Page 29 of Diego

Then again, Randall had managed to show me several properties I disliked in the short time I was in his office, so his opinion has not earned much weight.

I decide to keep mine to myself until I have seen more than the exterior.

I pull to a stop near the front steps and cut the engine. Blair reaches for her door, but I am already out of the car by the time she gets it open more than a few inches. I round the hood and reach her side before she can step onto the drive.

She looks up at me as I hold out my hand.

“You know I can get out of a car by myself.”

There is a smile in her voice, nothing challenging in it.

“I’m aware.”

Her hand settles into mine, and I help her out. The heels she chose this morning make her legs look even longer than they did yesterday, which is saying something, but she is already turning toward the house before I can let myself get distracted by them for too long.

“This property sits on a fully private section of the lakefront,” she says as we start toward the front entrance. “You’ve got significant natural screening from the road, a gated entry, and enough distance between the street and the house that very little of the property can be seen from outside.”

I glance toward the trees again. “The greenery is doing a lot of work.”

“It is, but don’t let it fool you into thinking the house is exposed.”

That gets my attention.

Blair gestures toward one side of the property as we walk. “There’s extensive perimeter security built into the landscaping. Cameras cover the approach from multiple angles, there are motion sensors along the grounds, and the gate system is integrated with the house rather than functioning independently. The windows are monitored as well, and the current security setup can be expanded if you want something more specific.”

She keeps going as she reaches into her bag for the key, explaining the alarm zones, exterior coverage, and access controls with enough familiarity that it is obvious she did more than skim the listing sheet last night.

Behind her back, I lift my brows.

That is considerably better.

Privacy had been one of the first things I told Meridian I wanted, but I had not explained why. Blair apparently did not need me to. She found a property with enough security already in place to make the landscaping less of a liability than I first assumed, and she knows enough about the system to explain why.

Maybe Randall was wrong after all.

Blair unlocks the double front doors but does not open them immediately. She turns toward me, smiles, then pushes both doors inward and steps aside.

“After you.”

I walk in first.

And stop.

The entrance opens into a wide central space, but almost none of it registers at first because directly across from me, wall-to-wall windows frame Lake Michigan.

The water fills the entire view.

There is no neighboring building cutting into it, no line of rooftops, no city street. Just blue stretching far enough that it looks less like a lake than an ocean.

“Okay,” I say quietly.

Blair closes the door behind us. “That usually gets people.”

I walk farther into the house without answering, my attention still fixed on the windows. I have lived in Chicago long enough that the lake should not surprise me anymore, but I have never considered living directly on it. There is something different about seeing it from inside a house, especially like this, where the architecture seems designed to make the water part of every room.

“It’s impressive,” I admit.

“I thought you might like the view.”