A Very Merry Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Author:Lyssa Kay Adams [Adams, Lyssa Kay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2022-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

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Colton had seen his fair share of impressive houses in his time—fuck, he’d once performed in an actual palace in Belgium—but Gretchen’s family home was the most immense, lavish private residence he’d ever seen. It was three stories of white limestone with columns and arches and massive stone verandas. As in plural. Three tiers of verandas spanned the center wing of the house.

As in, this was straight out of the goddamn Gilded Age.

And to think he’d worried about how his house would look to her. He lived in a cottage compared to this.

“No way,” he said, slowing his car at the end of the long, paved private road so he wouldn’t gape too long and veer straight into the opulent fountain in the center of the wide circular drive. “There’s no way you grew up here.”

“It’s obscene, isn’t it?”

“It’s a hotel.”

“With a ballroom and everything.”

He stopped in front of the main entrance; he had a hard time calling it the front door because—how pedestrian. He leaned across the console to gape some more. “You grew up here?”

“I’m starting to think we shouldn’t go in.”

“No chance of that.” He tossed his hat and glasses into the back seat, threw open his door, and then met her on the passenger side. He had to tilt his head all the way back to see the red terra-cotta roof.

“We don’t usually go in this way,” Gretchen said. “The family, I mean. This is basically the public entrance.”

“The public entrance,” he repeated, disbelieving. “Your house has a public entrance.”

“For the Christmas tours and other things. There’s not much my parents do on the first floor except entertain.”

“So it’s basically the White House.”

“That’s actually a pretty apt description.”

He followed her up the twenty limestone steps to the first covered veranda, which led to the double-doored public entrance, and was half surprised when a butler with a silver tray didn’t greet them as they stepped inside.

There was no entryway. No foyer. No coat closet or decorative table with a little bowl for the car keys or a corner for discarded shoes. Instead, the public entrance opened directly into a square ballroom that stretched all three stories high. Surrounding it on three sides were balconies overlooking the room from upper floors.

Colton didn’t know where to look first. The marble floor. The three hallways that branched off from the main room to parts unknown. Or the six Christmas trees that circled the entire hall, each barricaded by red velvet ropes.

She had ropes in her house.

“What the fuck do you even call a room like this?”

He didn’t realize he’d asked the question out loud until she answered. “My parents call it the Great Hall. It’s modeled after the Breakers.”

“The Breakers?”

“One of the Vanderbilt mansions on Rhode Island.”

So it really was Gilded Age shit.

“Trust me,” Gretchen said, shame dragging her voice down, “I know how it looks. My mom wanted a place to host huge parties and meetings. The first floor is all for show.”

“Do they?”

“Do they

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