She had told Derrick she wanted time to get used to being married, yet this development surprised her. If they slept in different rooms, it appeared his idea of a normal marriage meant living separate lives and perhaps having the occasional conjugal visit.
Coming back to the present, Eva yawned and stretched, then slipped from beneath the floral linens in the four-poster bed and walked over to the three windows that covered one wall. She drew aside the heavy drapes and squinted against the glare of the bright sun. Outside, the gardeners stayed busy pruning, cutting, and mowing.
After washing up and changing into comfortable clothes, Eva exited her bedroom and walked through the sitting area of their suite of rooms, filled with antique furniture and expensive-looking Impressionist paintings on the walls. The rest of the house she walked through was tastefully decorated in a similar way, with expensive art and traditional furnishings.
After a few tries, Eva found the kitchen. In a house this big, a GPS device would come in handy.
“Good morning, Mrs. Hoffman,” Svana said in a heavily accented voice. “What would you like for breakfast?”
“Don’t go to too much trouble,” Eva replied. She couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of having servants and staff who waited on her hand and foot. Derrick had called this lifestyle comfortable, but living in a mansion in Buckhead was more than comfortable, and she still had to get accustomed to such a swanky style of living. With a shrug, she said, “I’ll be fine with some orange juice and toast.”
“Are you sure, ma’am?” Svana looked disappointed. “How about some scrambled eggs or an omelet to go with your toast?”
“An omelet sounds good. Ham and cheese?”
“Coming right up.” The housekeeper looked so happy, she realized that perhaps part of Svana’s concern had been about pleasing her, the new woman of the house. “Would you like to have breakfast on the terrace?”
Outside the French doors was a table set up on the stone terrace that looked out onto the grounds. “Yes. That sounds like a good idea.”
Once outside, Eva saw the terrace also had a sitting area with couches and a coffee table, perfect for a relaxing day while surveying the gardens.
Svana served her fresh-squeezed orange juice with her meal and beamed when Eva whispered, “Delicious,” after swallowing a morsel of the fluffy omelet.
This became her routine over the next couple of days. If Derrick intended to show her his life wouldn’t change now that they’d married, he did a good job of it. Their interaction was minimal, like roommates who had different work schedules.
While he worked in the study, she filled out thank-you cards for the wedding gifts and unpacked her clothes and other belongings rather than have one of the maids or her personal assistant complete the tasks for her.
Exploring the estate took a lot of time, as well. Saunders and Svana lived in the main house and each had their own self-contained private quarters with a small kitchen and living room. The entire compound consisted of the three-level house, a gazebo, a tennis court, and a guesthouse with a pool. The main house included a gym, a heated indoor swimming pool, home theater, and a recreation space with a ping-pong table and arcade games.
The grounds were her favorite part of the estate, and she delighted in watching the squirrels hop from tree limb to tree limb, and the birds take advantage of the bird feeders dotted across the property. Flowers lined the cobblestoned pathways. Black-eyed Susans and twenty-inch columbine flowers in shades of purple and pink greeted her on her walks.
The in-ground pool Derrick had told her about turned out to be a free-form pool, specially designed to look like a lake and fit into the landscape, with rock projections jutting out of it. Only a short walk from the house, it was a man-made oasis enclosed by bushes and flowers, with comfortable chairs, two cabanas, and a bar.
Her lifestyle had certainly changed.