Dark mahogany walls envelop me.
Glossy black floors swallow me whole.
Chandeliers the size of a car drip from the ceilings of every room.
Ice-cold marble covers the sprawling kitchen, accented with industrial stainless steel appliances that give me frostbite just looking at them.
On the way in, boxwoods manicured into pointed shapes lined the perimeter of the property along with an endless wrought-iron fence. The exterior was coated in limestone and brick—virtually impenetrable. This place is a medieval fortress. It practically screams, “Stay the hell away.”
I can’t wrap my head around anyone calling this a home …
… I also can’t wrap my head around Trey raising a family in this dark monstrosity.
“This is what you wanted to show me?” I ask as he leads me down a new hallway.
“Almost.”
We stroll side by side, our footsteps echoing in sync. There’s no life here besides a handful of full-time staff I spotted in the kitchen on our way in. I counted two gardeners outside. A woman dusting velvet drapes the color of ripe plums in the study. Another polishing silver in the dining room, humming a haunting tune. I’m sure there are more probably hidden away in one of his hundreds of rooms.
A dusty draft sends a chill down my neck.
That day in the break room, one of the girls said his home was outdated.
There’s nothing outdated about this place. Unfamiliar maybe, to the average person. Slightly depressing color scheme. But with its antiques and timeless finishes, it borders a fine line between past and present. It’s like a living museum—only I don’t know that a lot of actual living happens here.
Trey notoriously spends the majority of his waking hours in the office.
We round a corner, entering another unending hallway, this one with oil paintings lined along the walls, one after another, and dimmed crystal pendants hanging in three-foot intervals from the barrel ceiling.
I could fit my entire apartment in one of his halls.
We turn yet another corner, this time met with a set of switchback stairs … the left side going up, the other side going down.
“This way,” he says, pointing to the right.
Eight steps later, we reach a wide wooden door with a keycode lock. He punches in eight digits and waits for a chime before the door swings open.
“Welcome,” he says before turning to me, “to my sanctuary.”
To be completely honest, I thought he was taking me to his estate in an attempt to impress me—but now I’m confused.
“No one else has ever stepped foot in here besides me,” he says. “You’re the first.”
He closes the door behind us, and the lights automatically dim to a warm, rosy hue. A wall of pure Himalayan salt fills the opposite side of the room, and soft, tranquil music begins to pipe from hidden speakers. On the floor rests an arrangement of silk and satin pillows in deep variations of natural blues and earthen grays.
“Not what you were expecting,” he says, perceptive. “Which is exactly why I wanted to bring you here.”
A narrow man-made stream runs parallel to three of the four walls, the gentle water trickling over smooth river rocks. A soft breeze kisses my face, though I have no idea where it’s coming from.
It’s almost as if we’re on a tranquil island, away from the rest of the world.
“I mean … it’s certainly unique … not everyone has a meditation room in their house,” I say, glancing around to spot what other minor details I might have overlooked. I find a Buddha statue in the corner. A collection of unlit white candles. A cocktail of scented oils fill my lungs.
He has all the elements—earth, wind, fire, water.
“Most people expect to walk into my home and find lingerie dangling from light fixtures, tipped-over bottles of vodka …” he says.
“I didn’t expect that,” I say. “But I didn’t expect this either.”
He laughs under his breath. “You told me about your poetry, which I understand is a part of you that you don’t typically share with others. I thought I could do the same. No one knows what’s inside this room, not even my staff.”
I press my lips together, cheeks heated. “I feel like now would be a good time to tell you I was joking about writing poetry.”
He studies me.
I lift a palm. “I’m really sorry for lying, but in my defense I’d had a lot to drink and at the time, I thought it was hilarious.”
I manage a half-laugh out of him. “Then you got me.”
Head tilted, I erase the amusement from my expression. “Thank you for sharing this space with me though … I’m sure it wasn’t easy to do.”
“You said you had a difficult day last Friday,” he changes the subject. “This is where I go when I have days like that. These walls are soundproof. There’s no WiFi. The entire outside world does not exist the second I walk through that door. This is the only place I can come to escape, to feel grounded, to eliminate all that noise and just … merely exist.”
I don’t remind him that when you’re the richest man in the world, you can have rooms like this. Most of us buy a meditation app and count ourselves lucky if we remember to use it five minutes a day. Personally, I tend to buy a bottle of cheap wine from the drugstore and call it a night.
“My mother told me something once that I’ll never forget—she said if you’re ever struggling to ground yourself in the present moment, count to three,” he says. “But before you get to three … stop.” Trey gathers a breath, pausing. “That space between two and three? That’s where you need to be. That’s where you’ll find peace. That’s where you can just be.”
I bask in the profundity of his mother’s wisdom. And I’m speechless at the words coming from this brilliant titan’s lips while simultaneously filing them away in case I ever need them someday.
“I realize this isn’t the sexiest thing in the world and probably not the kind of thing people think about when they try to imagine who I am in my own home, but this is me.” He studies me, maybe waiting for a reaction.
