42. Things I like about Huntwell Farm

FORTY-TWO

#8 the colums at the house are really pretty

"That's the duck pond. We have two resident swans who come back every year."

As Nathan pointed out familiar sights, I gazed out the passenger window of the large black Mercedes.

A few days after my surgery, we had flown into Dulles International Airport, about an hour from where Nathan's family lived in the country. Just as Dr. McAndrew had said, I'd been able to walk out of the hospital unassisted and had started basic physical therapy the next day. I didn't want to think about how much all of this had cost Nathan. Frankie had called me as soon as Xavier had arrived home to offer to pay it all back on my behalf, but I'd turned her down. A debt was a debt, whether I owed it to my sister or my roommate-turned-boyfriend.

For whatever reason, I was more comfortable owing it to Nathan. It felt more like mine that way. And maybe, like I knew one day, I'd pay him back.

It wasn't my first time to the DC area. Once I'd been part of a dance troupe that toured through a few theaters in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. In between shows, I'd walked around the Washington Mall but mostly saw the inside of the theater and whatever I could glimpse on the bus ride home.

Nathan's family lived about an hour from the city, outside a small town called Warrenton, on a fifteen-hundred-acre property twice the size of Central Park. One of the last surviving land grants from George Washington himself, according to Nathan, who had been drilling me on the estate's American history as a means of courting his mother, who was apparently a nut for it.

It was one of the things that made me very attuned to the differences between us. Nathan's family had been in this country for at least four hundred years, with ancestors whose names were literally on its founding documents. Nonna and Nonno had come over from Italy sometime in the fifties. Any farther back than that, and every ancestor I had was either in Italy or Puerto Rico.

"So, your parents have the house out here, the townhouse in Georgetown, and another house in Westchester?" I asked, trying to remember everything he'd listed so far.

The sheer amount of real estate these people owned was beyond my scope of imagination. In my neighborhood, owning even one crappy little house was considered a big deal.

"On this coast, yeah. Dad bought a house in Del Mar when I was in college. Plus, there's a villa in Tuscany and apartments in Hong Kong, London, and Dubai." Nathan frowned. "It's possible Carrick talked them into a Tokyo residence too, but I'm not sure." He took my hand. "But this is their favorite."

More importantly, Huntwell Farm was the place where Nathan and his brothers had primarily been raised. For that reason alone, I was looking forward to seeing it. Anything that told me more about what made Nathan into Nathan was worth seeing, even if I knew I was driving right into the belly of the beast.

We passed through a set of looming iron gates topped with golden bald eagles, following a neatly paved road through the property. Under early the May sunshine, it was admittedly breathtaking. Rolling green hills were split between acres of forest, meadow, and wildflowers, broken occasionally by things like paddock fences, stables, gatehouses, and staff homes.

It wasn't really an estate. Huntwell Farm was a village in and of itself, eons away from the urban jungle I'd always known.

"Do you miss it?" I found myself wondering as I took everything in. "This is the polar opposite of New York."

Nathan seemed to think about that for a bit. "I miss some things. The space, for one. I've gone riding in Central Park, but it's not the same. Everywhere is still full of people. And sometimes, it would be nice to have space to be alone."

"Why did you come to New York, of all places?" I wondered. "It's a terrible place to be alone."

It had never bothered me. My natural state was one of chaos, growing up in a house full of people. Being alone always felt uncomfortable to me.

Nathan shrugged. "Well, at first, it was because I was matched to a general residency program there. And then accepted to the fellowship at NYU. But in general, I like the city. I like its energy. And since my parents wanted one of us to live in New York to manage Huntwell's financial sector, they didn't fight it either."

He turned to me then and cupped my face with one hand. "I've developed my own methods of finding peace," he said before delivering a quick kiss. "Right now, they involve a lot of this."

He kissed me again and didn't stop. Not when the car rounded a circular driveway and stopped. Not when the driver came around to open our door and waited patiently for us to finish.

He only stopped when I pulled away, feeling a bit drunk from the effort.

"What was that?" I wondered with slightly numbed lips.

"Peace." Nathan smiled. "And something to remember when it's gone in a few moments."

I followed him out of the car, smoothing the green dress I'd worn on the plane. It was another piece from Wardrobe de Nathan, with a strapless silk bodice that gathered at my waist but floated demurely to just past my knees. It paired perfectly with the strappy wedge sandals that wrapped around my ankles. I knew Nathan liked it because of the way it bared my shoulders and matched my eyes; I hoped his family would like the way it mostly covered my legs.

Hand in mine, Nathan led me up the brick walk toward the front door of a mansion that seemed to stretch for miles in either direction. It was white with black shutters and at least three stories built of stone, columns, and windows. A mix of colonial and neoclassical styles, I was told, with eighteenth-century stonework blended with plaster additions and twin columns framing the front door.

"How old is this place?" I asked.

