I'd decided then that Troy's assessment of him was probably accurate: brilliant, dangerous, and operating under rules I didn't fully understand.
“Come on.” Troy sat up. Stretched until his spine cracked. “Let's get this meeting over with so we can go back to pretending we know what we're doing.”
I pulled on jeans and a sweater that felt too nice for a construction meeting but apparently passed for casual in Ravenswood. Troy wore black jeans and a gray henley that clung to his frame in ways that made me want to cancel the meeting and drag him back to bed.
He caught me looking. Smirked. “Later. After we convince the contractor we're not completely incompetent.”
“Are we incompetent?”
“Deeply. But we're learning.”
The meeting went better than I'd expected. The contractor walked us through the plans for converting the east wing into residential space for the rehab center. Individual rooms. Group therapy areas. A kitchen designed for teaching life skills. Outdoor access to the gardens that Adrian had agreed to share on the condition we kept them maintained.
The plans were ambitious and expensive, but they were exactly what we needed to make this work.
Troy asked smart questions about timelines and materials. I focused on practical concerns like privacy and safety and how to make the space feel welcoming instead of institutional. By the time the contractor left, we had a revised plan and a start date two weeks out.
“This is really happening,” Troy said once we were alone again.
“Yeah. It is.”
“You having second thoughts?”
“About London? About the center? About you?” I looked at him. “No. Are you?”
“No.” He moved closer. Slid his arms around my waist. “Just making sure you're not regretting leaving Chicago for this insane house with too many libraries and a rehab center that doesn't exist yet.”
“I don't regret it.” I pulled him tighter. “I miss Mara. I miss the gym sometimes. But I don't regret choosing this. Choosing you.”
“Good.” He kissed me. Slow and deep and thorough enough that I forgot about contractors and timelines and everythingexcept the taste of him. “Because you're stuck here now. Adrian already had your name put on the wing.”
“He what?”
“The Kane-Donnelly Recovery Center. Has a nice ring to it.” Troy grinned at my expression. “He asked me yesterday if you'd be offended. I said probably, but you'd get over it.”
“I'm not offended. I'm—” I stopped. Tried to process the fact that my name was going on a building in London attached to a manor I still didn't fully understand. “I'm overwhelmed.”
“Yeah, well. Get used to it. This is your life now.” He stepped back. Took my hand. “Come on. I want to show you the garden before dinner.”
The garden was massive and sprawling, beautiful in a wild, overgrown way that suggested it had been left mostly to its own devices for years. Troy led me down paths lined with rosebushes and through archways covered in ivy until we reached a clearing with a stone bench facing a fountain that had probably been elegant once.
“This was the first place I came when I moved here,” Troy said. “I was fucked up. Coming off a bad job. Bleeding from places I shouldn't have been bleeding from. And I sat on this bench for three hours trying to figure out if I'd made a mistake leaving Chicago.”
“Had you?”
“No. But I didn't know that yet.” He sat down. Pulled me down beside him. “I thought I was running again. Thought I was just finding a new city to hide in. But Luka and Adrian and everyone else here made it clear pretty fast that Ravenswood wasn't a hiding place. It was a home if I was willing to treat it like one.”
“And now?”
“Now I'm bringing you here and hoping you feel the same way eventually.” He looked at me. “I know this is a lot. Thehouse. The people. The fact that we're building a rehab center in a Victorian manor because apparently that's a normal Tuesday for Adrian Calloway. But this is the best chance we have to build a life that's actually ours.”
I leaned back against the bench. Let the London air settle around us. It was colder than Chicago and damper, but not unpleasant.
“I talked to Mara yesterday,” I said.
“Yeah? How's she doing?”
“Good. Busy. She's already got three new clients lined up and she's coordinating with local shelters about partnership programs.” I smiled. “She told me to stop worrying about Chicago and focus on not fucking this up.”
