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He noticed my bracelet for the first time. “You earned them all, right?”
I nodded.
“I think you get some do-overs tonight,” he said, kissing my fingers.
Matilda was right: this fantasy was unrolling in a way that I could not have imagined myself. We
kissed the rest of the way there, coming up for air only when the limo glided through those ivycovered
gates. The Mansion was dark, one window lit on the second floor.
“This place is so freaky, don’t you think?” he said, exiting the limo in front of a small fountain with
little angel statues.
“You’ve been here before?”
Mark looked at me.
“Right,” I said.
“I’m going to assume you’ve been here before too.”
“Once, and only back there,” I said, pointing over the crest of a hill to the garage at the end of the
driveway.
“What were you doing back there?”
The look on my face told him it was best not to ask.
“Right. This is so insane,” he said, grinning widely. “I fucking love it.”
The side door was open, and instead of taking me to the right, where I assumed the front foyer
would lead us upstairs, he tugged me to the left, down a long, black-and white-tiled corridor with
swinging oak doors at the end. We were quiet as mice, creeping hand in hand into the massive kitchen.
A single light over a stove cast shadows on appliances the size of cattle. The pots and pans hanging
from the ceiling were big enough to prepare meals for Vikings.
Mark pulled open an industrial-sized fridge stocked with enough food to feed an army. Snatching a
large serving tray from an upper cabinet, and a box of crackers, he bent into the fridge to scoop up
handfuls of chocolate truffles, grapes and cheese rounds.
“All they have is romance food,” he said as he handed me the tray so he could continue to load it
up. “They need to start buying cold cuts and bread.”
“Ahem. Hello.” The voice came from the kitchen door.
In my fright I screamed rather loudly, and Mark tossed the box of crackers in the air as a diminutive
woman in a starched maid’s uniform turned the lights on full force.
“I’m so sorry to have frightened you. I’m Claudette. We waited for you earlier, but the driver told
us there was a slight delay. Are you finding everything you need?”
“Yes. Thank you,” I said, trying to calm my heart.
“I’ll show you to your suite,” she said, taking the tray of food from my hands. “I’ll carry this, my
dear. We’ll send up some drinks as well.”
We were like a couple of school kids caught breaking into the cafeteria, but instead of getting
punished, we were being offered keys to the whole school.
The Domino Suite was up the side stairs and down a wide hall in the west wing. It was, as its name
implied, entirely decorated in black and white, its key feature a marble claw-foot tub at the end of an
all-white platform bed dotted with round black pillows.
Claudette placed the tray on a glass-topped banquette that faced a floor-to-ceiling window framed
with black velvet curtains. A second later, another woman, also dressed in uniform, dropped off a
bucket of chilled champagne and several bottles of sparkling water.
“Just call down if you need anything,” Claudette said as they left, closing the double doors behind
them.