Rick’s estate was large, quiet, and immaculately kept. The kind of place where even the air felt curated.
Layla felt every inch of the distance between that world and her own the moment she stepped through the door.
She sat at his dining table and found herself genuinely intimidated by the silverware arrangement.
Rick noticed immediately.
“Is there a reason you’re negotiating with the cutlery?” he asked, with a dry calm that made her laugh before she could stop herself.
That moment opened something up between them.
Over the weeks that followed — during family dinners Violet brought her to, during quiet afternoons on the estate grounds — Rick spoke to Layla differently than most people did.
He listened when she talked. He remembered what she said.
He was observant in a way that felt rare and a little unsettling.
“You notice the price of everything before you notice its beauty,” he said to her once.
