Chapter 77: Settling into a Mansion

Chapter 77: Chapter 77: Settling into a Mansion

Emiliana led him toward the staircase, and Garrett followed.

Her room sat at the end of a hallway on the second floor, and the moment the door opened, Garrett understood immediately that this was a different kind of space than everything else he’d seen today.

The rest of the mansion had felt curated, arranged for effect, every room a version of itself designed to be seen. This one wasn’t. Soft, warm lighting replaced the grand chandeliers downstairs. A bed with a mess of pillows looked genuinely slept in rather than staged. A desk in the corner held a laptop, scattered notes, and a mug that had probably held coffee at some point and never quite made it back to the kitchen.

The walls held a handful of photographs, some of Emiliana at various ages, one of her at what looked like a family gathering, another that looked older, faded slightly at the edges.

Garrett’s attention caught on a small framed photograph sitting on the table near her bed. Emiliana, younger, maybe ten or eleven, standing beside a woman with the same eyes, the same shape to her smile.

"Is that your mother?" he asked.

Emiliana glanced over, something soft crossing her face. "Yeah."

"She is beautiful."

"She was," Emiliana said simply. Then, quieter, almost as an afterthought, "She’s gone. She died when I was fifteen."

Garrett stilled.

"I’m sorry," he said, meaning it fully, the words landing heavy.

He considered whether asking further would be crossing a line, then decided it was worth asking.

"What happened?"

"Cancer." Emiliana’s voice stayed steady, though something behind it had gone careful, controlled in the way people got when they’d had a long time to practice saying something painful out loud. "Stage 4 cancer, It moved fast. Faster than anyone expected."

Garrett frowned slightly, something not quite settling right. "Your family has more money than most people could imagine. How does someone with that kind of access not get saved?"

"It wasn’t about money." Emiliana’s jaw tightened, just slightly. "Money buys treatment. It doesn’t buy someone actually paying attention while it’s happening. My father didn’t." She said it plainly, no dramatics behind it. "He was busy. Always busy. By the time he actually started taking it seriously, it was already too late to matter."

Garrett said nothing, letting that settle.

Whatever tension existed around Alexander Vane, whatever careful evasiveness Emiliana kept wrapping around his name, it apparently ran a lot deeper than business or family politics. This wasn’t just about arranged marriages or expectations.

"That’s..." Garrett started, then let it go, not finding a word that actually fit what she’d just told him. "I’m sorry. That’s genuinely awful."

"It was." Emiliana looked at the photograph a moment longer, then set it gently back down exactly where it had been. "It’s been a while now. Doesn’t always feel like it, but it has."

Garrett didn’t ask anything further. He just stood there with her, letting the silence hold whatever weight it needed to hold, giving her the space to move past it in her own time rather than his.

Eventually, Emiliana exhaled, something in her posture loosening as she turned fully toward him.

"Anyway." A small, deliberate shift in her tone, pulling them both back toward something lighter. "This is my room. Nothing fancy as you can see, No performing for anyone in here."

"Good to know."

She stepped closer, and before Garrett fully registered the shift, her arms were around him, her head resting against his chest.

"I’ve missed you," she said quietly. "More than I probably should admit."

"Missed you too."

She looked up at him, and something in her expression made the distance between them feel smaller than it already was. Garrett leaned down, and the kiss that followed wasn’t careful or brief, deepening slowly, her hands finding the front of his shirt, his arm settling around her waist without either of them deciding it consciously.

For a moment, everything else, fell away entirely, narrowed down to just this, the two of them finally alone in a space that actually belonged to her.

Garrett was the one who eventually pulled back, breathing a little unsteady, enough sense still intact to remember exactly where they were.

"We should probably slow down," he said, a touch of dry humor threaded through it despite how close his voice came to not quite managing it. "Pretty sure your household staff wouldn’t love walking in on this."

Emiliana laughed softly, resting her forehead against his shoulder for a second. "They couldn’t dare but I get you."

"Wasn’t trying to kill the mood."

"You didn’t." She pulled back, straightening slightly, though the warmth in her expression hadn’t gone anywhere. "You’re right, though. Bad time, Bad place."

"Plenty of time later."

"Plenty," she agreed, something promising in the way she said it.

"Come on," she said after a moment, composing herself. "Let me show you where you’ll actually be sleeping. Unless you were planning on sleeping in my room."

"Would love that."

"Absolutely not,I need my privacy still... Come on."

She led him down the hall to a room a short distance from her own, opening the door to reveal a space that made Garrett pause for a second in the doorway.

The bed alone looked bigger than the one in his apartment, dressed in expensive looking linens. A private bathroom sat visible through an open door on one side, and a small seating area occupied the far corner, a fresh set of towels already folded neatly on the end of the bed.

"This is yours for as long as you’re here," Emiliana said, watching his reaction with quiet amusement. "Let me know if you need anything. Nancy or one of the others can grab whatever you’re missing."

Garrett looked around a moment longer, understated as he processed it. "This is more prepared than most hotels I’ve stayed in."

"We tend to plan ahead around here."

"I can see that."

She lingered in the doorway a moment, some of the earlier warmth still sitting easily between them. "I’ll let you get settled. Come find me whenever you’re ready. No rush."

"Thanks for today. All of it."

"Thank you for coming." She smiled, small and genuine, before stepping back into the hallway. "I’ll see you soon."

The door clicked shut behind her, and Garrett stood there for a moment, alone, taking in the room properly now that there was no one left to perform composure for.

It hit him then, quietly, without any dramatic weight attached to the realization.

He wasn’t just visiting Emiliana anymore.

He was staying inside her world.