He sighs as he looks past Chloe. “Enough to buy a half-dozen seven-million-dollar houses before having to get into the non-legit money, and with that money I could buy another half-dozen seven-million-dollar houses. Okay?”
I blink fast. “Okay.” Wow. “In that case I want six girls.”
Dominic laughs as he shakes his head. “Let’s see how we do with the four and we’ll talk about it then.”
Chloe smacks my leg. “You’re up, Dominic doesn’t care where he lives. What do you want in a house?”
“Um, something with character, none of those slick four-storied brand-new houses. I want a yard with grass too.”
“Could you be any more vague, my dear?” Chloe mutters as she starts typing into the computer. “Five bedrooms, I’m going to go with at least four bathrooms because with all those girls you are going to need them. I’m going to go with at least five thousand square feet and a double lot to get the yard. And zip codes, okay.” She hits enter.
“We have twelve.” She clicks on one. “What do you think?”
I frown and shake my head. “No, I like that it’s brick but it’s right up against another building, so that side won’t have any light coming into it. It reminds me of houses in New York. Ooh, click on that one. Oh no, it’s got four levels. I don’t want all those levels carrying the baby up and down the stairs and our room being on another floor. Wait, that one, oh, click on that one. I love it.”
“Of course you love it. It’s ten thousand square feet and the main living area is on two floors with a basement that’s completely remodeled. The yard is over two thousand square feet. There are five bedrooms and seven bathrooms. And it was built in 1909.”
“Look at all the wood, and that library. Dominic, they have a library already. That master suite is gorgeous, it’s a little boring but with some paint it will be perfect. I want that one. Wait, that’s the house at the end of the block.”
Dominic curses, Chloe laughs. “Yep, and it’s already under contract. Contingent on it passing inspection.”
No, that’s our house. It’s perfect.
Dominic swears again. “Call them, Chloe. She wants it. Call them.”
“Don’t you want to see it first?”
I look up at Dominic, afraid to hope and shake my head. “I don’t need to see it.”
“Hold up, I cannot in good conscience allow you to put in an offer on it without seeing it first. It’s less than a five-minute walk. The owners are out of state already, it’s got a box on it for us to get in with the code. Let’s go look at it.”
Once we get downstairs, Enzo orders Chloe into their SUV, it didn’t matter it was a five-minute walk. If she didn’t get into it on her own he’d put her in it. Dominic and I start walking hand-in-hand as Chloe and Enzo argue behind us, with Allegra chattering at them both in her baby Italian.
“Do you mind us living so close to Chloe and Enzo and Bethany and Dante?”
“No, not really. They’re just going to be all up in our grill, no doubt. I’ll get over it.”
We’re to the gate when Enzo and Chloe finally pull up.
“I like the gate, it’s nice and secure. I’m not in love with it being on the corner, we’ll need to put up some bushes for privacy and cameras,” Dominic murmurs as he scans the area around the house.
“You and your cameras.”
He chuckles as he pulls me close. “I seem to recall you liking them yourself.”
Chloe keys in a code on a little blue box around the doorknob of the front door. She opens the door and gestures for me to walk through it first.
“Oh wow, it’s better than the pictures.” I sigh.
For the next fifteen minutes I fall in love with the house more and more. I leave Dominic with Enzo in the basement as they discuss whether to turn it into a movie room or game room and find Chloe on the roomy low sofa looking out to the interior garden solarium. She pats the sofa beside her.
“You love it?”
“I love it. I can’t wait to fill it with a bunch of baby girls.”
Chloe tilts her head. “You can tell me to shut up and it’s none of my business, but why are you going through in vitro when you are so young?”
I see Dominic out of the corner of my eye frowning, and I shake my head lightly. “I didn’t want to say anything, but we’ve been trying since we made up, or rather we haven’t been trying to prevent me getting pregnant. I was sure each month it would happen. When it didn’t, I got scared. Like you said, I’m young. I thought I would get pregnant easily.”