Page 78 of Falling for the Enemy

“No worries. It’s hard being a new parent. Um, what the fuck is this?” She pointed to the champagne wall.

He beamed proudly. “Like it? I’ve been collecting them for years.”

“How many do you have?”

“Somewhere in the thousands.”

She didn’t know what was more impressive, that he had that large of a collection or that not a single speck of dust could be found. “Who cleans this place?”

“I have a maid.”

Of course he did.

Jocelyn really wasn’t adulting to her fullest capacity. As a successful author, she could hire a cleaner to come by once a week, but that would require cleaning up all her crap beforehand so they could clean, and that just felt like too much work.

Soren, on the other hand, lived in a home without a single sign of lived-in life. The air in his place was a controlled seventy degrees. The glass covering the champagne wall was chilled when she touched it. “Is this a refrigerator?”

“Yes. I had it custom-designed.”

She pulled her hand away and cursed when she saw the fingerprints left behind. “Shit. Sorry.” She used her shirt to try and wipe it away, but that just made it worse.

“Don’t worry about it.” He pulled her away to stop her incessant attempts to clean the glass. “They call it a wine-conditioner cabinet.”

“If that’s a cabinet, how big are your closets?”

He chuckled and pressed a button. The glass panels retracted and cool air spilled into the foyer. “Pick something.”

She looked at him skeptically. “Seriously?”

“Yeah. Anything you want.” A ladder attached to a rail glided across the doors, and she had the strangest urge to sing the “Candy Man” song from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

“I don’t know champagne. I’m more of a boxed wine gal.” Her palate was about as sophisticated as a kindergartener’s. She usually liked her adult beverages sweet enough to guzzle them like a juice box. The selection overwhelmed her. “How about I pick something later?”

“Okay.” Soren set his keys in a glass bowl. Everything had a place. “Want a tour?”

“Sure.”

He hung his jacket inside a coat closet with a built-in bench. Dark wool overcoats were arranged by length, and several keys hung from polished wooden hooks inside the wall.

“Here’s the bathroom if you need it. There are several others.”

The powder room off the foyer had black marble everything and lush hand towels with his initials embroidered in the cloth. She was afraid to touch them. “Did you make a Soren brand for yourself?” It was more than a monogram. It was a logo.

He grinned, the sort of grin he made when he was slightly embarrassed. “Maybe a little.”

The formal sitting room appeared untouched, existing for the version of him that entertained people he didn’t actually like. The study had a leather-topped desk, built-in bookshelves, a globe, and old books arranged by spine color.

“This was my dad’s,” he said, placing a hand on the mammoth desk.

Soren didn’t usually mention his father, and she knew from Wren that none of them had enjoyed an ideal relationship with the man. For him to claim his desk there had to be meaning behind it.

“It’s…nice.”

They moved to the formal dining room. A twelve-chair table stood beneath a chandelier. It was too formal not to poke fun at him. “Do you have dinner here, like in Citizen Kane?”

“I’ve never actually eaten in here.”

She understood why. It wasn’t the warmest of rooms, though it was elegant.