Page 35 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

ChapterThirty

Hollyn

W e make the turn down the long laneway, and my mind ticks over. The trees have grown bigger and obscured the house more, but I’d know this place anywhere.

“You know who lives here?” I ask, wondering if he remembers.

“No one lives here,” he says. “I know who owns it, and it’s empty. Or emptyish—it has some furniture.”

At the gate, he rolls down his window to punch in a code.

“This is so fancy,” Kinsley says, even though she’s been to the royal palace with Brice and Maren and she understands what fancy really is now.

“I’ll hire security to patrol the property,” Nate says.

“I’ll pay for that,” I say.

“We can discuss payment,” he says, and his gaze sweeps over me in a way that suggests my payment plan won’t be in money.

As soon as we get close to the circular drive, my breath catches.

It’s a two-story white colonial house with wraparound balconies on the first and second floors.

It overlooks the ocean, and Nate and I used to drive past it in his boat when we were kids.

It was my dream house, the place I coveted most out of anywhere on the island.

It’s also, probably, ten thousand square feet of living space, which, now that I’m older, I understand is more than two people could ever need.

Kinsley and I survived on little more than six hundred square feet in our New York apartment.

“This is probably too much,” I say, my voice hushed. “Can they rent out the rest of it to someone else?”

“There’s no need,” Nate says. “It’s just sitting empty anyway.”

At the front door, he parks the car, and when I climb out, I cling to the edge of the car door, completely in awe that I’m going to be living in the house of my dreams. Life is wild sometimes.

“We’re going to live here?” Kinsley says with a laugh of disbelief. “I’m never going back to New York.”

“Yes, you will,” I say, my tone sharp. After our parents just threatened us, we can’t stay. Even before that, I didn’t want their influence creeping into Kinsley’s life.

“Let’s take a look around,” Nate says, ever the peacemaker. “I can arrange to have someone pack up your essentials from the apartment, or I can have security accompany you. Owen can handle it.”

I want to tell him that he’s taking my parents too seriously. They wouldn’t really hurt their children, but my mother has hurt me far too many times in far too many ways for me to ignore her warning. While Nate’s suggestions might seem extreme, I’m not going to turn them down.

Nate uses a code to unlock the double front doors, and when they swing back, I’m stunned by the grandeur. The ceilings are incredibly high, and the artwork that’s still on the walls is modern and, strangely, almost exactly what I’d expect to see.

I’ve been to a lot of nice apartments and houses in New York, and when Nate and I were together, we were in quite a few beautiful places. Almost every one of his friends lived in what I would have considered a palace.

But stepping in the doors to this place feels like coming home, and it’s the strangest sensation—as though the house has been waiting for me.

Kinsley has been let loose, and she calls out comments from different rooms, deep in the house. I’m still grappling with this overwhelming feeling in my chest, like I want to cry, but I wouldn’t be able to articulate why.

“What do you think?” Nate asks, hands in his pockets.

My throat is tight, so rather than answering him, I move past the grand entrance and into the bones of the house. The ceilings are high throughout, and the décor is neutral, as though the place might be mostly abandoned but it hasn’t been allowed to become outdated.

The back of the house is a gigantic open-plan kitchen, living, and dining room.

Views of the ocean are visible through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

I open one of the sliding doors and step out onto the bottom level of the wraparound porch, and I gulp in the salty sea air.

My equilibrium is wobbly, as though I’ve put a rip in the space-time continuum by being here.

“I saw this place so many times from the water…” I say to Nate, not turning around. He’s been quietly following me, watching me in silence since we got here. “That it feels like I already know this house. Isn’t that weird?”

“Maybe you were meant to be here,” he says.

It does feel that way, which I’m not saying out loud.

“You said I’d be happy,” I say with a little laugh.

“I said you’d love it,” he says, as though it’s not the same thing. “Living here will make you happy?”

“It’s incredible, Nate,” I say, turning toward him. “I honestly can’t believe this is happening.”

“Knock knock,” Maren calls from the front entranceway. “I thought you were worried about security. The front door is wide-open. Jag, Brice’s security guard, came with me just in case.”

Maren appears on the porch, an imposing guy following behind her.

“Want me to talk to Owen?” the guy who must be Jag says to Nate.

“Please,” Nate says with a nod. “We need someone here consistently, and I’d like a tail on both Kinsley and Hollyn.”

