Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71110 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“No one is suited for it until they’re trained. I understand that you don’t appreciate the value of polite society, but it’s what Dennis would want for his daughter. It is my job as his mother to ensure that his wishes are honored and his daughter takes her rightful place.” Amelia paused and then sounded the tiniest bit warmer when she spoke again. “Why don’t I send you some pamphlets for classes and you can look through them? I know it seems useless to you, but these classes do teach things beyond manners. Louisa could meet friends. She would be with children her age in these classes. Her intellect wouldn’t elevate her in this case. It could be good for her.”
Amelia knew how to manipulate a situation. “Please send me the pamphlets and I’ll let you know about the trip. I’m sure Lou would love it if you could go. Weekends are important at work, and I just lost an employee.”
She’d lost two, actually, but she wasn’t sure Brandon was a loss. She’d fired him because half the time he didn’t show up, and when he did, he was rude to customers.
He hadn’t taken his dismissal with grace.
“Well, no one seems to want to work these days. You can’t trust any of them,” Amelia said breezily. “I’ll see you for dinner next week, and we can discuss it. Give Louisa my love.”
The phone went dead, and she thought about throwing it off the balcony.
Frustration welled, and she huffed out a low growl.
“Need a beer?”
Frustration turned to shock as she gasped and turned to her left.
Boomer sat up, revealing that he’d been sitting in a comfy chair behind the wall that partially separated the two outdoor spaces. He unfurled that big body and moved to the edge of his balcony. There was roughly eight feet between them, and she could clearly see his gorgeous face in the moonlight. He held two longnecks in his hands and offered her one. “Unless you don’t drink.”
She was a single mom. She shouldn’t drink.
She totally took that beer. A long, cold swig later and she was ready to ask some pertinent questions. “How long were you listening?”
“Long enough to know you could probably use a beer.” He took a drink, leaning against the wall. “Sorry. I sit out here a lot at night. It’s nice. Sometimes I hear you talk. I probably should let you know I’m here, but I don’t because I think if you figured out someone could hear you, you might not talk. Lou can hear you inside, right?”
“Yeah, the walls can be thin, but the glass doors are pretty thick,” she explained. “It’s why I do most of my phone calls out here at night. You know there’s a third option. You could go inside and not listen in.”
“How would that be fun?”
“I doubt it’s fun.” What was superhot guy doing listening to her talk about cake baking methods and her sighing while her mother-in-law dictated terms to her? “Does MaeBe listen in, too?”
“Oh, no,” Boomer said. “She spends most of her time at night raiding villages. She likes to plunder. Once she’s in that mode, I do not interrupt her.”
He had such a colorful way with words. Luckily she knew what he was talking about. “So she’s playing a game on the computer? One of those massive multiplayer ones?”
“Yeah, she used to play one and then the character her character was interested in died and so she switched and now she’s levelling up or something,” Boomer said. “I don’t know. I play a lot of games, but I like the ones where we’re all working together. Mae used to run a board game night. I never won, but I always had fun. The ones where they raid and stuff get too intense for me. So I hang out here and have a beer before I go to bed. I like it out here. It’s quiet, and we’re high above the city. It feels peaceful.”
She didn’t think anything was peaceful. “I’m not sure about that, but it is the most privacy I get. Well, not now. Though you should know I don’t have any other place to go, so I suppose you’ll have to put up with me talking a lot.”
“I don’t hear much, Daphne. I’m kind of teasing you. I’ve only been in the building for a couple of months, and I’ve traveled a lot since I moved in,” he admitted. “So tonight was my first time eavesdropping. I’ve always wondered what that means. Eavesdropping. It’s a weird way to say listening in.”
“It’s from a long time ago. Eaves are the part of the house that kind of hang over, and water would drop from the eaves. So the person who would stand under the eaves and listen in was called an eavesdropper,” she explained. “It’s from the seventeenth century, I think.”