Chapter 3
Emery's POV
I checked my watch. 9:01.
I clenched my jaw and set aside my sketchpad. If he was going to fight, he could do better than that.
He finally turned, face cold and unyielding. "You can do what you want with the main rooms. Just don't touch the study."
"The study?" I queried, leafing through the blueprints. There was no room described as one.
"It's behind the bookcase in the library. Stay out of there."
Written down. I put it into words with greater drama, but intrigue already thrummed in the back of my mind.
The remainder of the day was filled with shovels of dust and silence. Roman withdrew into his office for hours, while Nathan and Lily, Roman's personal aide, and I roamed the enormous penthouse together.
Nathan was the antithesis of Roman warm, funny, and unexpectedly open. Nathan was the one who provided me access to the storage areas and introduced me to the building's strange electrical quirks. It was in the sunroom, wrestling with whether or not to remove an ugly marble wall, that he surprised me.
"Know, he used to laugh," Nathan said to me, handing me a bottle of water.
I stared at him. "Roman? Laugh?"
He laughed. "I know. It sounds stupid to say it. But yeah. Before his sister passed away, he was different."
My hand hung in mid-draw. "Sister?
Nathan nodded, a shadow crossing his features. "Eliza. Younger. Died about three years ago. Car accident. He never talks about it, but after that. everything changed. He sold off most of his properties. Stopped dating. Barely leaves the penthouse unless it's for business."
That explained the closed-off vibe. The locked study. The coldness.
Grief can freeze a person solid.
I murmured a soft, "I'm sorry," but Nathan waved it off.
He's a difficult man to get through to. But he's not ruthless.
It caused me to see Roman in a different light. Not just a difficult client with too much money and a god complex. But a man carrying something around. Alone.
We went on with our tour. As I stripped back layers of old design, I began noticing strange discrepancies. Behind one hallway mirror was a hidden alcove. Behind one dining room panel, an open wall. Secrets layers upon secrets layers like Roman had tried to conceal something lay in the penthouse.
The real turning point came later in the day.
I was reading over the design in the far wing, tracing my fingers over blueprints, when I noticed a space. The blueprint showed a small square section of space between two rooms, but there wasn't any door, any opening.
"Nathan," I yelled. "Do you know what this is?"
He glanced at the blueprint and wrinkled his brow. "That shouldn't be there. That space doesn't exist anymore. It was sealed off in the last renovation."
"May I take a look?"
"You'd have to break through the wall. Roman would not like that."
I hesitated. Technically, I wasn't allowed anywhere near locked-off rooms. But there was something about the small square that annoyed me. Something seemed. off.
That night, after everyone had left, I stayed behind. Told Lily I had more measuring to do. I waited until the building was still and quiet, until even the elevator stopped humming.
Then I went to the far wing with a flashlight and a crowbar.
The wall fell faster than I expected. The plaster crumbled, then melted, revealing a door hidden behind faux paneling. My fingers trembled as I pushed it open.
It was dust and silence in there.
It was a small space. A child's bed, a bookshelf, and a tiny writing desk at most. It was stale but still carried the faint scent of lavender and wood.
And hung, on the wall next to the bed, was one drawing. Crayon on yellowed paper. Stick figure girl and man in a suit holding hands. Captioned in shaky letters: Me and Roman.
My heart twisted up.
I'd never imagined what this room had once been. But I knew who it was for.
Eliza.
Roman had walled it up. Bury it like an injury that could never be cured.
I stepped back, overwhelmed.
That was when I heard the click. Low.
I spun around.
Roman was in the doorway, face neutral, eyes shadowed and raked.
"I told you," he said flatly, "not to go into rooms that are not yours."
I slept poorly after hearing about the secret room.
Though Roman had rebuffed my questions with a frigid glare and a growl, "It's not part of the job," the image sketched by the child had lodged in my head like a persistent splinter. It wasn't consistent with the sleek sophistication of his penthouse or of the man.
I arrived the following day early, armed with mood boards, coffee, and a sense of new caution. Roman had not said anything about firing me yet, which I took as a win.
He was already present, in his glass-enclosed office at the end of the open space, gazing out over the city. I stood there gawking at him for a moment still as stone, back rigid, fists clenched at his sides. For the hundredth time, I found myself wondering what kind of tempest brewed beneath all that steel and control.
"You're early," he snarled when I at last stepped inside.
"Habit," I said. "And you're not releasing me. So that's... surprising."
A half-smile flitted the edge of his mouth. "Not yet."
We didn't talk about the sealed room again at least not for the first few hours. We walked through floor sample after floor sample, argued over texture, and warred furiously about wallpaper in the main hall.
"You're trying to make it live, he said, his face glum. "It's not a home, Ms. Blake. It's a fortress."
"And yet you had me renovate it," I said, "So either you want change, or you'd like to throw money showing that you don't."
Something glinted behind his eyes amusement, maybe, or the first stirrings of admiration. But it vanished too quickly to identify.
We ate in silence, and I couldn't help but linger outside the closed door, fascinated.
He discovered me there.
"You're wondering what occurred," he said quietly.
I gazed at him, not flinching. "Yes."
He walked over to the door and braced himself against it. "This was my brother's room. Eli."