Nathan looked around with me. "The original house was built in 1783. There are a few different additions since then—I think the most recent is a pool house in the back, added in the seventies."

I gawked. There was nothing like this in New York. Maybe a few small houses near Washington Square Park, a couple of old mills and things like that in the Bronx, but most of New York's colonial past had been erased long ago to make room for the townhomes, apartment buildings, and skyscrapers the city was known for today. To a kid learning about things like the Lenape tribe or the Dutch settlers in elementary school, that history was nearly as mythological as the Loch Ness monster.

Nathan, however, had grown up in that history. It was as much a part of him as anything else, a kind of legacy.

Just another difference between us.

The oversized front doors opened, and a short yet imperious blond woman appeared in a navy-blue sweater set and tasteful brown mules that clipped like woodpeckers on the brick stoop.

Lillian Hunt. Otherwise known as the woman who hated my guts.

"Nathan!" she called. "Darling, you're back! And with a guest, I see. So delighted you've finally moved on from—oh!"

I summoned my brightest, most charming smile possible. "Mrs. Hunt. It's lovely to see you again."

Lillian's eyes narrowed before she turned to Nathan without even acknowledging me. "What is she doing here?"

"You didn't tell them I was coming?" I murmured.

"Of course I did. My mother just likes to be dramatic." Nathan turned to Lillian. "Mom, I was perfectly clear on the phone last week when I said Joni would be joining me after her surgery."

"Yes, but I didn't think you meant it." She eyed me up and down. "You have some nerve coming here, missy. I don't know what sort of welcome you expected, but we are not interested in your sort at Huntwell."

I fought the urge to cower into Nathan, but it didn't last long. Only because I reminded myself that I'd never bowed down to a stuck-up bitch before, and I wasn't going to start now. I didn't care if she was my boyfriend's mother.

"Then it's a good thing I'm here as your son's guest, not yours," I said in a sickly sweet tone. I turned to Nathan. "Maybe you're right, and it would be better to get an Airbnb somewhere nearby."

He blinked. We hadn't discussed that at all. The plan was simple: use the time to get back into his parents' good graces enough that they would sign Isla's guardianship over to him without a legal battle. It would be easier, he thought, if we stayed here instead of at an Airbnb, even with the tension between him and his family. And me.

This was the first time I reconsidered coming down with him. My presence would likely delay things, given how much his mother didn't like me.

Nathan, however, had already decided that I was a necessity to him. And if anything, perhaps we could use my presence as a bargaining chip. Particularly if I annoyed Lillian to the point where she would give Nathan almost anything to get rid of me.

That, I could do.

But I recognized something else in Nathan's mother he hadn't yet identified: desperation. As the youngest in a family led by a grandmother trying to force teenagers and twenty-somethings to Mass and family dinners for years, I knew exactly what that looked like.

And I knew how to manipulate it too.

"What?" Lillian asked. She did a double take toward Nathan. "You would leave so soon?"

Right on cue. Just as I suspected, the woman's backhanded techniques of manipulating Nathan's life weren't just about forcing him to lead his father's company. They were ultimately the moves of a mother who wanted her children close. Even when they were a grown-ass, thirty-four-year-old man.

Nathan frowned at me, then at her. "Well, yes. If you won't allow Joni to stay here with me, then we certainly would."

Lillian's pastel-painted mouth opened and closed as she looked between us. "But…but…"

It was everything I could do not to look smug.

"We'll let you think about it." Nathan just looked tired as he guided me around his mother. "In the meantime, I'm going to show Joni around."

The inside of the great house was just as impressive as the exterior. Black-and-white marble floors stretched down an expansive foyer before transitioning to dark wood and delicate wainscoting that had to be at least a hundred years old. Luxe dark curtains dressed windows stretched up toward box-beam ceilings that sheltered antique furniture and paintings of distant ancestors that watched over everything else.

I couldn't help but stare. The foyer alone could have contained Nonna's house—I couldn't even imagine how a single family used all this space.

Still stunned, Lillian followed us inside, along with the driver with our bags.

"Thanks, Carl," Nathan said.

Carl nodded back with the tip of his hat and exited the house, leaving us alone with Nathan's mother. It wasn't until Nathan led me up a grand staircase that spiraled toward a second floor that she finally found her voice again.

"Nathan, stop," Lillian called.

I sighed. I knew round one wasn't going to be a knockout, but part of me had sort of wished it would be.

"You cannot expect us to take this girl, this hussy, into our home without a word?—"

Nathan whirled around halfway up the stairs and stepped down as if to shield me from his mother's hateful words.

"Stop," he said through gritted teeth that made a muscle in his jaw twitch dangerously. "Stop right there."

He released my hand, and I watched as he jogged down the stairs, taking two at a time until he was in front of his mother, towering over her like one of the vast oaks on the property.

"Let me make something very clear," he said in a voice that was quiet but still managed to thunder through the grand entrance. "I've given up my life to play your games. Given up my job, my apartment, my entire routine to heel to your manipulative tactics. But I will not give up her. Not now. Not ever."

