Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 45284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
I’m about to knock when the door opens inwards. A tall, lean woman stares down at me. Her gray hair is tied in a tight ponytail, and she’s got a flinty look in her eyes like she’s angry at me for being here.
“Uh, Janine?” I ask.
“Hmm,” she nods, nowhere near as friendly as she was on the phone and via messenger. “And you must be Amelia.”
“The one and only.”
Oh, God. I cringe so hard the second the words are out of my mouth.
The one and only. Why would I say that?
“Did you forget about the upfront fee you owe?” Janine says. “There are costs associated with you being here.”
Her voice is shriller in person, high-pitched, and cutting.
“I paid it,” I protest.
She tilts her head and purses her lips as if she thinks I’m lying. “I think you’ll find you haven’t.”
I grit my teeth, almost snapping at her. We could at least have this conversation in the warm.
“Let me check.”
Taking out my phone, I navigate to my banking app. With flight mode off, a text has come through from Mom.
Remember, you’re there for romance, not work!
I’d smile at all the laughing and winking emojis included if it wasn’t for the landlord from hell staring at me.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say. “There must have been a glitch or something. It hasn’t gone through, but it saved the payment request. I’ll put it through now.”
Janine doesn’t look convinced as she taps her foot on the floor, but when her phone makes an alert noise, she checks it and nods briefly.
“Sorry about that,” she says, not sounding very sorry at all. “Let me show you to your room. You won’t see much of the other tenants. Everybody here works insane hours.”
“I’ll be out a lot, too,” I say, feeling the need to defend myself even if I shouldn’t.
The inside is surprisingly okay. The carpets and rugs are faded, but everything smells clean. The wallpaper is chipped, but there’s no dampness and nothing outright wrong with it. My room is a box at the front of the property, overlooking the street, with a small radiator in one corner. The bed is single, and the mattress looks like a wafer, with fresh sheets and covers folded on top of it.
Janine sees me looking at the sheets and raises an eyebrow. It’s almost like she wants me to comment that I have to put them on myself. Maybe she thinks I’m going to be the difficult American.
“Thank you,” I say, beaming at her. “Everything is perfect.”
“The heating comes on between five and eleven at night and six and eight in the morning. Feel free to adjust yours by the dial on the heater.”
I grin, and she cuts off. “Is something funny?”
“No, sorry. Yes. You said heater instead of radiator.”
“What else would I call it?”
I was about to joke about the heating being on in early summer only in England, but I don’t think she’d find it very funny.
She lists off some other stuff, like when I can use the bathroom, which cupboard is mine in the kitchen, and things like that. Honestly, I can’t wait for her to leave.
She’s buzz-killing my “new country, new me” vibes a little.
Once she’s left me, I go to the window, throw open the curtains, and look down at the rainy street, the dark puddles, no sunlight to make them glisten. Across the street… What the heck? It’s as if somebody reached into my mind and plucked out my dream man.
He stands in the rain, not caring when it sluices through his silver-streaked hair. His hair is short, and, unlike the puddles, it does glisten in the wet. He’s wearing a dark suit, clinging tightly to his muscular body, at least six feet, his arms bulging in the material. I’m too far away. I shouldn’t be able to see the intensity in his eyes from here, the fierce anger, obsession, something as he gazes up.
A knock at my door has me turning.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” Janine asks, maybe feeling bad about how we started things.
“Sure, thank you.”
When I turn back to the window, my dream man is gone.
CHAPTER TWO
Thomas
This is a bloody joke. I’m a bloody joke.
Stalker isn’t something I thought I’d ever have a reason to call myself, but here I am, standing outside this depressing hovel in the pissing-down rain. She deserves so much better than a place like this. She might’ve seen me just now, but it’s impossible to be sure. I stepped back just in case, hiding in the small passageway between two houses.
This street reminds me of the sort I grew up on, a tinge of nastiness in the air like any second somebody could kick down a door, light up some crack, or… Bloody hell, I’m letting my mind go to the past again.