“I had help.” Eamon kissed her again before tucking her against his side. “It wasn’t that hard. You’re used to the renovation sounds, so all I had to do was scare you enough to keep you from snooping.”
“Were these rooms ever even damaged?” she asked.
“It was a disaster,” Ewan answered for Eamon. “I thought he was insane for thinking we could pull this off.”
“You helped?” Bel asked.
“Don’t you recognize the décor?” Violet asked.
“Um…” Bel scanned the expansive room, her brain finally calm enough to realize where she stood. It was a library. But it wasn’t a home library with a few shelves and bookish décor. It was a masterpiece. It was like stepping out of America and landing in European history, like landing in a fantasy realm, and Bel’s jaw dropped as she craned her neck just to see the ceiling. Shelves upon shelves upon shelves. A grand fireplace, and sofas, and a window seat with a view. Rolling ladders and spiral staircases and wrap-around balconies. This wasn’t a library. This was a fairytale plucked from the pages of every little girl’s dream.
“Lumen’s Customs did all the furniture,” Violet said. “Ewan and Eamon did most of the construction… I just delegated.”
“A library… You got me a library?” Bel ignored her friend and gawked up at her boyfriend.
“I built you a library.” Eamon’s hands slid around her waist until their power swallowed her whole.
“You built me a library.” Bel burst into tears, and sensing the couple needed a moment, Violet rubbed her back before ushering the party guests toward the refreshments table.
“Come on.” Eamon kissed her before lacing his fingers through hers. “Let me show you your books.”
“Oh my god, I didn’t even notice… how? There must be thousands in here.”
“I stopped counting after the first level.”
“I don’t understand. I can’t read this many.”
“I know.” Eamon hoisted her up and placed her on one of the rolling ladders before pulling her across the floor. “But I couldn’t leave the shelves bare. And not all of them are books you’d want to read anyway. Some are mine—the boring work kind—and others are my first editions. You wouldn’t want to risk ruining those by reading them.”
“Wait, first editions?” Bel twisted to stare down at him, her position on the ladder the only time she’d ever stood taller than Eamon Stone. “As in you bought them from a collector, or?—”
“I bought them when they first came out?” he finished for her. “All of my first editions were just books when I purchased them.”
“Oh my god.” Bel leaped off the wooden rung and wrapped her arms around Eamon’s neck. “Show me where those are.”
“As you wish, Detective.” Eamon shifted her until he held her bridal-style and then climbed the spiral staircase to the first balcony. “They’re yours now.”
“I couldn’t take them from you,” she protested as he set her down before the rows and rows of immaculately preserved classics.
“Well, they’re technically still in my house, so you aren’t really taking them anywhere. You could if you wanted to, though.”
“I couldn’t.” She flashed an appalled glare at him. “Charles Dickens. Emily Brontë, both her name and her original pseudonym. Ernest Hemingway. J. R. R. Tolkien. I would never take these out of this room. You have so many… millions of dollars sit on these shelves.”
“That’s the funny thing about them. They’re priceless now, but when I purchased them, they were pocket change. Some I knew would be famous, so I held onto them, and others were justnovels I liked. I didn’t know that one day these books would be worth their weight in gold. And now they’re yours.”
“Eamon, this is too much.”
“I’ve read them.” He shrugged. “I was there when they were published. I think I got the better deal.”
“To have read these books before anyone knew what their names would come to mean.” Bel dragged a delicately manicured nail over one spine. “Did you hate any of them? A book you hate goes on to become immortal.”
“Of course, I hated plenty of them.” Eamon crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the shelf to watch her marvel. “Which I guess makes me the OG hater.”
“Yeah, well, who cares if you hated them when you get to brag that you have their first editions… may I?” She gestured to the perfectly preserved copy ofA Wrinkle in Time.
“Of course.”
“I loved this book as a kid.” Bel pulled it off the shelf, a tear slipping down her cheek as history fell open in her hands. “This is amazing. So you read this in 1962 when it was brand new?”
