was such a mess. Maybe if she’d gotten more than four hours of nonconsecutive sleep she’d be able to think.
They arrived at the Realtor’s office, and she came out to greet them. “Hi! I’m Sherry!” the woman said in a way-too-bright voice. Leona winced. It was still far too early for this level of enthusiasm. “I don’t want you to have to unstrap that little cutie so we’ll just head out, okay?”
“That’s fine,” Byron said. “We’ll follow you?”
“Sure!” Sherry said with a blindingly white smile.
Leona turned to Byron. “What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.” He gave her a sly grin. “Just that I was a Beaumont and I expected a high level of service. That’s all.”
“Oh, Lord,” Leona muttered, following Sherry’s car out of the parking lot. “Let the upselling begin.”
Byron chuckled.
They drove into Littleton, which was not a town that Leona had spent a lot of time in. Her family lived in Cherry Hills in an old mansion behind a gated fence.
Although Littleton looked like a nicer place than the section of Aurora where she and May lived, it didn’t come close to Cherry Hills. At least, not until the Realtor made a couple of turns and May found herself driving past a country club. “Byron?” she asked. “I thought you were just going to get us an apartment or something.”
“Or something,” he agreed as the Realtor pulled into the driveway of a truly stunning house. From the outside, it looked as if it was maybe half the size of her family’s mansion—and easily five times the size of her current apartment, if not more.
Leona opened her car door and gaped. The house was built to look like a log cabin, but this was no primitive home. The red tile roof gleamed in the morning sunlight and the foundation plantings were lush—obviously well watered despite the lingering drought conditions.
“Here we are!” said Sherry with an even bigger smile.
“How much?” Leona demanded.
Sherry blinked and said, “It’s $1.3 million, but it’s been on the market for a few months so I think there’s negotiating room.”
“No.”
Sherry’s megawatt smile faltered. “I’m sorry?”
“No,” Leona said, ignoring the Realtor and turning back to Byron, who had the nerve to look innocent. “This was supposed to be a temporary thing, a three-bedroom apartment—not a—” She turned back to Sherry. “How many square feet?”
“Nine thousand, if you account for the maid’s room over the garage.”
Nine thousand square feet of luxury. Not a cozy little apartment. This place had a maid’s room, for God’s sake. This felt wrong. Everything about it was off. She’d spent the past year scrimping and scraping. She didn’t want this situation to even suggest that she could be bought—that her affection was for sale. That’s what her father would do if he admitted he’d screwed up. He’d throw an insanely expensive gift at her and expect that to make everything okay.
Well, this was not okay. Her affection could not be bought and that was final. Yes, she wanted stability for Percy but this was so far beyond stable that it wasn’t funny. “No, Byron. This isn’t what we agreed on.”
She started to get back in the car, but Percy began to fuss and before she could do anything, Byron had the back door open and was unbuckling the baby. “You want out? This place has a swing set in the back,” he told the boy. “And a big lawn where you can run around and we could even get a puppy! Would you like a puppy, Percy?”
Percy squealed in delight, although Leona was sure he didn’t really grasp what puppy meant. She glared at Byron. What the hell was he trying to do here—bribe a six-month-old?
“Come on, little man,” Byron said. He shut the back door and walked to the front of the car. “Let’s wait for Mommy.”
Leona had several choice things she wanted to say, but Percy squealed and clapped his hands and he looked...happy. She was stuck in a very real way. She couldn’t drive off without her son—but she didn’t like this bait and switch. It felt as though Byron was steamrollering her and she didn’t like it. If she wanted to be steamrollered, she’d go home and her father would be happy to run roughshod all over her.
“We’re only looking,” Byron said. He turned to Sherry, who was not wearing any kind of smile at all. “We have other places to look at that are at other price points, correct?”
“Yes!” Sherry replied enthusiastically.
Byron leaned down and kissed the top of Percy’s head while he kept his eyes fastened on hers.
“Fine. But I don’t have to like it,” Leona snapped as she got out of the car.
“Duly noted. I want to see the kitchen.”
Sherry unlocked the house and led them inside. The place had a grand feeling to it, but it wasn’t the same sort of cold, sterile feeling Leona’s parents’ mansion had given her—or, for that matter, that the Beaumont Mansion had given her, kitchen notwithstanding. Instead of severe colors and harsh lighting designed to make everything look as expensive as possible, this entryway was filled with the warmth of the early-morning sun.
“Oh,” she couldn’t help but whisper.
“Beautiful,” Byron agreed. “Which way’s the kitchen?”
Sherry went on and on about the specifications of the house—the number of bedrooms and bathrooms and the view and so on. All Leona could do was trail along behind them, trying to take in the magnitude of the place.
She hadn’t allowed herself to be disappointed with her apartment because she’d been desperate and only had so much money. It was the best she could do on short notice and, for that, she was grateful for it.
But for the first time in a year, she allowed herself to think about living in a place that was above good-enough. Byron spent twenty minutes in the kitchen, examining the appliances and discussing a “work triangle” with the Realtor, who was back to full-on perkiness. While they talked, Leona held Percy and they walked through the living room again. Wide French doors opened onto a tree-lined yard. And, as Byron had promised, there was a swing set—although this was closer to the equipment one would find in a park.
They toured the four bedrooms, including a master suite that had a huge whirlpool tub, and then they looked at the office. “This would be yours,” Byron said in a low voice as he opened the door for her.
Leona couldn’t help but gasp. The room was mostly windows and looked out onto the green expanse of the golf course. Behind that, the mountains broke rank and raced up to the sky. The morning light gleamed deep purple off the mountains’ sides. There wasn’t a parking lot or Dumpster in sight.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.
“I thought that, if you ever quit working for that Fish guy—”
“Lutefisk,” she corrected, staring at the built-in bookcases
