I had purposely saved the master bedroom suite for last. It sat on the east side of the second story, and the main windows looked out over the ocean. The view was remarkable. There was a separate walk-in closet on each side of a hallway that led to a bathroom, which included a small steam room, a Roman tub with Jacuzzi jets, Italian marble counters and sinks, and even a massage table that pulled out from one of the marble counters. That saved Brennan’s personal masseuse the trouble of carrying a table with her when she stopped by to give him one of his three weekly massages.

I enjoyed the look on Marty’s face as he inspected every inch of the house. He said, “This is just unbelievable. Even a spread in Architectural Digest wouldn’t do this place justice. And most of these renovations were your idea?”

I nodded while trying to hide my superior smile. “That’s right, I made this place what it is today. When I got here, Brennan had literally thrown some rugs across the floors and hadn’t updated the house in any other way since the 1960s. When I found mold—and I’m talking some serious mold, like up the walls and everything—in two of the guest bedrooms, Brennan’s response was ‘No one stays there long enough to get sick, so why worry about it?’”

“Peach of a guy. I’m glad I’ve never had to meet him face-to-face.”

“You’re in another class. There’s no reason for you to ever have to deal with that jackass. He’ll be out of our life soon enough.”

Marty smiled and said, “Now, that’s an attitude I can get behind. As long as you don’t need all this again, I can’t see why I won’t make you happy.”

Instead of answering him, I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck, then planted a long, lingering kiss on his lips. It felt nice to have this kind of passion in this particular bedroom. The room certainly hadn’t seen this kind of action from me in a long time. I had no idea what Brennan was up to on the dating front, and I didn’t care. If I really had to admit it, this house had always meant a lot more to me than Brennan had. At least that was what I kept telling myself.

I pulled Marty by his hand and said, “I have one more thing I have to show off, and this one will blow your mind.” I ignored his questions and pulled him into the walk-in closet, which was really just another room, to the left of the hallway leading to the bathroom. This was Brennan’s formal closet, with one entire wall covered by over a hundred suits, organized by cut and color. I knew it would shock Marty.

He was silent for a moment, then whistled as he walked along a row of suits, dragging his finger across the sleeve of each one. He looked up at the dozens of shirts, in colors ranging from white all the way to black, arranged in perfect order. It looked like a paint chart from one end of the closet to the other.