I walked on along the path, not hearing Elly’s response. After a few minutes, they caught up with me.
“Are you in a rush, Sebastian, to show Elly your old tennis court?” Mom called out from behind.
I stopped. I hadn’t realized that we were heading in that direction. I glanced at Elly, and she caught my eye.
“You didn’t tell me you played tennis,” she said, surprised.
“Oh, Sebastian always dreamed of playing one sport or another,” Mom supplied. “Tennis was his biggest passion, though. He played for years and was very talented before he took up soccer in high school.”
“I didn’t have the determination and focus that you do, Elly,” I said, throwing her a grin.
She smiled at the compliment. She was wearing the same dress as the night at the bar, which was dangerous territory. The light blue really brought out her eyes, which I was finding hard enough not to stare into every time her head turned in my direction.
Business, Sebastian. Business.
Mom walked ahead, toward the tennis courts. I pursed my lips.Being a gentleman isn’t going to hurt anyone.I offered my arm to Elly, noticing her pace was slowing down. She leaned into me.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
Nobody played in the courts nowadays, other than the occasional guest staying with my parents. Matteo kept the grounds immaculate, but it was obvious the court rarely saw a visitor. The lines had faded to a very light snail trail. The net needed replacing. I was about to tell Elly to ignore these little imperfections when I noticed her expression.
It was the longing in her eyes that pulled at me. She surveyed this old court like it was Wimbledon, awe bright as the sun in each pupil.
“You had this all to yourself?” she murmured to me, her voice infused with wonderment. “In your backyard?”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, looking back at the court, trying to see it through Elly’s eyes. I couldn’t. It was still the same beaten-down place. A place I had spent hours in. Loved. But still, beaten down.
“I wish…I wish…” Elly shook her head. She didn’t finish her sentence and ducked her head away. But not before I saw the tears spilling down her cheeks.
In that instant, I knew what I needed to do to finally impress Elly.
CHAPTER21
ELLY
Ididn’t know what to expect, that first morning waking up in a mansion. I wasn’t romantic enough to expect birds to come fluttering through my windows, bringing in a silk slip-on, or the housemaid with her team of girls to come to scrub, brush, and dress me for breakfast with the “master.”
I would think, though, that if you are going to pay a pretty penny on a property, the last thing you are going to want is the kind of crash-bam-boom-dash to wake you from your beauty sleep. Especially, if the mansion is not exactly a hop and a skip from any main road.
CRASH-BAM-BOOM-DASH! There it was again.
What was that? It sounded not too far from my window.
I got up slowly, holding onto the bed banister for support. After a period of immobility, my knee always felt very stiff, which made placing any weight on it a risk. I pulled on the dressing gown that had been left out for me (secret teapot housemaid?) and hopped to the window. I took a seat on the windowsill and pushed the lever to open the window. I peered outside.
What on earth are they doing?
I counted two tractors, though who they were being driven by was near impossible to determine through the dark-tinted windows. At least ten men were standing around, clearing plants and measuring the land. Everyone seemed either very busy or super bored, watching the others do whatever they had been appointed to do.
And there was Sebastian at the center of it all, pointing his fingers at different corners and then at a document he held in his other hand. I leaned further out of the window, hoping to catch any word or gesture that may indicate what was going on.
“Elly!” Sebastian called from the ground floor.
I was so surprised I nearly fell out of the window.
“Wha…wha…what’s going on?” I spluttered out, pushing myself back.Elly, he can’t hear you. You’re up here in a tower, and he is down there…well…all the way down there on the ground.
I rolled my eyes.This is not some fairy-tale scenario with me as Rapunzel. I refuse to see it that way.