Page 25 of Old Money

There are also people in every corner of this level, setting up other decorations, lights, and gifts. A woman in heels, a tight pencil skirt, and an even tighter sweater walks through one of the doorways, carrying a clipboard and a radio. She’s making commands through it, but when she sees us, she freezes.

“Julian!” she says, tucking the clipboard under her arm and click-clacking faster across the porcelain in our direction. She has long, curly blonde hair that hangs around her breasts, and I can smell her perfume from a mile away. She swiftly drapes her arms around his neck, holding him tight for an awkwardly long hug, and it’s the first time he’s let go of me since we stepped inside.

“Ella,” he says, “how are you?”

They come apart, and I feel her eyes dart to me again and again as they catch up. I can’t tell if she wants him to introduce us or if she wants him to pretend I don’t exist.

“How are things coming?” he asks her.

“Great!” she says, holding her arms out. “We’re ahead of schedule. Should be done in plenty of time for the holiday tours to start.”

“Wonderful. Looking great as always,” he says. She smiles as she looks back at me one more time.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Ella asks, looking back to him.

“No, thanks,” he says, reaching an arm back and wrapping it around me, scooting me up closer to him. Without any further explanation, we nod goodbye and walk through the main doorway.

I’m not sure how to feel about the interaction. It shouldn’t be shocking that other women want him—he’s an insanely gorgeous man who comes from American royalty.

But it doesn’t mean I have to like it.

And I’m not sure how to feel about him not introducing me. Does that mean something? Nothing? Anything?

I shake it off as he leads me to a long hall.

“Aren’t you supposed to be, like, telling me about the place?” I ask after a few more minutes of silence. I decide to stop myself from asking about Ella. He smiles.

“Sorry, I’m slacking,” he says. “What do you want to know?”

I look up at him.

“Everything.”

We turn down another corridor that’s lined with massive windows that face a perfectly manicured courtyard.

“Well, my great-grandfather started construction on this place in 1886, after the oil boom. It took twenty-six years to actually finish the first phase. The west wing wasn’t added until my grandfather had it built after World War II,” he says. We walk farther, and I feel him get closer to me, his hand brushing against my back as he leads me farther down. “These rooms here were originally guest suites for diplomats, business partners, other rich assholes my great-grandfather was trying to impress. They were later converted into event rooms for weddings and mitzvahs, things like that.”

I smile as I watch him. I stop moving and tug at his hand.

“This is all really cool,” I say, “but tell me the things I can’t find on Google.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Give meyourtour, Julian.”

The corners of his lips turn up as he narrows his brown eyes at me. Then he nods and reaches for my hand again.

“Alright,” he says, “this way.” He leads me to the end of the hallway and opens up a huge door that spills us out into some other corridor. We walk a few yards down before a staircase appears to our left. It’s chained off with a sign that reads,No visitors beyond this point. He steps over it and holds his hand out for me to do the same.

We walk up the huge staircase and to another set of huge doors. There’s another one of those keypad things, and he types in a code and puts his hand on it like Russ did outside. It scans his palm then unlocks, and he opens it.

“You won’t find this on Google,” he says with a smile.

“Where are we?” I ask him.

“This is the east wing,” he says. “After we opened the house to the public in the seventies, my grandfather kept this portion untouched. It was reserved for the family. It has a private entrance from outside, so we could come and go as we pleased without interrupting the tours or being seen by anyone. Now, hardly anyone uses it—just my brothers and I occasionally.” We walk through another long corridor that opens up to a huge sitting room with a large stone fireplace and four big couches. There’s a huge wooden dining room table at the far end of the room, which must have at least thirty chairs around it, with a massive antler chandelier hanging above it. “There’s a full chef’s kitchen back there, and then all of our suites are down this hall.”

“You each have your own suite?” I ask. He nods.

“My parents, my aunt and uncle, and then each of us six grandkids had our own: me, my two brothers, and our three cousins. Then on the other side”—he points down the other end of the hall—“are five guest suites. We’d do every holiday here when we were kids.”

“I bet that was like magic,” I say, spinning around as I take everything in. I want to keep my composure, but this is really fucking cool. “Where’s your suite?”

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