"Now, Nathan, be reasonable. The girl is obscene! The definition of vulgar! She humiliated you and the family with that obscene video?—"

"Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who is most humiliated by that," I muttered, though I couldn't stop my cheeks from heating up.

"Then you should have thought of that before?—"

"Stop," he cut her off again. "And just fucking listen. For the first time in my life, I've met someone I love. Someone who loves me back, just as I am. I don't care what horrible things were done to her almost a decade ago—I care about who she is now. And all you should care about is that she makes me happy."

"But Nathan?—"

"But nothing," he snapped. "I love this woman. I'm going to be with her. That means I'm going to date her, live with her, and one day, I'm going to marry her if she'll have me."

I sucked in a sharp breath as my stomach flipped. Marry? If I'd gone off script earlier, Nathan had just written an entirely new play.

I didn't hate the idea, though.

"So, if you want her to go, she will go," he finished. "But I will be going with her, and you will not see me again. Do. You. Understand?"

It wasn't exactly the slow play of bargaining we'd imagined. Nathan had just laid our entire relationship down like a gauntlet, daring his mother to take it on.

A horrible silence echoed off the hard surfaces of the foyer while Lillian's sharp gaze darted between her son and me. She looked torn between the fact that she'd really like to throw me out with the trash, but also knew her son would probably go with me.

I had only known Nathan a matter of months, but that was long enough to understand that he never said anything unless he meant it completely.

I had a feeling his own mother understood that as well.

Well, good.

"All right," she said, already turning away as if she couldn't bear the sight of her defeat. "I'll just let the cook know we'll have an extra for dinner."

"Thank you!" I called a little too sweetly as Nathan rejoined me on the stairs.

"Marry, huh?" I murmured as he took my hand back in his and kissed the back of it.

"One day," he agreed as we continued up the steps.

I couldn't find it in myself to argue. I didn't want to. Not even a little.

A few minutes later, we entered another set of double doors on the second floor that opened into a suite that was larger than Nathan's entire apartment in New York.

"This was my room," he said as I followed him inside. "Where we'll be staying."

I looked around. The entire space was littered with memorabilia connected to Nathan, an entire life he had lived before coming to New York and striking out on his own. Baseball memorabilia. 4-H ribbons. A tower of CDs in one corner, along with an outdated computer setup. Several bookshelves were built into another corner, filled with well-used books of all genres.

And this was just a living room.

Through another door was a bedroom, plus an en suite bathroom with marbled floors and a mostly empty walk-in closet. The bedroom was neatly made up with more antique furniture and tasteful textiles of blue and white, which matched the rest of the house but were obviously chosen for a boy.

The crown prince, as it were.

"Your mother won't pitch another fit about us staying together?" I wondered.

Nathan shrugged. "Probably, but it will go the same as the last one. I meant every word I said. And I can be very stubborn."

I walked around the entire room, taking in little things like photographs, trophies, and anything else that seemed to belong to him outside of the taste of his mother or an interior designer. Eventually I stopped at the window looking out toward the horse stables I knew Nathan loved so much but never got to see. Nathan came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, tucking his head on my shoulder.

Since we had come back from Paris, he had become that much more affectionate. Even voracious. It was like a dam had been broken, and now he couldn't stop touching me, no matter what.

I wasn't arguing with it. I craved the feel of his skin on mine just as much as he did. For two months, I had been suffering from Nathan withdrawals like any reasonable addict. Or maybe it was just that I had come to need this man as much as I needed things like air, water, and food. Somehow, in the last few months, he had become as essential to my life as anything else.

Maybe I didn't completely understand why he loved me so much that he was willing to take on his entire family to keep me around.

But I understood how it felt. I would do the same thing in a heartbeat.

"How's your knee feeling?" Nathan wondered before pressing a kiss to my neck. "The flight didn't bother it, did it? Often, atmospheric pressure can cause joint swelling."

I leaned back into him, half lost again in his touch. "Not at all. It's actually been feeling pretty good. You weren't kidding about the quick recovery." Then I turned around in his arms. "Why? Are you interested in getting a little ‘exercise'?"

Nathan frowned. "Exercise?"

I moved my eyebrows up and down a few times like a silly cartoon character.

He stared blankly for a moment before awareness dawned across his face. "Oh!"

So cute. Enough that I had to kiss him right there.

A few moments later, he pulled away, though not without lipstick smeared on his cheek.

"Damn," he muttered. "As much as I would like to do that right now, there is somewhere else I'd like to go today before dinner."

"Where's that?" I asked, though I was already starting to unbutton his shirt.

His hands stilled mine. And any idea of getting busy flew out of my mind when I caught his grim expression.

"You look like you're expecting a war," I said.

He ground his teeth. "I suppose I am. But before we start the next battle, you'll want to know what we're fighting for." He squeezed me closer. "I'd like you to meet Isla."