Chapter 20: The Crawford Compound

Myles brought the Rolls-Royce to a smooth stop in front of his parents' house and cut the engine.

For a moment he just sat there, hands on the wheel, letting the quiet settle. The mountain air drifted in through the cracked window, cool and sweet with oak and orchard blossom. Somewhere in the distance, a horse whinnied. He'd forgotten how peaceful it was out here, and how every acre of it made him feel like it already belonged to him.

He stepped out, walked around the hood, and opened the passenger door with a little flourish.

"My lady."

Serena put one stiletto on the gravel, then the other, and rose from the car with a hand to her throat. Her eyes went wide. Then wider.

"Myles," she breathed. "This is your parents' house?"

"This is where I grew up."

It wasn't a mansion in the Beverly Hills sense, all glass and gloss and shouting. It was older and quieter. Four bedrooms and a guest wing, built in the same warm stone as the other houses in the valley, with a red tile roof, deep-set arched windows, and iron balconies draped in climbing roses. Old oaks shaded the front lawn, and a fountain murmured in the courtyard. The place had been standing for most of a century and looked ready to stand for another.

Serena slowly turned in a circle, taking in the mountains, the orchards, the long white fences, the endless gold of the hills. Her lips parted.

"All of this," she whispered. "And it's going to be yours."

"Ours," Myles said, smiling. He slid an arm around her waist.

She leaned into him, and he could see her doing the math. Private jets. A wardrobe the size of an apartment. Her name on a foundation. Christmas parties with a hundred guests, a Vogue shoot in the orchard, a chateau in the south of France. Her whole life was about to get a great deal richer, and she knew it.

Good. He wanted her to want it.

"Come on." He kissed her temple. "My parents are waiting. And remember, you change before dinner."

"Before dinner," Serena sang, and tugged the hem of her pink minidress exactly one inch lower.

The front door opened before they reached it.

Inside, the house was nothing like the outside promised. The stone walls and thick timber beams were all original, but everything else had been rebuilt for the twenty-first century, sleek and warm and hushed. Heated slate floors glowed underfoot. Recessed lights brightened as they walked in and dimmed behind them. A slim panel on the wall said "Welcome home, Myles" in soft white letters, and the blinds on the tall front windows slid open without a sound.

"Is it alive?" Serena whispered.

"Voice control," Myles said. "The whole house runs on it. Lights, climate, music, security. My mother has her tea schedule programmed."

At the center of the house, the walls simply disappeared.

A courtyard garden spread out before them, framed by floor-to-ceiling glass on three sides so the whole living room seemed to float inside it. It was a Japanese zen garden, raked white gravel patterned in slow waves, mossy boulders as old as the mountain, a single twisted maple with dark red leaves against pale stone. A thin stream trickled over smooth rocks into a pond where orange koi drifted like slow flames. A stone lantern stood at the water's edge, and a stand of bamboo whispered in the breeze. Sunlight came through the glass and turned the water gold.

Serena actually stopped walking.

"That's inside?"

"My mother's pride and joy. She had it flown in from Kyoto, rock by rock." He tilted his head. "Don't touch the gravel. She'll know."

Then the servants appeared.

They seemed to come from everywhere at once, a housekeeper in a gray uniform, two young men in crisp white shirts, a cook with flour on her apron, a gardener who wiped his hands and tipped his cap. They lined the hall with warm, quiet smiles.

"Welcome home, Mr. Myles."

"Good to see you, Mr. Myles."

"Mr. Myles, your room is ready. We've aired out the sheets."

"Thank you, Mrs. Alvarez," Myles said with an easy nod to the housekeeper. She'd been with the family since before he was born. "Everyone. Good to be back."

Serena stood a little straighter and lifted her chin, like a woman who could get used to being greeted this way.

"Myles!"

His mother came down the hall with her arms already open. Diane Crawford was slim and small, with an ash-blond bob, a navy wrap dress, a cream cardigan, and a thin string of pearls at her throat. She hugged him hard, then held him at arm's length and clucked her tongue.

"You look tired. Are you eating?"

"Mom."

"Gregory! He's too thin."

"He's fine, Diane," a deep voice said. Myles's father came in behind her, tall and square-shouldered in a gray quarter-zip, his hair cut short. Gregory Crawford had never been a warm man, but he was fair, and he missed nothing. His eyes slid past Myles to the woman beside him.

"And this," Myles said, turning, "is Serena Calloway."

A tiny silence.

Then Diane's face lit up. "Oh, we know who you are, dear. We've seen all your films." Her eyes dipped, very briefly, to the plunging pink neckline, and came back up with the smile still in place. "You're even prettier in person."

"Thank you so much, Mrs. Crawford." Serena clasped her hands and ducked her head, perfectly sweet, perfectly modest. "I've heard so much about you."

"Call me Diane." She took both of Serena's hands. "And your father runs Westbridge, isn't that right?"

"He's the chairman," Serena said. "Since my grandfather passed."

"I met him once," Gregory said. "At a hospital fundraiser. He talked about box office numbers for forty minutes."

Serena laughed. "That sounds exactly like Daddy."

"It wasn't a compliment." But one corner of Gregory's mouth moved, which for him was practically a hug.

Myles let out a breath. From his father, that was approval.

"We were just talking," Diane went on, steering them toward the living room, "about when you two might want to do the ceremony. Spring would be lovely, with the orchard in bloom. Or autumn, when the maples turn."

"Autumn," Serena said at once. "Definitely autumn. I look terrible in pastels."

Diane laughed like that was charming. Myles hid a smile. It was going better than he'd planned.

"Myles." His father's hand landed on his shoulder. "A word."