CHAPTER 8 Ford Bradley
A Kickass Wedding Venue
We win on Sunday, and Monday morning finds me sitting on an airplane with Tatum Barker occupying the seat beside me.
She’s wearing a black dress and black heels, while I’m in jeans and a Beasts shirt. She looks gorgeous and far too good to be seated beside me. I mean, considering she’s not mine, yeah…she is too good to be seated beside me.
I’m reviewing film on my tablet—which I’m currently holding since she asked if I could put my tray table down so she could have a little extra space.
Currently on my tray table are a water bottle, a cup of coffee, and five file folders with papers hanging out of them.
A handful of glitter highlighters sit on top of the folder, and I’ve already had to pick up several off the floor because they keep rolling off the tray table.
She picks up one color to use it, and when she sets it back, I have to grab it before it falls.
And despite all that, it’s somehow endearing.
She has a color for everything, and my eyes edge over to her as I try to make sense of it. Pink is for the bride. Blue is for the groom. Green is for anything to do with payments. Yellow is for vendors. She also has a red Sharpie that’s for urgent matters. All glitter, except for the Sharpie.
I glance over at her, and she’s blowing a breath upward to get her hair out of her face.
She tucks a strand behind her ear, which immediately comes untucked, and she glances at her wrist to find it empty before she starts rearranging everything on her tray table to get to her purse under the seat in front of her.
She fishes out a scrunchie and ties her hair on top of her head.
It’s adorably distracting, and I don’t get much of the film analyzed before we land.
I’m too spellbound by her.
I arranged for a driver while we’re in town, and he greets us at the bottom of the escalator near baggage claim. We didn’t bring luggage since this is a same-day-turnaround kind of trip. Our driver leads us to the car waiting on the curb outside.
It’s nearly an hour before we’re pulling up in front of the mansion, and I do manage to analyze a few plays on the way there. I hear a gasp beside me, and that’s when I see her leaning around me to get a better view of the mansion.
“God, I forgot how gorgeous this place is,” she murmurs, and I physically see a transformation take place in her eyes. She seems suddenly…excited.
I stare at the house, too, as I try to figure out what she’s thinking.
This mansion holds a lot of memories for us. A lot of history. It’s not just a part of my family, but she was a part of it, too.
The place where we shared that kiss I’ve never forgotten about.
I wish she remembered it, too. I wish she felt what I did when it happened. I wonder how that would have changed our lives if she had.
We get out of the car, and I walk up to the front gate. I tap in a code, and after it opens, I walk up the long sidewalk leading to the front door, ready to go in and assess the damage left behind.
But I find myself alone.
I turn around, and I see Tatum staring up at the front of the house. Her head is tilted as she studies it, and it’s my voice that seems to snap her out of her trance.
“You ready to go in?” I ask.
“Oh!” she says, and she rushes to my side. “Sorry. It’s just so iconic. Such a vibe, you know?”
I lift a shoulder. “Sure.”
She laughs as she smacks my bicep playfully, and we head inside as I brace myself.
The foyer looks…well, just like it always has. The entry to our home is huge, over six hundred square feet of wasted space, including a rotunda and white marble floors inlaid with gold veins.
“Hello?” I call out, curious if anyone’s here—sometimes a chef or a repair worker, oftentimes a housekeeper or other staff member.
No one answers.
I glance over at Tatum, whose eyes are wide.
“It’s like a fallen kingdom,” she murmurs.
I glance around as I try to see what she sees.
It looks the same to me. I walk through the entry and across the house. Everything looks like business as usual. Maybe Dad already sent someone in to clean up.
It’s not until I get to my father’s office that I sort of see what she’s talking about.
Drawers look like they’ve been upended.
Paperwork spills onto the floor, covering every surface, including the leather couch that lines one wall. Like he’d really be stupid enough to keep records of his illegal dealings here in the house. Maybe he was.
Maybe they found something, but the knocked-over lamp and broken artwork that once hung on the wall to the left of the desk tell a different story. They came, they searched, they couldn’t find what they were looking for, and they destroyed in frustration.
Another painting hangs crooked, and the perfectionist inside has me walking over to it. I straighten it, and that’s when I hear her soft gasp at the doorway.
“They made a mess,” Tatum murmurs.
I turn and nod. “Fallen kingdom,” I repeat. I walk over to the desk and gather some of the paperwork. It looks like files for the Bradley Group. It appears to be contracts for construction work, not anything to do with an illegal gambling ring.
Tatum helps, gathering papers off the couch. I can’t help but wonder what my father is doing right now. Has the arraignment happened yet? Is he still in jail? Should I go visit him?
I’ll hear from Liam. He’s going to the arraignment. He’ll let me know what bail is set at, and we’ll make the call to our financial advisors to move forward with dividing it by two and putting the money to cover it into a new account.