But I don’t know how to react.
I’m still taking it all in.
“It’s beautiful,” I say, at a loss for better words. “And it makes sense why you’d need a space like this … you must feel the weight of the world on your shoulders sometimes with all your … endeavors.”
“This is true. Although one could argue I bear that weight by choice.”
“Do you?”
Our eyes connect. The tiniest spark of something hits my chest until I bury it deep. I don’t want to feel it. I’ve been down this road before. I know where it leads.
I know how it ends.
I’m taking the proverbial exit on the left.
“I enjoy staying busy,” he says. “And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a thing for control. It works. For me.”
I make my way to the silk cushions and take a seat, bringing my knees against my chest and peering around. It’s not like we’ll be going back to the office anytime soon, so I settle in.
Water trickles and the air has an earthy, fresh quality.
I could stay here forever, in this unadulterated serenity.
Trey takes the cushion beside me.
In this room, we’re just a couple of people having a conversation. I’m not the random girl from Payroll and he’s not the richest man in the world.
“A lot of people are intimidated by you,” I say.
“I know,” he says. “Are you?”
I was. Once. But the more time I’ve spent with him, the more I see him for what he really is—a man used to getting everything he wants.
I bite my lip. “You have a … presence.”
“I’d worry if I didn’t,” he says, “but you didn’t answer my question. I’m more interested in whether or not I intimidate you.”
“I try not to let anyone under my skin.” I don’t mention that day outside the break room, when I found myself at a loss for words the second he bump
ed into me. I also opt not to tell him that my heart was beating outside my chest the whole walk to his office the day he called me in. Fear is a powerful thing. Almost as powerful as him …
I always told myself if I ever ran into Trey Westcott, I’d be calm and collected. But until the day it happened, I hadn’t the slightest clue how hard that would be.
“Have you always been this way?” he asks.
“What way?”
“So guarded?”
I sniff. “I don’t think I’m that guarded. You got me here, didn’t you?”
I’ve become quite skilled at the Queen of Denial thing in my adult years, at answering questions with other questions so I can steer conversations.
His gaze drags over me. “Look at the way you’re sitting. Legs drawn in against your chest, arms wrapped around your knees. That’s a protective stance. You’re afraid of something.”
My arms ache from hugging my legs too tight. He isn’t wrong about the way I’m seated. I let go and stretch my legs out.
“Feel better?” he asks, hazel eyes glinting.
“Somewhat.” My shoulders ache with tension, as does my middle. I never know what’s going to come out of his mouth next, so my body instinctively braces itself around him.
“Take a deep breath,” he says. “And then let it all go.”
“So you’re a yoga guru?” I ask. I’m not meditating with him. I’m not going to let him make me malleable and pliable and drunk on relaxation. “In addition to all the other things you are?”
“What else am I?” His perfect dark brows angle in. My breath hitches. In daylight he’s a work of art, but in the soft light of this room, he’s stunning. If he were some random guy at a bar buying me a drink and looking for a hook-up, I’d probably go home with him, have a good time, and call a late-night Uber when it’s over.
But this is wildly different.
“CEO of everything …” I roll my eyes, teasing. Though it’s pretty much the truth. There’s hardly an industry he’s yet to conquer. He owns a little bit of everything, all over the world.
“Fair enough.” He doesn’t deny it.
His gaze lingers on me a while longer, and out of nowhere he rises, extending his hand toward mine.
“Shall we go?” he asks. “There’s something else I want to show you.”
I allow him to help me up, a jolt of invisible electricity sparking the instant our palms connect, and he leads me out of his sanctuary.
I let go once we’re in the hall. I don’t want to give him the wrong idea. Just because he’s opening up to me and giving me an up-close-and-personal tour of his intimate life doesn’t mean I’m going to magically change my mind about his offer.
Following Trey through hallways and down an additional set of stairs, we find ourselves outside his manse, following a bluestone path that leads to an iron gate accented with massive trimmed hedges easily a story tall. Once inside, the overwhelming scent of blooming roses surrounds me.
“This was my mother’s,” he says. “This is where she went to get away from it all. She pruned every bush by hand. Personally. No one else was allowed in.” He reaches for a tender pink bud, a late bloomer compared to the rest. “The gardeners have kept it exactly as she left it. We haven’t added or removed a single plant.”
I’m tempted to touch the soft petals of a nearby white rose, but I stop myself. Everything around me is sacred, and I want to respect that.
“So sweet of you to keep it all intact in her memory.”
I read a biography about his parents once, long before I worked for Westcott Corp. It was assigned reading in high school. My English teacher was obsessed with Edie and Pierce, their history, their love story, their tragic and untimely demise.
From what I remember, Trey was fifteen when they passed.
I was fifteen the first time my mother got sick. Without my father in the picture, I’d spent many nights lying awake in bed imagining what it would be like to be orphaned, like him. At least I had my sister, I always told myself. Together we’d figure it out.
