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)
“Well. That’s thrown a spanner in the works.” I hauled my feet up onto the sofa and cradled my mug close to my chest. “What are you going to say?”
“Jesus, I don’t know, that’s why I shouted to you. You’re the one with the fancy word skills. You figure it out.”
I snorted. “Clearly you haven’t seen how much of my work I’ve deleted today if you think I have fancy word skills.”
Amber sighed. “I can’t believe he texted. I thought it was over.”
“You’re obviously a better lover than he is.”
“Well, I didn’t accidentally shove anything up his arse, that’s for sure.”
“Sounds like a second date would be good for payback,” I pointed out.
She pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head slightly. “I can’t believe you just said that. When would I be in a position to shove anything up a guy’s arse?”
“Aside from petty revenge? When you find someone who likes that sort of thing, I suppose.”
“I don’t know why I live with you.”
“Because I don’t charge you rent?” I offered, hiding my grin behind my mug.
Amber paused. “You’re right. You’re the best friend in the whole wide world.”
I side-eyed her.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like you have a mortgage, my little nepo baby.”
My side-eye turned into a glare. “Buying a house is the least my father could do. It’s not like he does anything else for me, is it?”
“Dunno. You have a fancy title on your mail. Way better than ‘Miss.’ Sometimes I pretend we live in Downton Abbey, and I’m your maid.”
“And you want me to help you respond to this bad date of yours? The fancy title you refer to doesn’t exactly help with my own dating life. Granny did warn me.”
Seriously. You’d be surprised how many guys were intimidated when they found out that I was, in fact, Lady Grace Montgomery-Brown, not Miss Grace Montgomery-Brown.
Not that it mattered. My relationship with my father was distant at best, thanks to his less-than-stellar treatment of my mother when I was nine.
Namely knocking up his mistress and insisting that my mother divorce him quickly since the unborn baby was a boy—also known as the child he’d always wanted that she’d failed to provide.
Like she was in control of what gender I was.
Still, that didn’t stop my father trying to smoosh me into his cosy new family with my stepmother and half-brother. I had nothing against Vincent, nor did I care that he would one day inherit my father’s title of Earl of Loxford and the hassle that would come with maintaining the estate attached to the title, but I did take issue with my stepmother’s flagrant flaunting of her relationship with my father both before and after they very quickly got married.
Like nobody knew that the only reason he married her was because she was pregnant.
Needless to say, I didn’t spend any more time than absolutely necessary with them. I kept to our monthly dinner agreement, visited around Christmas, and spoke to Vincent occasionally outside of it, but it was kind of hard to strike up a conversation with a seventeen-year-old boy whose interests were largely football and Fortnite.
At least, I think that’s what it was. I didn’t know what seventeen-year-old boys did in their spare time and I didn’t want to know.
No, thank you.
The tempestuous relationship had only worsened after my mother’s death when I was fifteen. I’d had no choice but to move back to the Loxford estate with my dad and his new happy family, and it’d been the worst three years of my life. Not only had my nightmare stepmother tried to take the place of my mother, but my dad didn’t exactly realise what was going on.
I have a not-so-fond memory of dragging him to a joint therapy session where he realised that his wife, Carmen, had been hugely overstepping, and I didn’t need a new mum. I wanted my own, not the woman who’d had a hand in blowing up my entire family.
The insane grief Mum had gone through after her life literally crashed down around her meant that she hadn’t looked after herself properly. Maybe if none of it had happened, she’d have realised she was sick, and they would have discovered the cancer soon enough to save her life.
Like I said.
I didn’t want to say Carmen had had a hand in killing my mum, but she certainly wasn’t innocent. Neither was my father, for that matter, but he’d at least stepped up and made sure she didn’t have to worry about money.
After our therapy session, we’d had a few more and Dad had finally realised that it wasn’t a healthy environment for me. He agreed to pay for my housing during my time at university, and having the distance between me and Carmen helped our relationship somewhat.