Page 174 of The Fractured

She bit her lip and took another step into the room while I drifted towards the stairs.

“And a fireplace,” she added.

I investigated the living room on the left from its doorway. It also had a fireplace.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered, pulling my gaze up to the top of the stairs. There was shelving up there too, inside an alcove that would make for a perfect reading nook.

While Lily got lost exploring downstairs, I went up, finding three large bedrooms, two of which had bathrooms. The master bedroom was at the end of the landing, around the corner of that book nook. Its windows invited the afternoon sun to shine down directly onto the carpet, warming the space. As I walked over to the windows, more of the courtyard at the back of the house came into view.

There’s a fucking greenhouse.

I heard Lily come up the stairs, followed by a quiet gasp as she discovered the second floor too.

“There is a bathtub in here!” she exclaimed from one of the bathrooms. “With jets!”

I chuckled, more so in disbelief as I turned slowly on the spot, locking my fingers behind my head.

When Lily walked into the bedroom, her eyes lit up, and she approached the window.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter what I think. Antonio left you a house. This is all yours.” She looked at the carpet, where the sun was shining. “Though I think that might be my favorite spot.”

With that, I lowered myself to the floor with a smile on my face and took her hand to guide her down with me. She happily obliged and took up the space between my legs, resting back against my chest as the sun shone down on us.

I rested my chin on her shoulder and pulled my arms around her. “I wanna run somethin’ by you.”

She tilted her head back, eyes closed, as the sun danced along her skin. “Hm?”

“When this house arrest is done, I wanna bring Mom’s ashes home, and I was wonderin’ if you’d wanna go with me.”

“To Palermo?” She half turned in my arms to look at me.

I nodded, already lost in that blue sparkle of her eyes.

“Of course, yes,” she beamed softly.

My fingertips tucked her hair behind her ear, and then smoothed along her jaw. “One more thing.”

The look she was giving me, like she was falling for me all over again, jump-started a barrage of butterflies in my gut. I never got butterflies. A little nervous, maybe, but not this fluttering feeling.

“Move in with me.” Technically, we were living together before the trial, but this was different. “It’s a big place for just me and a small dog. And considering I’m gonna have a curfew for the next twenty-four months, which means no sleepovers at yours…”

Lily laughed. “That is a very polite way of asking me to be your in-house booty call.”

“Okay, so I worded it wrong. What I meant was, I wanna share this with you.”

She was beginning to blush. “I’d have to talk to Kira first.”

“Of course.”

“And I’d have to bring my furniture. Not that I have a lot to fill this place. It’d be whatever is in my room. And my books.Andmaybe the pastel blue couch.”

“We’ll buy stuff with that million,” I shrugged. “But I want you to decorate. One, because I’m shit at it, and two, because you’ll make it feel like home. You’re already doin’ that by being here.”

Lily got to her knees but remained between my legs as she brought her hands to the sides of my face and leaned in, smiling as she spoke. “Okay.”

She kissed me like it was a signature, making the move-in official.