“I don’t know.” Marco glanced over his shoulder at me. “Maybe you can count them if you get bored.”
I rolled my eyes. “Is that was the rich do? They count their bedrooms because they have so many that they can’t remember?”
Marco stopped in front of a door. “I don’t. I have you to do it for me.” He twisted the knob and pushed it open. “This is your first option.”
I stepped in the room and spun in a slow circle. “Wow,” I whispered. “This is bigger than my whole apartment in Destin.”
“You lived in a hellhole with a slum landlord,” he murmured.
“You’re not wrong on either of those.” After Marco had rescued me from the Meeks, he had agreed to go to my apartment to get my things before heading to Rockton. The instant we had stepped inside my apartment, I knew I had made a horrible mistake. Marco had looked at what I thought was a decent place to live and couldn’t wipe the scowl off his face. “This place is definitely more your speed, Marco.”
The room was huge, just like the rest of the house. The carpet was a plush, pillowy smoke gray while the walls were painted a crisp white. The king size bed on the opposite wall was covered in a pitch black comforter and a mountain of black and gray pillows. A larger, oak dresser was pressed against the wall with a matching vanity between it and a closed door. “What’s in there?” I asked.
“Either the bathroom or closet.”
I glanced at Marco. “You don’t know?” I asked.
He shook his head. “I haven’t been in here much.”
“This is your house and you don’t know how many rooms it has or where the doors lead?”
Marco shrugged. “It’s not just my house. It belongs to the Banachi name.”
“I don’t even know what that means. So anyone with the last name Banachi can live here?” What the hell kind of nonsense was that? I could tell you right now, if my last name was Banachi, I would stake my claim here and never leave.
“More or less.”
I walked over to the bed and ran my fingertips over the black comforter. “You live a life I don’t even know where to begin understanding. Private planes, fancy cars, huge mansions that belong to, well, a name.”
“It is what it is.” He cleared his throat. “Do you want to go to the next room?”
The comforter was so soft, and it called to me to lay down. “Uh, are they all like this?”
“I don’t know, Royal. You can pick whichever suits you.”
I sighed and felt a wave of exhaustion hit me. “I just need a bed
, Marco. This one will be fine.”
“Are you sure? One is on this floor, and the other is on the third floor.”
I laughed silently. Of course there was a third floor to this estate. “This is good. It’s close enough to the stairs.” I was in my ninth month of pregnancy, and climbing up and down stairs was not high on my list of things to do.
“There’s an elevator just down the way, also.”
I couldn’t hold back my laughter. Of course there was an elevator. “One flight of stairs, I can manage, Marco. Thank you for not sticking me on the third floor or the penthouse.”
“We don’t have a penthouse.” He paused and tipped his head to the side. “At least, I don’t think we do.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed and sighed. “I’ll add that to my room counting to find out if you have a penthouse.”
Marco laughed dryly. “Please do.”
I closed my eyes and fell back on the bed. I’m sure I looked like a beached whale with my stomach sticking up in the air, but I just couldn’t sit up anymore. “Close the door on your way out, Marco. I need to sleep before I fall over.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice laced with concern.
I closed my eyes. “I’m pregnant and need a nap. Also, my brother just died. No, I’m not okay.”