It wasn’t huge in that it was a palace with multiple wings but rather huge in that it had the same number of (legal) bedrooms as her mother’s house in Torrance but was roughly twice as big. It had a three-car garage, which housed the Land Rover and a Tesla Roadster. “Both of these are my dad’s,” he clarified, like that made it any better. Apparently, Baba Mazandarani owned a car dealership in Irvine, so teeeeeechnically the dealership owned the Land Rover. The Tesla, though, that was Dad’s. His family had preferred to invest in real estate rather than the stock market, which had insulated their wealth from the worst of the stock market crash, despite the real estate market being the cause of the stock market crash. “Subprime loans are mainly what caused it— that doesn’t have anything to do with our investments, since none of our properties have mortgages,” he told her, and she nodded like she’d understood a word he said.

The garage led into a kitchen that opened into a comfortable family room. Big bay windows and glass-paned doors looked into the backyard, which had both a pool and a hot tub that flowed into the pool, and sat atop a hill with a view that probably could see all the way to LA on a clear day if such things existed. Yes, they did have to get going or they’d be late for the appointment at the salon in Hollywood he’d booked for her (“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it”), but they weren’t in such a hurry that he couldn’t give her a quick tour.

Upstairs were three bedrooms, each with its own bath, as well as an office he’d never used. The master bedroom had a fireplace and a balcony that looked out onto the valley below. It entered into the even more gobsmacking master bathroom, which probably had its own zip code. The shower was practically its own room, walled off by a giant pane of glass. Across from it was a bathtub surrounded by a tile shelf on both sides, with a window right next to it looking into the backyard. One had to go through the master bathroom to access the walk-in closet, which was bigger than her bedroom.

Oh, God, I’m so far out of my league, we’re not even playing the same sport, she thought for roughly the eighty-fifth time that morning as her eyes wandered from the little balcony that overlooked that huge backyard to the freaking remote that turned on the fireplace to his big California king bed with its Egyptian cotton duvet. She imagined herself in that giant bed, and the thought made her toes curl.