Page 10 of Beauty and the Billionaire

The door of a large black SUV opened as I approached it, and tightness squeezed my chest hard as I reached for the handle to open it wider.

Dominic Blackthorne sat comfortably on the far side, an armrest lowered between the large seats, and I climbed into the car. The air was filled with that unique scent of pine and fresh snow. It tickled its way through my nostrils and into my lungs.

“We can go, Orwell,” Dominic said once I shut the door.

The SUV glided smoothly along the road. Dominic didn’t look at me. He didn’t even acknowledge me, so I gazed out of the window at the passing buildings. One of them was Mama Viv’s Neon Nights, where I had delivered fresh vegetables just this morning, thinking I would stop by tomorrow again. I wouldn’t. Ihad made a big, rash decision, and it very well could have been wrong.

But excitement glimmered in me like fireworks.

I had never made a big decision before. And I had never been rash. My pulse sped as I settled into the comfortable seat and let the silence wrap itself around us. Nobody spoke a word as we made our way to Harringford Manor.

CHAPTER 3

Harringford Manor

Zain

The journey tookclose to two hours. The SUV ate up the miles once we left the city behind, heading north to Rhinebeck on the State Thruway. We turned away from the town and headed east into the hills, leaving the Hudson River behind us.

I looked back at the river. It was a silly thought, but losing sight of it severed the last connection to my home. The river was so close to our shop that there was rarely a day I didn’t walk along its eastern bank. Here, much further north, I imagined tossing a message in a bottle that would eventually reach Hudson Burrow, my family, the friends I never truly let be my friends, even when they offered.

The road narrowed as we left the populated part of the land behind us.

Dominic never once looked up from the screen of his slim, elegant laptop. He typed, clicked, and gritted his teeth audibly but never said a word. Not that he owed me a conversation. I imagined he would send me to a butler or gardener or cook as soon as we were at the house.

Occasionally, I checked the maps on my phone to see where we were. And when we turned onto Cedar Heights Road, a narrow road with no sidewalks or even space for two cars to pass one another comfortably, what surrounded us was pure nature. The windswept hills were still vibrant and green, although the trees were bare, and the brown, orange, and red leaves were piled beneath them. Winter was well on its way to these wet and foggy lands.

Even before we reached it, I spotted what was unmistakably Harringford Manor on the satellite view. Within a few minutes, the SUV abandoned Cedar Heights Road and glided up a cobblestone driveway to iron-wrought gates. The gates opened automatically, and I spotted the long limestone wall extending from the gates, ivy covering most of it like some abandoned fantasy castle. Once we were on Dominic’s estate, the gates slowly shut behind us, and the cobblestone path snaked toward the hilltop, where his mansion dominated the view.

It was a sprawling Beaux-Arts mansion with a limestone exterior, countless arched windows, a slate roof adorned with dormer windows, and copper-topped turrets. The facade was decorated with intricate stone carvings, and the elevated first-story entrance was flanked by grand columns towering at the top of long stone stairs. A marble fountain of carved mythological sea creatures didn’t pump water, but it stood out in front of the main stairs.

The SUV slowed down once it rounded the fountain.

“You will go with Orwell,” Dominic informed me.

“Of course,” I said, my voice airy. My eyes were wide as I gazed out at the sprawling landscape. The limewashed structure was imposing by all means, but I grew up surrounded by skyscrapers. The true thing of beauty was the lawn that extended seemingly forever. Trim bushes, hedges, and flower beds werescattered around the land, and a thick forest lay in the distance as well as behind the mansion.

Dominic Blackthorne got out of the car and likely out of most of my daily life. While I was to stay at his house, with unspecified rules for an unspecified amount of time—not to mention the lack of details about the work I would do—I had no expectations of seeing him unless I screwed up miserably.

The SUV glided along the bumpy cobblestones and around the house. In the back, there were garages. No doubt, each housed a luxury car in Dominic’s private collection. The visceral dislike it provoked in my body was instant, but it was tinged with something else. Something I couldn’t name or recognize. This other feeling had been present since he first entered our little store. It wasn’t fear; I was well enough afraid of Dominic that I knew this sliver of a sensation had nothing to do with it. This was different, but it was just as disconcerting.

Orwell killed the engine once he parked the SUV inside the garage, and I hopped out. The walls were close to the SUV on all sides, and tools for maintenance were sorted neatly all around. I was suddenly very curious about taking a look at the other garages, but it was a boyish urge I suppressed instantly.

“This way, sir,” Orwell said as he walked out of the garage.

“Um, Zain is alright,” I said.

Orwell nodded. “If you’re sure. Zain.” He turned away from me, a slight expression of surprise still on his face, and led the way to the back entrance. As we climbed down to the basement level, I had a very vivid thought of Edwardian England.What the hell am I supposed to do here?Luckily, Orwell didn’t wear the full livery of a British manservant but a very nicely tailored pair of black pants, a crisp light blue shirt, and a suit jacket he carried over his arm. We were, I reminded myself, still in the twenty-first century.

The inside of the basement failed to reassure me of that fleeting thought. It looked like a dining room for servants, long out of use. The house, which must have been built toward the end of the Gilded Age, was fit for a museum. We passed through the basement quarters and climbed the stairs twice before a door led us into the grandest hallway I had ever seen.

“The East Wing,” Orwell said softly. “This is where your apartment will be.”

Once he shut the door, the wall panel clicked into place as if it had never been there. It reminded me of a fantasy portal opening out of thin air and closing when our heroes are in the greatest peril.

The wall panels were made of dark brown wood along the lower third and bloodred along the upper two-thirds. My right side was lined with doors, while on my left side, the wall was filled with paintings of people long gone. We walked until we reached the middle of the lengthy hallway, and a grand staircase opened to my left, then a long balustrade for those wishing to observe the entrance from above, and yet another staircase after that.

Orwell didn’t lead me there but opened the door that faced the nearer stairs, leading me into a huge bedroom. It was, like all else in this haunted place, frozen in time. The door opened to a sitting area. A small coffee table was straight ahead, flanked by mirrored sofas and armchairs. There was a reading chair pushed into the far left corner, and a vintage floor lamp rose high and curved over the chair, with a footstool positioned right in front. A blanket was draped over one armrest of the reading chair. To the right of the chair was a desk with plenty of natural light pouring through the tall, arched windows and an office chair of a more modern design. Then, the bed. Two nightstands flanked it, and a vast, silk canopy hung over it. Silk drapes were tied to the bedposts. The linens were not as vintage as the rest ofthe furniture, crisp and dark with floral patterns; they seemed brand-new, and the lavender fabric softener was strong in the room. To my immediate right was a dresser, followed by a door to the right of the nightstand.

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