Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126850 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Finding out he’s actually an aristocrat and will one day inherit an ancient Scottish dukedom and castle? Yep, that’s a surprise.
Sharing a bed with him at said castle because his family thinks I’m his girlfriend? Okay, I’m sure I’ll survive. Even if he does make my heart pitter-patter and my lady bits—uh, never mind.
Dealing with his family feud, his bridezilla sister, and his grandma’s gobby cockatiel who fancies himself the castle alarm system? It’s… well, it’s… something.
Oh, and a snowstorm, keeping my real identity a secret, trying to figure out where the heck I know the Glenroch family from, and why his mum keeps looking at me weirdly?
Yeah, that I’ll need some help with…
*Please note that The Problem With Pretending is set in the United Kingdom and is written in British English. It's set in my aristoverse but is a complete standalone.*
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
CHAPTER ONE – GRACE
The Dramas of Dating
“He stuck it in my arse.”
I paused with my fingers hovering over the keyboard of my laptop and slowly raised my gaze from my dissertation I was working on to where my best friend was staring at me. “I’m sorry… What?”
Amber slammed her keys on the coffee table and met my gaze. “He stuck his penis up my bum.”
“No, no, I got that bit,” I replied, letting my hands settle on my laptop. “Also, hello.”
She sighed, throwing herself onto the sofa and almost knocking over my bottle of water in the process of putting her feet up on the coffee table.
“The date didn’t go well, then?” I asked, glancing at the time. “Despite it going on all night.”
And her wearing the same clothes she’d left in sixteen hours ago.
If looks could kill, Amber would be on the hook for murder. “Grace!”
“What? I was only asking.” I blinked. “Also, did you close the front door?”
“Did I not slam it hard enough for you?”
“I didn’t know if Mrs. Johanssen, four houses down, heard you or not, so I thought I ought to check.”
“Grace! You’re my best friend. Aren’t you supposed to offer me some advice?”
“Sorry, Amb. I’m not really sure what to reply to an accidental dick in the arse except offering you some Vaseline,” I replied honestly. “Of all my dating fails, I can’t say I’ve ever been as unfortunate as that.”
Amber stared at me, and she blinked so emphatically that one of her false eyelashes came free from the glue and peeled away from her eyelid.
“You’ve got a little…” I touched the tip of my nail to my eye and lightly tapped.
She winced and peeled it off. “Better?”
“Not really. Now I feel like I’m talking to half a bird.”
“For God’s sake.” She carefully removed the other eyelash—that was obviously applied yesterday—and dropped them in an empty mug on the coffee table. “Is that better?”
“I’d prefer you put them in the bin as opposed to my tea mug, but I suppose it isn’t worse,” I replied, manually saving my essay. “How did he put it in your arse?”
Amber blinked at me. “I’m never doing it doggy style again.”
That explained quite a bit.
“Ah. But still, how don’t they know? Surely the resistance is a dead giveaway. I mean, it goes from wet and ready to…”
“Putting a bowling ball in a buttonhole?”
“Slightly more drastic a descriptor than I was initially going for, but I suppose it works.” I shrugged and saved my document again to make sure, then put my laptop on the table. “I guess you won’t be seeing him again, then.”
“What gave it away?”
“I don’t know. I mean, it is lunchtime. Is he that bad if you’ve been with him that long?”
“We didn’t get back to his place until two in the morning. I tried calling you after the terrible sex from his bathroom to pick me up, but you didn’t answer.”
I blinked at her. “Yes, Amber. It was four a.m. I was doing the same thing most normal people were doing and sleeping.”
“Why didn’t you call me back this morning?”
“I did. It went to voicemail.”
She rummaged in her bag and pulled out her phone. “Ah. It’s dead.”
“I guess he didn’t have a charger,” I mused, getting up and grabbing the mug with her fake lashes in. “Mine is at the side of the sofa.”
“Thank you,” she sang, leaning over to snaffle the charge lead. “Ah. There we go. Now I’m going to have seventy thousand notifications pop up.”
“I told you to shut them off in the settings. You’ll feel so much freer without all that interference.”
“If only I could. I’d miss half my work. Why did I decide to work with social media?”
I walked into the kitchen, flicked the kettle on, and shouted back through the hall, “Because all the other jobs you were open to required you to wear actual clothes on a daily basis.”
“Ah,” Amber called back. “Now I remember.”
I shook my head and turned back to the kettle, pausing to grab two mugs from the cupboard. I didn’t like to dirty them unnecessarily, but I wasn’t about to plop her eyelashes out and drink from the same mug I had this morning.
Apparently, those eyelashes had had quite the night.
“Oh, no. He’s texted me! Grace! Help!”
I sighed.
The kettle reached its boiling crescendo and the click of the button switching it off reverberated through the kitchen. I hurriedly made two cups of tea, doubled back for the packet of chocolate digestives to tuck under my arm, and rushed back through as quickly as I dared.
“What did he say?” I asked, moving my elbow to drop the packet of biscuits on the sofa before I put the tea down.
“‘Thanks for a great night, sorry about the whole butt thing and having to rush off to work this morning. Are you free Friday? Apology dinner on me,’” she read. Amber slowly dragged her gaze from her phone screen to meet mine, and she was so stony-faced that if she stayed like that much longer, she’d end up turning into a gargoyle and catapulting herself to live on the side of my father’s house.