"To work in. Not to sleep in. Doctor's orders, remember?"
"Of course," I laugh, tightening my grasp on his arms. "I really do love it. Do you?"
"Yeah. It's perfect. Not too far from my family either. Asher's house is only about twenty minutes away, and Lukas is about fifteen minutes away. Everyone else, less than forty minutes."
"Even better." I have no idea how far away it is from my apartment, and I don't even care. This is the kind of home I've always fantasized about living in.
"Do you want it?" he asks softly. "Could you be happy here?"
I jump a little from excitement. "Talon! Of course I will be. This is like a dream. Is it too much money?"
He shakes his head. "No, actually it's the cheapest one on the list. And stop worrying about money. Let's go tell Sandra this is the one."
"Oh my God!" I squeal. "I can't believe this!" I hug him tightly, and he lifts me off my feet for a second. "Thank you so much," I say into his neck. "You have no idea how much this means to me."
We find Sandra waiting for us in the kitchen, where she's looking over her folder of papers and other listings.
"We'd like to make an offer."
She looks up at us in surprise. "We have more to see. Don't you want to see the others first? This one is the smallest and doesn't have a pool. The next two have more square footage, pools, and are closer to town."
"This is the one my girl wants, so no need to see the others." My heart skips a beat when he says my girl. Sometimes he really can say the most charming things.
Sandra closes up her folder with a big smile. "Okay, then. It's a beautiful home, I agree. The owners are not currently living here. They had it built as a vacation home but rarely had the time to stay, so they are open to you renting it until the close can be completed, which could happen very quickly. They are also including all window and floor treatments and will entertain offers for all of the furniture, except the bedroom sets. If you'd like, we can go back to my office now to draw up all the paperwork and contact their agent. If all goes well, you could be moved in pretty quickly."
"Perfect," Talon says. "We'll follow you to your office, then."
As we pull out of the driveway, I look back at the house wistfully, wishing we could stay here right now, sit on that porch and look at the view forever. My hand clutches Talon's tightly during the drive to the Realtor's office, afraid if I let him go, everything will disappear.
Everything that's happening is overwhelming, and I don't want to confuse these material things with actual feelings. Of course the house has made me incredibly happy, but I want us to have those same feelings of excitement for each other, because that's what matters to me the most. I don't want to get all caught up in the Cinderella syndrome.
Chapter 16
Asia
I go through the next week in a sort of surreal daze. I am now living in a beautiful home my new husband bought for us that cost three hundred thousand dollars. Then he spent another hundred thousand dollars on work-out equipment so he could turn part of the basement into a gym. Sitting in our driveway is his monster truck, and in the three-car garage is a BMW, a brand-new four-wheel-drive BMW SUV he bought for me, and his two motorcycles.