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)
“You should buy one and put it in your Tinder bio. That’ll bring all the girls to your yard. Er, castle.”
He dropped his head back, laughing, and turned his body so he was facing me. “It’s not my castle, and I most certainly am not on Tinder.”
“Why not? It’s a wonderful cesspit of genital pictures and mild abuse. Why wouldn’t you want that in your life?”
“Are you on Tinder?”
“Yes. It’s a good reminder of who not to date.” I paused, drawing my brows together slightly. “Not that I have a long list of people to date, but that’s not the point.”
William shook his head. “I can’t believe you really have nobody willing to date you. What’s wrong with you?”
“Hmm.” I frowned, hauling my legs up onto the sofa so I could use his lap as a footrest.
“Please, use my lap to make yourself more comfortable.”
I pressed my lips together, fighting back a smile. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
He raised his hand to his face and scratched under his eye, slowly swinging his gaze towards me. “Grace.”
“Sorry. I saw an opportunity and I took it.”
“Most girls, as you so eloquently put it, don’t usually use me as a footrest, no.”
“Not even your ex-girlfriends?”
“Not even my exes,” he confirmed.
“Their loss,” I replied. “You’re quite a good footrest. You’d probably make a fairly comfortable chair, too.”
He leant back into the sofa cushions and waved his hand over his lap. “By all means, I won’t say no.”
I knocked his thigh with my heel, but I couldn’t help the little giggle that escaped me. “Another glass and I might take you up on that offer.”
“I think you’ve had enough.” He rested his hand on my ankle, laughing with me.
“To deal with your sister again tomorrow? I haven’t had nearly enough.” I sipped to prove my point. “But no. I shan’t be sitting on your lap tonight or any other night, Lord Kinkirk.”
He hit me with a stern look. “I’ve told you not to call me that.”
“I don’t do well with authority,” I said breezily. “I tend to do the opposite of what I’m told.”
“How can you have issues with authority when you’re a PhD student?”
“I have daddy issues.”
He caught his tongue between his teeth and looked at me for a moment. “Are we talking mild daddy issues, or Hollywood-level daddy issues?
Worse.
Aristocracy-level daddy issues.
Not that I was going to clarify that.
“Somewhere in the middle,” I settled on after a moment. “It’s a testy relationship.”
“Clearly I’m an expert on dramatic family issues, if you haven’t noticed.”
I laughed, flexing my toes as his thumb brushed absentmindedly over my bare ankle.
Oh, boy.
I did not like the way that felt.
Actually, I did.
It was more accurate to say I did not like how good that felt.
“There are a few here, I’ll give you that. Mine aren’t quite as large.” Mostly.
Sometimes.
Depended on if I was talking to Amber or my grandmother.
Both of whom I needed to check in with. My grandmother didn’t even know I wasn’t at home.
“Mine aren’t really,” William replied, looking at the fire. “They’re just ridiculous at this point. My parents aren’t ever getting divorced, and my grandparents aren’t getting any younger. Grandma’s already beaten cancer once—Grandpa will have to accept my parents’ help if it ever returns.”
“She has?”
“Ten years ago. It was caught early, thankfully, but there’s always a chance it can come back, isn’t there?” He smiled ruefully at me. “It would change a lot. She’s a lot… frailer now than she was before.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of her being frail. To me, she was anything but. Then again, I supposed I barely knew her, and for William, she probably was.
To me, Morag was a wonderful whirlwind of a person.
“You never know. Some people find the fight. Some people aren’t able to.” I smiled quickly and looked down into my glass. There was a little lump in my throat at the thought of that illness and what it had taken from me.
“I’m sorry,” William said after a second, stilling his thumb at the back of my foot.
I peered up at him. “What for?”
“Whatever it is that’s making you look like that,” he replied softly, holding my gaze.
I smiled tightly. “Uh, sorry. My mum died of cancer when I was fifteen. It’s a bit of a raw subject.”
“Then I’m really sorry.” He stroked his thumb across my skin, almost absentmindedly this time, and the touch was so comforting that I allowed myself to like it.
Just for a moment.
“It’s okay. In the end, I got to torment my dreadful stepmother for three years until I moved out, so it wasn’t all bad.”
“What are you, Cinderella?”
“I might as well be. My mere existence is the bane of her life,” I told him. “Trust me. It brings me great joy.”
His mouth slowly pulled up into a half-smile. “It’s that bad, huh?”