Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 651(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
“Well, that’s not exactly visible like I was told,” I muttered, standing up with it in my hand.
“Yes, my grandmother thinks it’s funny to hide it,” he said dryly. “Enjoy your stay and do please try to keep the cat under control.”
His grandmother?
I spun back to face him, but he’d already jogged off in the opposite direction. If his grandmother was the one who set the key there, did that mean he was the one who owned this place?
If so, he was either The Duke of Windermere or the next in line for the dukedom. He seemed far too young to be the duke, so perhaps he was the heir. Either way, it was a little strange he hadn’t introduced himself.
Then again, he had given me a look that said he thought I was a fool for not finding the frog, so perhaps he was one of those classist aristocrats who didn’t have time for anyone who wasn’t of the same social standing.
I was a little more working-class than upper-class, admittedly.
I sighed and reached over the cat carrier to put the key in the door. It was always the handsome ones who were wankers.
Mind you, real life wasn’t all romance novels where the rich guy fell for the girl who was hard done by. The fantasy was nice, but that was all it was. A fantasy. That was the point in entertainment, after all.
Books were a special kind of escapism. Between the pages, anything was possible. You could climb a mountain barefoot or fly without wings, breathe underwater without gills or dream without sleeping. It was a wonderful, glorious place to be, and I wanted to be back there myself.
Perhaps that was what I needed. I needed to read and lose myself in somebody else’s world, and maybe I’d find myself being able to create my own again.
I pushed the door open and glanced over my shoulder.
Although with a man like that running around, it might not be so tough to find a little romance hero inspiration.
• • •
Winston sat in front of me and made his little high-pitched “pay attention to me, human” noise.
I looked down at him. “No. You had meat for breakfast.”
He responded with a half-shout, half-trill that somewhat resembled a human rolling their tongue in an attempt to replicate a cat’s purr.
“No. It’s not my fault you ate it all in one go. If you learnt to pace yourself, maybe you wouldn’t run out of the good stuff so quickly.”
Said the woman who could easily get through a bottle of wine in no time at all.
Winston trilled at me again.
“No. You aren’t having my leftovers. There’s no need to be a brat just because I won’t let you go outside.”
He made another high-pitched noise before he flopped down onto his side in the sunshine and rolled around the tiled floor, making weird little noises as he flipped from side to side and ultimately finished belly up so he could clean his stomach fur.
I looked at him for a moment. Good grief, that cat was weird. I’d never known a cat to show off their tummy quite as much as he did.
I scraped the leftover food from my dinner into the bin before His Royal Highness got any ideas about snaffling up the half of a chicken breast I’d left behind. He could be grumpy all he liked, but it wasn’t like he was completely out of sorts here. I’d even brought his scratching posts with me along with his bed, litter tray, and bowls, and there was an entire pile of little cat toys in the living room to keep him amused.
There was even a children’s hamster toy that took batteries. I knew he wouldn’t be happy about having to be stuck inside, so I’d bought something he could chase to his heart’s content.
Well, until the batteries ran out.
Same thing.
Although I suspected the batteries would run out before his desire to chase it would.
Something knocked in the direction of the front door, making me pause. What was that? Winston was still cleaning himself without a care in the world, so it wasn’t him. Surprisingly. He was usually the cause of any strange and random noises.
Even not so strange or random ones.
It sounded again, and it was definitely someone knocking, not something.
Was it the handsome guy from earlier? I hoped not. I was in my pyjamas. Then again, that was how things usually went in my books with my hot mess heroines, so… Maybe he’d find my fruit-print PJs endearing.
The stubborn red wine stain on my left thigh might not buy into that, though. It wasn’t even my stain. I didn’t even like red wine. That was all Megan.
I slowly opened the door a few inches and peered through the gap. A woman who looked to be in her seventies was standing on the steps outside in hot pink dungarees. Her yellow wellington boots clashed glaringly with the dungarees, but she didn’t look as though she cared.