Again, I feel the urge to protest, but I keep my mouth shut. I’m not taking any risks with Kinsley’s life, and I already know Nate won’t let me take any risks with mine.

“I’ll get that set up for you,” Jag says, nodding at Maren. “I’ll be out front.”

“I figure if Kinsley’s not in school, you two have a lot to sort out. I can take her off your hands for the day. She’ll be safe at the palace, and I’ve got Jag.” Maren glances around. “Where is Kinsley?”

“Warming up with a run through the house,” Nate says, glancing behind him. “Every once in a while, she calls, ‘Marco,’ and we pretend to mutter, ‘Polo,’ so she doesn’t get lost.”

Maren and I both laugh at Nate’s dry wit. He’s so rarely let me see it since I returned to the island. It feels like we’re both sinking back into the people we once were, which is dangerous for so many reasons.

“I love this house,” Maren says, staring out at the sea beside me. “Nate, I never understood—”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Nate asks.

“I never understood,” Maren says, giving him a pointed look, “why you lived in Tucker’s Town at the boring family apartment when you could have lived out here.”

“Lived out here?” I say with a little laugh. “Was it for sale?”

“Yes,” Maren says, and I can see Nate running a hand through his hair in frustration behind her. “Ten years ago. When he bought it.”

“You own this?” I say, unable to hide my surprise.

“It was a good deal,” he says, and he’s closed up again, as though admitting anything else is too much.

“A good deal,” Maren says with a scoff. “Whatever you say, big brother. Kinsley!” She turns and calls into the house. “We’re pulling out in five.”

Kinsley’s feet are loud on the stairs, echoing through the rooms and out the door to us. “I’m here!” she says. “I don’t have any of my stuff, though. They picked me up from school.”

“We have extras at the palace. Brice is busy today with royal things, so it’s just you and me until practice later. Should we stop in to see the puppies on the way home?”

“Definitely! Can you teach me how to do that leap on the rock wall?”

“Leap?” I ask, my heart kicking.

“Everyone’s harnessed in,” Maren says, guiding Kinsley toward the door. “Totally safe.”

“And amazing to see,” Kinsley calls over her shoulder. “You should see Maren climb!”

Then they’re out the door, and Nate and I are left alone, standing on the porch. We’re staring at each other, and I don’t even know what to say first.

“Maren really is a great climber,” Nate says as though that’s the most important thing in this moment.

“You bought this house. My house. The house I loved from afar. The house I once told you I’d genuinely murder someone to possess.”

He purses his lips, and he gives a slow nod. “I bought the house.”

“Why?”

He gives a little shrug, but he doesn’t respond.

“No,” I say stepping closer. “I need you to say it.”

“What do you want me to tell you, Hollyn? You knew how I felt about you when you left. I never hid how serious I was about you.”

“But I left,” I say. “And the way I left…”

“Was fucking awful and deeply unfair, yeah. I think we both know that.” He glances away.

“And when this house came up for sale, I couldn’t let it go.

I needed to own it because it reminded me of you, because part of me hoped you’d come back someday.

” When he meets my gaze, his expression is tortured.

It sinks in that Nate bought this house for me . Even though I trampled on his heart, betrayed his trust, ghosted him in the worst way, he never gave up hope that I’d come back, that we’d figure things out.

I close the space between us, throw my arms around his neck, and I kiss him, pouring every emotion I can’t reveal, every word I can’t say into the physical expression of those feelings. Maybe I still can’t keep him, but I’m sure as hell going to give him as much of myself as I can while I can.

He meets my kiss without an ounce of hesitation, and then he lifts me onto the wide, thick stone-and-concrete railing of the porch and steps between my legs. My loose cotton dress is around my thighs, inching up with each kiss.

When Nate’s thumb skims my cheek and I involuntarily flinch, he steps back, examining the bruise that’s formed.

“I’ll never let them hurt you again,” he says. “Whatever I have to do, they’ll never get to you again.”

“This isn’t worth you getting into any trouble,” I say.

“Getting out of trouble is a Tucker specialty.”

Never have truer words been spoken, but I just shake my head. “I’m not worth you getting into trouble.”

“You still don’t get it,” he says gently. “You’re worth everything to me, Hollyn. There is nothing and no one above you. My life, my fortune, they’re nothing without you in it.”