“I do,” I replied, in my Jane Austen best. “Just round the corner.” He smiled and I felt my cheeks grow hot. Does he know the effect he’s having on me? If I were a better actress I might have been able to hide it, but once again my talent fell short.
“This is a wonderful neighborhood,” he said. I didn’t trust myself to speak so I just nodded. I’d had crushes before, on lead singers and movie stars and even a scene partner or two, but what I felt when I first saw Nathan was straight out of a Walt Whitman poem. （“Passing stranger! You do not know how longingly I look upon you . . .”） I said his name over and over in my head. Nathan, Nathan, Naaaaaathan. I had never met a Nathan. It occurred to me that the name would be forever spoiled, as I would always associate it with this impossibly perfect man. I wondered if he went by Nate, if that’s what his friends called him, if that’s what I would one day call him. I had always thought love at first sight was a myth, but that night I became a tried-and-true believer.
As the charged ions wafting off my modern-day Mr. Darcy tickled my skin, I thought about what had prompted me to （practically!） propose to Jordan just a few short minutes ago. I knew “baby fever” was a thing—most of my friends were getting it. Was I having “marriage fever”？ Was I so down on myself that I didn’t think I deserved a great big love? I didn’t know why I’d tried to coerce Jordan into marrying me, just that I was relieved he hadn’t said yes.
My dream man led me through an ornate dining room with a garish wrought-iron candelabra chandelier, into a music room with a gleaming mahogany baby grand piano. “Both of Louisa’s children played the piano,” he said. “We’ve had many a concert in this room.”
“How delightful!” I enthused.
“Honestly, it was awful,” he whispered. “Neither of them were very good.”
He smiled conspiratorially, and I felt my heartbeat all the way up in my ears. I followed him past bookcases full of sheet music, out a pair of french doors, and into a cozy book-lined library. It was so freakishly old-fashioned with its heavy floral drapery and beveled glass windows, I felt like I had walked into a game of Clue. I half expected to see Colonel Mustard and Mrs. Peacock sitting in the window seat, him in his yellow tuxedo and her in a funny hat.
We swirled down another hallway, past a “secret” staircase, then stopped at a set of double doors. “And last but not least, Louisa’s study.”
He pushed the doors open to reveal an odd-shaped room with a sloping ceiling and wraparound window seat. In the middle of the far wall was an antique rolltop desk lit by a Tiffany lamp as colorful and dizzying as a kaleidoscope. Above the desk was a collage of framed photos: set stills, red carpet shots, and signed actor headshots from the ’80s and ’90s.
“Oh my God,” I murmured as my eyes landed on a photo of two striking blondes in black dresses and stilettos. “Is that your aunt with Barbra Streisand?”
“Yep. Golden Globes, I think?” Nathan said. “My aunt was a bit of a player back in the day.” Yeah, obviously. I’d stolen a few selfies with “that guy from that show” over the years, but never with someone as famous and iconic as the Barbra Streisand. I suddenly couldn’t decide which of the two of them was more intriguing: my smoking-hot tour guide, or the famous-adjacent lady of the house.
I thought we were going to go out the way we came in, but Nathan suddenly got a little twinkle in his purty blue eyes. “Want to see the secret passageway to the kitchen?”
I nodded—I would have said yes to anything this man asked me—and he led me to a narrow bookcase against the far wall.
“Push on the Bible,” he said, and I did, and a second later the wall swung open to reveal a steep, narrow staircase. Five short steps later we were in the food pantry, surrounded by canned goods and pickle jars.
“Whoa,” I enthused. “I did not see that coming!”
“This house is full of surprises.”
Nathan winked—tingles again!—then led me through the chef’s kitchen with gleaming hardwood floors and cabinets for days, until we arrived back at the parlor, where Louisa and Brando were waiting.
“And here we are, back where we started,” Nathan said. He smiled and I had to grip the floor with my toes to keep from falling over.
“Thank you for letting me tour your marvelous home,” I said to the matron. “Of all the rooms the library is my favorite.”
I could feel Nathan’s eyes on me. Breathe, Ashley, breathe.