids. It was my dream house, the place I coveted most out of anywhere on the island. It’s also, probably, ten thousand square feet of living space, which, now that I’m older, I understand is more than two people could ever need. Kinsley and I survived on little more than sixhundredsquare feet in our New York apartment.
“This is probably too much,” I say, my voice hushed. “Can they rent out the rest of it to someone else?”
“There’s no need,” Nate says. “It’s just sitting empty anyway.”
At the front door, he parks the car, and when I climb out, I cling to the edge of the car door, completely in awe that I’m going to be living in the house of my dreams. Life is wild sometimes.
“We’re going to live here?” Kinsley says with a laugh of disbelief. “I’m never going back to New York.”
“Yes, you will,” I say, my tone sharp. After our parents just threatened us, we can’t stay. Even before that, I didn’t want their influence creeping into Kinsley’s life.
“Let’s take a look around,” Nate says, ever the peacemaker. “I can arrange to have someone pack up your essentials from the apartment, or I can have security accompany you. Owen can handle it.”
I want to tell him that he’s taking my parents too seriously. They wouldn’t really hurt their children, but my mother has hurt me far too many times in far too many ways for me to ignore her warning. While Nate’s suggestions might seem extreme, I’m not going to turn them down.
Nate uses a code to unlock the double front doors, and when they swing back, I’m stunned by the grandeur. The ceilings are incredibly high, and the artwork that’s still on the walls is modern and, strangely, almost exactly what I’d expect to see.
I’ve been to a lot of nice apartments and houses in New York, and when Nate and I were together, we were in quite a few beautiful places. Almost every one of his friends lived in what I would have considered a palace.
But stepping in the doors to this place feels like coming home, and it’s the strangest sensation—as though the house has been waiting for me.
Kinsley has been let loose, and she calls out comments from different rooms, deep in the house. I’m still grappling with this overwhelming feeling in my chest, like I want to cry, but I wouldn’t be able to articulate why.
“What do you think?” Nate asks, hands in his pockets.
My throat is tight, so rather than answering him, I move past the grand entrance and into the bones of the house. The ceilings are high throughout, and the décor is neutral, as though the place might be mostly abandoned but it hasn’t been allowed to become outdated.
The back of the house is a gigantic open-plan kitchen, living, and dining room. Views of the ocean are visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows. I open one of the sliding doors and step out onto the bottom level of the wraparound porch, and I gulp in the salty sea air. My equilibrium is wobbly, as though I’ve put a rip in the space-time continuum by being here.
“I saw this place so many times from the water…” I say to Nate, not turning around. He’s been quietly following me, watching me in silence since we got here. “That it feels like I already know this house. Isn’t that weird?”
“Maybe you were meant to be here,” he says.
Itdoesfeel that way, which I’m not saying out loud.
“You said I’d be happy,” I say with a little laugh.
“I said you’d love it,” he says, as though it’s not the same thing. “Living here will make you happy?”
“It’s incredible, Nate,” I say, turning toward him. “I honestly can’t believe this is happening.”