Trey had no one except a staff of butlers and gardeners and caretakers.
He must have been so lonely …
I walk the gardens, the never-ending rose bushes creating a maze-like path akin to something out of The Secret Garden. For the tiniest sliver of a second, I picture children running through here. A little girl in a white dress. Giggling. Hiding. Squealing with joy when she’s found. But I quickly shake the thought away, carrying on along the path. From the corner of my eye, I spot Trey a few steps behind. Watching.
He thinks he’s making progress with me, I’m sure.
“Would you like to see more?” he asks when the path veers back to where we started.
I read once that the Westcott mansion has nearly two hundred rooms and nearly twenty-thousand square feet. A full tour would take days.
“You don’t have to do that,” I say. “I’m sure you’re anxious to get back to the office …”
“Clearly you don’t know me very well. When I give my time and attention to something, I give it fully. I’ve set aside this time for you, Sophie. I cleared my schedule for you.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel special?” I’m teasing. Sort of.
“You don’t need anyone to make you feel special,” he says as we walk toward one of the many doors on the back of the stone palace. “And you know this or you wouldn’t have turned down my offer.”
It’s more complicated than that.
“I don’t want to be married to someone I don’t love,” I say. “And I would never bring children into a loveless marriage. Not for all the money in the world. It’s not right.”
“Maybe you’re thinking of it all wrong. Maybe you should focus on all the good you could do with that money. Or the fact that the child would be loved by both parents, cared for the rest of its life in every way imaginable.”
“Would you love it?” I ask. “Knowing that it was nothing more than a component of a contract? Something you bought and paid for?”
He stops for a moment, turning to me, brows furrowed. “Of course I would love my own flesh and blood, Sophie. What kind of question is that?”
We step inside, greeted by a dark hall lined with dim sconces.
“I don’t understand why you can’t just find someone else,” I say. “You must have millions of prospects.”
“Dating is different for me. I can’t just swipe right on an app and meet someone for drinks and hope things will take off organically.”
“But have you ever tried?”
He laughs through his nose. “I’ve never used an app, but I’ve dated in the past.”
“And?”
“Preconceived notions tend to get in the way before any of it has a chance to evolve into something meaningful,” he says. “I realize this arrangement I’m proposing is as unromantic as it is unconventional, but at least I’m being upfront from the start. You know my expectations, what I want and what I need. And you know what you’ll be getting out of it. This way we can both avoid disappointment.”
He leads me to a room with soaring gold-leaf ceilings, a forest green billiards table, a marble chess set, and a wall of books two stories high.
He flicks on the lights. “I’m not buying your heart, Sophie. And I’m certainly not trying to sell you on mine.”
“Kind of seems like you are …”
“That’s only because you don’t know me … yet.” He turns to face me, pausing to drink me in. “Why don’t you stay the rest of the afternoon? Tonight we can have dinner. And after that, I’ll take you to the conservatory. There’s a meteor shower later and the view from up there is second to none.”
While he claims this isn’t about love or forming an everlasting connection, the evening he’s suggesting sounds like a date. I’m seconds from declining his offer when the words get stuck, lodged by curiosity.
“Why do you need a wife and kid anyway?” I ask. “What do you get out of it?”
Without hesitation, he says, “I’m in the process of procuring a rather large business deal and the seller insists on maintaining its family-operated business reputation. He won’t sell it to me unless I settle down. His words.”
“So none of this is because you’re secretly lonely and you want someone to share your life with?”
“Would it make a difference if I were?”
I contemplate my answer. At least he’s being honest—I think. There’s no way to tell when someone’s being real or fake, though I thought I knew the difference once upon a time.
“I guess not,” I say.
“So will you stay for dinner?”
Despite the lump in my throat and the voice in my head reminding me that my mind is already made up and all of this is a giant waste of time … I nod.
“Sure,” I say.
And against my better judgement, I stay.
Seventeen
Trey
Present
A blanket of stars shine through a pristine glass ceiling of the conservatory. I leave the lights off, of course, and take Sophie by the hand, leading her to the center of the room where my staff has prepared an arrangement of tufted floor pillows so we can lie on our backs and take in the spectacular show in the night sky.
“Make yourself comfortable,” I point to the cushions. “I’m going to check on that nightcap.”
I move to the corner of the room, lifting the phone from the receiver and calling down to the kitchen where I’m told our drinks are en route.
We shared a bottle of wine over dinner in the Field Room, a smaller, more intimate setting overlooking the magnolia gardens. For two hours, we discussed neutral topics: favorite vacation spots, film, and literature. Topics like politics and religion were avoided, as in good taste. Given her knowledge of a proper place setting, I got the sense she would flourish in some of the formal settings she’d be required to attend by my side. So far she’s checking all of my boxes and then some.
Our drinks arrive—bourbon for me and vodka soda with a wedge of lime for her.
“Tell me about your family, Sophie.” I hand her the tumbler and take the spot next to her. “What are they like?”
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