He tugs me out of the room and toward the winding staircase. As we go up it, I realize it’s a gentle spiral, and both the little girl in my soul and the designer in my heart sing their way up to it. If I weren’t holding my wine glass, my fingers would be brushing the gorgeous wooden banister that follows the curve of the stairs. As it is, I settle for my eyes running along it. At the top, we come to a spacious hallway, much barer than the rest of the house. Unlike downstairs, the doors are all open up here, and I can spy four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a room I can’t quite make out. “The master bedroom with its private bath and walk-in closet are at the end of the hall,” Carter tells me, motioning toward it with his glass. “The others are all spares—I keep them for my family. Mom lives in California and comes to visit every couple of months,” he explains. “But that’s not what I want to show you.” “I’m starting to think you really do have a sex chamber with whips and chains on the walls,”
