13. Callie #2
“Oh!” I gasp, spinning so quickly I almost give myself a head rush. “Could you make this window an opening into another living area, maybe a more informal one compared to the front? And then put an outdoor space off that for the kitchen to also look into?”
“That’s definitely a possibility.” He comes to stand beside me as we both look out the back window. “I didn’t realise you had such an interest in design.”
I walk along the edges of the room, peering out of every window.
“I just like learning in general. It was fun following projects when I worked for Lee. Seeing all the concept plans and the before and after photos.” As a young girl growing up in a disjointed family, I also spent a lot of time dreaming of what home looked like.
Mason nods in understanding. “Whenever we do projects, it doesn’t feel like much when you do the day-to-day stuff, but when you get to the end and realise just how much has changed compared to where you started, there’s this sense of pride and achievement. I’ve always loved building.”
“How come you and your siblings don’t work at the mining company your grandmother owns?”
“We do, kind of. We each have shares and attend monthly meetings, but my Grams and my parents still do a lot of the day-to-day operating. Grams didn’t want us to feel obligated to follow her.
She just wanted us to do what made us happy.
I think Caleb will take over when Mum and Dad are ready to step away.
He’s got the best brain for business anyway, and he enjoys it. ”
“Your family seems wonderful.”
“Is yours not?”
“My brothers are amazing,” I say on an exhale I push deep from my chest. “Honestly, I have the best big brothers a girl could ask for.”
“And your parents?”
“They did their best,” I say, as we complete the loop of the first floor and end back at the front by the staircase.
When we reach the top of the staircase, there’s a large room to the right, and two smaller rooms and a bathroom to the left.
“Hmmm, three bedrooms and only one bathroom,” Mason says.
“How many bedrooms does one guy need?”
“I plan on filling them eventually.”
My heart thumps so wildly, it’s beating like a drum. “Really?”
“Do I strike you as a guy who doesn’t want kids?” He chuckles.
The memory of him holding his niece last weekend is cemented in my mind. I’ve always been weak for a man with a baby. It softens them in a way nothing else can. There’s something so endearing yet protective about it.
“You seem so… unattached for that.”
“You calling me a player?” He laughs.
“Are you denying it?” I smile back.
“Maybe I’m just doing my homework. When the future Mrs Heart comes along, I want to know how to give her everything.”
Tingles stretch from my toes, up my legs.
I hurry past him, head down to hide the blush as I reach a door at the end of the hall, probably a storage closet.
The acknowledgement that he’s thought about kids and marriage is entirely unexpected.
I had him pegged as the eternal playboy, not this alternate version that is already looking for a house for his future family. Have I had him wrong this whole time?
I pull the door open, and light pours down a second set of stairs. “What’s this? An attic?”
“I don’t know.” The heat of Mason’s chest meets my back. The sensation penetrates my skin as the mint and patchouli from his cologne dance in the air around me.
His palm nudges at my lower back, urging me up the steps.
I falter over the first two, my belly hopping in the same dance as my feet.
When Mason chuckles, I stop, glaring playfully over my shoulder.
Our faces are so close together like this.
I breathe in the gasp he lets out, and while I’m momentarily caught off guard, in the end, I move forward with a little more confidence, because I know I affect him too.
I shouldn’t.
We shouldn’t.
As long as it doesn’t go further, then everything will be fine.
Our questions are answered as soon as we reach the top of the staircase.
This isn’t just an attic; it could be another bedroom, or an office, a hobby space, but to reduce it to storage space would be a travesty.
The staircase comes up in the middle of the room.
Dormer windows sit in pairs on every wall.
There’s a desk on the narrowest side, boxes and trunks stacked up in one corner, and a beautiful, free-standing wardrobe with intricate floral motifs carved into the wood.
Then there’s the icing on the cake: a small second staircase that leads up into what I’m deeming the princess tower.
I can’t stop my feet from crossing the room, my hand landing on the railing with a hesitant touch. Flecks of timber break away with every step up until I’m standing at the top of the tower. 360-degree windows show off the entire property.
“This is like Romeo and Juliet.” I can’t help the breathless squeeze that my words become in my excitement. I’m practically swooning… over architecture, of all things.
“They were a balcony, if I’m not mistaken.” Mason’s heavy feet punctuate every stair with purpose.
“Are you a secret romance fan?” I smile over my shoulder, fiddling with a set of keys in the window lock. There’s a spare key on the ring that looks far too ornate for a window. “Movies or books?”
“Movies,” he says, the deep rumble of his voice travelling down my spine.
“Do you have a favourite?”
“Pretty Woman.” He answers without hesitation. “He’s a billionaire that drives a Lotus, very relatable.”
“You drive a monster truck.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, but I have a Ferrari and Bugatti at home.”
“Of course you do.”
He turns away, a slight glimmer in his eyes as he retreats down the short staircase.
“Well, I’m quite certain it would be a mistake to pass up a house with a princess tower,” I say, joining him at the bottom of the stairs.
“Princess? It’s a king’s tower.”