It takes a while to straighten the office, and we work in silence.
We walk through the dining room toward the kitchen, and she seems to be sizing the place up as I look in every corner to assess whether there’s any more damage or if his office took the brunt of it.
It could take a while to go through this entire place, and maybe it’s a job for someone else to handle.
I look around for anything and everything that might need to be fixed, painted, or otherwise dealt with before we list it. I’ll send a professional in to do the same to get the listing up as quickly as we can, but I’m glad I came to assess what needs to be done.
When we get to the kitchen, I glance at the space where the keg was all those years ago, when our lips met and then our tongues danced for the briefest of moments before we were forced apart.
Tatum nearly immediately lifts herself up onto the huge kitchen island countertop. She swings her legs for a beat as she sits there, and then she moves to a stand.
In her heels.
I move over and wrap my arms around her legs by her knees to steady her. It’s an automatic move on my part with no other intentions meant, but my hands are on her gorgeous, smooth legs, and my dick vibrantly and willfully jumps to attention.
She sets her hand on my shoulder. “I’m fine,” she assures me, but I don’t move.
“You’re in heels. I saw the way you couldn’t keep your highlighters on the tray table. I’m not taking any risks.”
She giggles.
“What the hell are you doing up there, anyway?”
She holds her hands out to indicate the space. “Picture this, Ford. We could knock down a few walls, separate the kitchen from the rest of the space, and fix it up a little, and this would be a freaking kickass wedding venue.”
“I’m sure it would be, Tate. But you know I’m here to list it. Do you have fifteen million lying around to stop me?” I ask.
She pushes my hands away and hops down as if she’s not wearing high heels.
“Come here,” she says, walking out of the kitchen.
She taps the wall of the dining room that separates it from the entry.
“We take down this wall.” She walks out of that room and toward the study on the other side of the entry.
“We take down this wall. We unify the flooring, of course, and we have this grand ballroom.” She nods to the other walls in the entry. “We open those up, too.”
“What about the staircase?” I ask, not because I’m on board with this plan but more out of genuine curiosity.
“A gorgeous backdrop for dreamy wedding photos or beautiful ceremonies. There’s, what, twelve or so thousand square feet of space on this floor, minus the kitchen?
That’s enough for three hundred guests or even more, depending how we set it up.
Upstairs could be bridal suites for the wedding party to get ready. Maybe an office.”
I can almost see her vision as I listen to the excitement in her tone.
“I see fairy lights and floral arches over here,” she says, pointing out the spaces. “And the backyard is a perfect backdrop for a spring wedding or for a photo backdrop any time of the year. It’s literally the perfect venue. We could do outdoor or indoor depending on the weather. Big or small.”
Jesus, she’s gorgeous when she’s impassioned and excited.
It doesn’t matter, though. Liam is depending on me to get our money back so we can continue to grow it with interest for ourselves rather than tying it up in the legal system. Neither of us wants to be out a million dollars or more.
“I’ve looked at other venues in the area, Ford,” she says. “I want a place here in Chicago. It’s home. And this mansion? This is home. Literally for you, but also for me. Nothing compares to this. Not even close.”
“I get it, but I’m sorry. I need to sell it.”
“Can we just talk to Madden? To get an estimate and see if it would even work? I’d want him on the project. No one would give this wonderful space the sort of care it deserves more than someone who grew up here, and I already have the vision. I just need to know what it would cost to execute it.”
“Fifteen million plus your construction fees,” I say flatly.
She presses her lips together and nods, disappointment written all over her expression.
“I get it. I don’t have that kind of money, and I know you need to unload it quickly.
I have some money in my trust fund, but it wouldn’t be enough.
I just…there has to be some solution. I feel more attached to it than I was expecting. Don’t you?”
I glance toward the kitchen again.
The kiss. The memories. The history.
Maybe I’m a little more attached than I was expecting to be.
It’s an incredible place, but home is wherever you make it, and that’s Tampa now—far away from the father committing crimes, the mother who saw her seven children as more of a burden than a blessing, and the six siblings who send the occasional group message to each other and everyone replies except for Archer.
“Even if I did feel attached, it wouldn’t matter,” I say. “My dad put it in my name because he knew I’d know what to do with it when the time came. The time has come.”
Her chin tilts down as she frowns a little. “Can you just make me a promise?”
My eyes meet hers, and she’s got me. Of course I can make her a promise.
“Don’t sell it without helping me explore all the options first. Okay? I just think you’ll regret it if you pawn it off the second you have the chance to. I want to preserve this place in a way that could give hope and joy instead of this fallen kingdom we see now.”
I press my lips together and nod. “We’ll explore the options.”
I say the words because she asked me to. But then I continue working my way through the house to figure out what needs to be done so I can get this house on the market.