face.
“After I take a nap, I am going to have Apollo give me a tour.” I had gone from the excitement of hanging out with Meg and Indiana, to the low and despair of finding out Grit was dead, to now being thrown into a mansion with the guy who was responsible for Grit’s death. Talk about a whirlwind day.
“I will give you a tour when you want one.”
I moved up the steps and stood on the one next to him. “I thought you won’t have time to bother with me?”
“That’s not what I said.”
I rolled my eyes. “Pretty darn close to what you said.”
“I said I won’t have time to bother you. Not that I won’t have time to bother with you.”
I reached out and pressed my hand to Marco’s shoulder. “You sure do know how to split a hair, Marco.”
He looked at my hand and then back up at me. “When I speak, I know what I say and what I mean. If I don’t, I don’t speak.”
I dropped my hand. “Well, I guess that’s good, right?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?”
I shrugged and moved up the stairs. I had wanted Marco to lead, but I figured I would find my own way. “I don’t know. I guess sometimes it’s good to just speak what you’re feeling and not have to analyze it. Do you really say what you mean all of the time, or are you saying what you think is right?”
I reached the top of the steps and looked each way down the hallway. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to figure out where I was going after all.
“This way,” Marco called. He turned right and headed down the hallway.
“How many rooms do you have here?” I asked. We passed three closed doors, and it seemed like the hallway went on forever.
“I don’t know.” Marco glanced over his shoulder at me. “Maybe you can count them if you get bored.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is that was the rich do? They count their bedrooms because they have so many that they can’t remember?”
Marco stopped in front of a door. “I don’t. I have you to do it for me.” He twisted the knob and pushed it open. “This is your first option.”
I stepped in the room and spun in a slow circle. “Wow,” I whispered. “This is bigger than my whole apartment in Destin.”
“You lived in a hellhole with a slum landlord,” he murmured.
“You’re not wrong on either of those.” After Marco had rescued me from the Meeks, he had agreed to go to my apartment to get my things before heading to Rockton. The instant we had stepped inside my apartment, I knew I had made a horrible mistake. Marco had looked at what I thought was a decent place to live and couldn’t wipe the scowl off his face. “This place is definitely more your speed, Marco.”
The room was huge, just like the rest of the house. The carpet was a plush, pillowy smoke gray while the walls were painted a crisp white. The king size bed on the opposite wall was covered in a pitch black comforter and a mountain of black and gray pillows. A larger, oak dresser was pressed against the wall with a matching vanity between it and a closed door. “What’s in there?” I asked.
“Either the bathroom or closet.”
I glanced at Marco. “You don’t know?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t been in here much.”
“This is your house and you don’t know how many rooms it has or where the doors lead?”
Marco shrugged. “It’s not just my house. It belongs to the Banachi name.”
“I don’t even know what that means. So anyone with the last name Banachi can live here?” What the hell kind of nonsense was that? I could tell you right now, if my last name was Banachi, I would stake my claim here and never leave.
“More or less.”
I walked over to the bed and ran my fingertips over the black comforter. “You live a life I don’t even know where to begin understanding. Private planes, fancy cars, huge mansions that belong to, well, a name.”
“It is what it is.” He cleared his throat. “Do you want to go to the next room?”
The comforter was so soft, and it called to me to lay down. “Uh, are they all like this?”
“I don’t know, Royal. You can pick whichever suits you.”
I sighed and felt a wave of exhaustion hit me. “I just need a bed, Marco. This one will be fine.”
“Are