Page 15 of How to Fall for the Secret Billionaire
Outside the windshield, Everfield unfolds like something from a snow globe—minus the snow. Cobblestone streets. Maple leaves swirling in the breeze. White picket fences with pumpkins on the steps and mums in full bloom. I roll down the window slightly, and the scent hits me—woodsmoke, damp earth, something sweet like apples.
It’s… ridiculous. Beautiful. Painfully so.
I pass a sign that saysWelcome to Everfield – Est. 1832. And just like that, I’m in the heart of town.
Main Street feels like stepping into a vintage postcard. The red-brick buildings and Victorian storefronts are straight out of a movie set. Every café has a chalkboard sign out front; every window glows like it’s been lit just for the occasion. There’s aman playing a fiddle outside a wine bar, a couple walking hand-in-hand with hot cider, and a trio of kids chasing leaves down the sidewalk.
Church bells ring in the distance. Flags ripple from balconies. There’s even a candy shop with striped awnings and a carved wooden sign that saysPenny Whistle Sweets.
I’m not built for places like this.
But I can’t stop looking.
The GPS tells me to turn off Main Street, and I do. The hum of town life fades as the road twists into quieter terrain. Here, everything slows down. We’re talking quilted hills, wide open skies, and farmhouses that look like they’ve been there since Lincoln.
There’s a white barn-turned-event-space with fairy lights strung from its roofline. A gravel path disappears into a thicket of trees. I pass a small vineyard, a porch swing swaying lazily in the wind, and a homemade sign that saysPumpkins & Honeycrisp – Self-Servenext to a crate of apples and a tin cash box.
This isn’t just a change of pace. It’s a whole other world.
And then I see it.
The Key & Kettle Inn rises just ahead—three stories of cream clapboard siding, a wide wraparound porch with rocking chairs, and that name carved into a wooden sign swinging from an iron bracket. Exactly as it looked in the ad I saw.
Ivy curls around the porch posts, and pots of late-season blooms line the steps. Golden light spills from every window, like the place is glowing from the inside out.
It looks like a house that remembers your name. A place where stories begin. A place where you don’t check your phone every five minutes just to feel something.
I pull up the gravel driveway and park, hands still on the wheel, eyes fixed on the front door.
It’s here. I’m here.
And for the first time in months, something in me shifts.
Not relief. Not hope, exactly.
Just… stillness.
I don’t even know what to expect.
I stay in the car, staring at the porch like it might bite me.
Four days late. That’s how behind I am on this booking. I almost didn’t come at all.
That night in L.A., scrolling aimlessly through headlines and headaches, I’d clicked “Book Now” like it was a dare. A three-week stay at some wholesome, candlelit bed-and-breakfast in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t even think twice. But when the sun came up the next morning, so did the doubts.
In my quest for peace, was I really supposed to chase it all the way to some little town I found through an ad I almost skipped? A place I couldn’t even pronounce correctly the first time? A website full of smiling faces and fresh scones?
How was I so sure this place would fix anything?
What if it didn’t?
What if I hated it? What if the “quiet charm” just felt like isolation? What if the staff smiled too much, and I couldn’t sleep on the mattress?
And what if someone knew me?
That’s the real question. I’ve been a headline since I was twenty-six. My name’s been tossed around business blogs, financial magazines, tech panels, and gossip columns. Calvin Hale. CEO. Fintech Wunderkind. Famous “billionaire bachelor.” There’s no rule that says small-town people don’t read Vanguard Weekly. All it would take is one curious guest with decent Wi-Fi and a love for clickbait.
I decided then that I would not come. I already paid for the three-week booking, but I don’t mind; they can have the money. They probably need it.
