“Is this all yours?” she asks.

I take her arm and pull her away from the cab before it drives away.

“Only the first floor,” I tell her. “Although that’s what you would call the second floor in America.” She doesn’t seem to hear me—she’s just blinking in awe.

I guess it does look a lot different than what she’s used to. The whole row of stone buildings take up a block as one attached complex. Though the false balconies and wrought iron details are similar to the ones I’ve seen in San Francisco, it’s the stone that sets it apart. And the fact that it was built two hundred years ago.

“It used to be one big townhouse back in the day,” I tell her, taking our luggage and Emily’s crate to the white-painted door. I nod at the garden and apartments set below on either side of the bridge-like walkway. “A nice couple with a baby rents the bottom and ground floor flats. I have the first floor. The top of the building is owned by an older couple, but they’re rarely in the city.”

“So you can just own different floors of the same house?” she asks.

I nod. “It’s common here.”

She looks behind her at the green trees of the park across the street, their leaves shining with morning dew.

“That’s Circus Place,” I point out. “One of the places I take Lionel or whichever dog I’m fostering at the moment. A couple of blocks down is the Queen Street Gardens. The neighborhood is very dog friendly and it’s close to Princes Street, the castle, and anywhere else you’ll want to go in the city.”

“Is Lionel upstairs?” she asks as I stick the key in the door.

I shake my head. “Amara has him. She’ll bring him by later. But first, let’s deal with you.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” she says, stifling a yawn.

I leave the luggage at the bottom of the stairs and take Emily’s crate and Kayla up to the first floor.

“I can’t believe this would have been one big house,” she says, admiring the royal blue carpet on the stairs and the teak wood trim on the walls.

“People had a lot of money back in the day,” I tell her, bringing her to the front door on the landing. “And people with money had servants to house. Probably a mistress and a bastard child too.”

She raises her brows. “So where do you keep your mistress?”

“You’re the mistress, the wife, the girlfriend, the everything.” It takes me a moment to realize I’ve said something that was probably a bit much, but the prettiest pink flush spreads to her cheeks. I can’t open the door fast enough.

I place Emily in the hall, closing the door behind us, and grab Kayla’s hand. “Quick tour while I get Emily some water and food.”

The hallway off the stairs has doors leading to the front and rear of the flat. At the rear is the kitchen and the dining room with shuttered floor to ceiling windows that look out onto the private walled garden that I share with the other residents.

“Holy shit.” Kayla whirls around, taking it all in. “This room is huge. These are the highest ceilings I’ve ever seen.”

I quickly duck into the kitchen to fill a dog dish with water, and I add a small amount of dog kibble into another bowl. Lionel usually eats raw food, but it’s best to start Emily off with something easy.

I come back out to see Kayla roaming around the room, running her hand over the dark oak table in the middle, marveling at everything. Because the room is so large, I’ve got a computer workstation set up in the corner and a long white leather couch along one wall.

“It’s more than enough space for me, that’s for sure,” I tell her, and she follows me back into the hall where I set the bowls down and open Emily’s crate. I crouch down and try to coax her out, but she shrinks back.

“We’ll give her some time,” I tell Kayla and step away. “Come, let me show you the rest of the flat.” I nod at a door across from us. “The bathroom is accessed through there. I wish it were an ensuite, but what can you do?”

I open the door to the drawing room, the natural morning light flooding from the windows. “This is the drawing room, which is just a living room in your American speak.”

“Only it’s not just any kind of room,” Kayla says, impressed again as we walk in, eyeing the comfy couches, the rows of bookshelves, the high hanging chandelier. Funny how sometimes you have to look at something through someone else’s eyes to really see it. I knew I’d lucked out when I bought the flat five years ago. I’d finally had enough money to invest it into something worthwhile (a few years after that I bought a tiny flat in London, but that I always lease out). From the hardwood floors to the decorative cornice work to the white marble fireplace, it’s always been just a little too good for a bloke like me. But my adopted father, Donald, always taught me to invest, and buying this place was one of the smartest things I’d ever done.

I quickly show Kayla through the double doors to the bedroom, which is long and narrow but looks out onto the street and park. Lionel’s dog bed is usually in the corner, though Amara has it now and he rarely uses it anyway, preferring to sleep in my bed, sneaking up in the middle of the night.

“Now,” I tell her, taking her by the shoulders and sitting her down on the bed, “you rest. I’ll get the luggage and get Emily settled.”

“No, no,” she says, attempting to stand up but I keep her pinned in place.

“I won’t let you sleep all day,” I assure her. “I don’t want your jetlag to get worse. But a two-hour nap isn’t going to kill you, all right, love?”

She puts her hands on either side of my face, and the softness of her touch causes my eyes to fall closed. “Come to bed with me,” she says softly, leaning forward and brushing her lips against mine. My whole body relaxes—I hadn’t noticed how tense I’ve been since we landed—and suddenly all I want, need, is to crawl onto the sheets beside her. Let her bring me into the here and now.

Somehow I find the will to pull away. “I will,” I tell her, my voice low and rough from even the idea of sex. “Let me just deal with all of this first.”

She nods and slowly lies back against the sheet, her dark hair spilling around the white pillow like some hypnotic inkblot. I’ll have to avoid this room and the sight of her if I’m going to get any work done.

I close the doors and get started. It doesn’t actually take too long to get everything in order, though I suspect it’s because I’m racing through things. My pulse just won’t slow down, and I feel positively charged with excitement and anxiety. I take the luggage up and stack it in the hall, putting away what I can, trying to make the place more homey. Then I text Amara and let her know to come by with Lionel whenever she can, probably in the afternoon since she’ll be at the shelter for most of the day. After that, I clean up Emily’s crate and take her outside, doing a loop around Circus Place until she seems a bit more comfortable with me again.

Though it’s still quite early, a few neighbors are out and about. They raise their hand in greeting when they see me but they don’t approach me, asking where I’ve been, why I haven’t been around. They know enough by now that I’m not the talkative type, and while I’ve always been cordial, I don’t care to get close to them. That said, you need your neighbors on your side when you own a pit bull or any kind of bully breed in the U.K. If you piss off the wrong person, they could try and get your dog taken away from you. It’s happened before, and Lionel would be killed if it happened again.

Emily looks up at me with knowing eyes, as if she can sense what I’m thinking. I give her a quick smile. “S’all right,” I tell her. “You’re safe. And we’ll find you someone worthy of Miss Emily, yeah?”

I go around the building, hooking left on Circus Lane to check on my Range Rover. The Freelander is still sitting there, looking no worse for wear other than rain spots on the black finish. If it wasn’t for rugby practice tomorrow I’d pile Kayla and the dogs into it and take us far away from the city, out to Dunnottar Castle, maybe even to the start of the Highlands. But I’m already missing today’s practice, the first of the season as it is.