Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 119548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 119548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 598(@200wpm)___ 478(@250wpm)___ 398(@300wpm)
Deli’s steps faltered for the briefest second. I doubted anyone else would have noticed it even if they’d been looking for it, but I was almost expecting it.
She still wasn’t used to being addressed so formally.
I couldn’t speak for anyone else, but I thought it was fucking hilarious.
The housekeeper—Marcie—did a double-take when she looked at me. “Are you all right, my lord?” she asked, brow furrowed in concern. “Have you hurt your hand?”
“Ah, no. I just got bitten by an unruly little cat.” I glanced in the direction Deli had just disappeared in, my lips pulling up to one side.
Catching it, Marcie stifled a laugh. “I hope it’s not serious.”
“Not at all. Thank you for asking.” I sipped my tea, glancing at the small red patch on my palm by the heel of my thumb. “How’s your daughter doing with her piano lessons?”
She lit up. “Oh, so much better after you helped her with that piece, my lord. It seems to have unstuck that little wall she’d built up, and she’s performing at the end of year concert.” She paused. “She asked if you would attend if I bring a ticket for you.”
I hadn’t intended to visit the local primary school’s concert, but… “Send me the information for it, and I’ll see if I’m available. If so, I don’t see why not.”
“Thank you.” She beamed. “Do you think the countess would also come?”
I smiled. “I’m sure she’d love to.”
And if she didn’t, then it was tough shit. I’d already answered for her.
She had to show her face in public as my wife at some point, after all.
Marcie and I made small talk as she went about her duties, then she bade me goodbye and headed off with a promise to bring the concert information in with her tomorrow.
Left alone to my thoughts, I checked my hand. There was still a red mark where Deli had taken a chomp out of my finger, and I frowned.
Maybe I should have let my intrusive thoughts win after all. She had, clearly.
Although my intrusive thoughts were a lot more damaging than one little nip of my hand.
If I gave into them now, I wondered if I’d be able to stop at just one kiss.
Would that be enough to satiate this itchy feeling inside me?
Three weeks. It’d only been three weeks, and I already understood what Granny had told us from the very beginning—that our relationship would be irrevocably changed by this decision to get married.
We were together more than ever before. There was no escape from each other’s presence. Even when she was working late and slept in her bedroom next door, it didn’t matter.
My bed—no, my entire room—was filled with her.
Her hairbands on the bedside table. Her brush on the floor in front of the mirror. Her socks tucked in random places I couldn’t begin to fathom. Her towel was slung over the radiator under the window. Her hair was on my pillow.
Her scent, her very being, seemed as though it was woven into the fabric of my bedroom.
It was the same wherever I went. I spoke about her more often than ever before. Every staff member I passed always asked about her, their gazes swinging between pity for Nana’s situation and happiness that they were both doing okay.
Happiness that Delilah was well.
If I wasn’t answering their questions, I was seeing something that belonged to her. Her mug on the kitchen island with a lipstick or Chapstick mark smeared around the rim, depending on the day. Her jumper hanging from the back of a chair or her shoes haphazardly left half-inserted into the shoe rack.
All it took was one look and she’d say, “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m doing it,” and I would laugh.
I didn’t care. Neither did anyone else—even the staff only straightened up her things but left them in near enough the exact same place. She’d insisted upon it. Said it was pure laziness after working a closing shift, and she would tidy it the next morning.
She’d not missed a day. She’d kept her promise wholeheartedly.
The people in this house truly saw her as the lady of the estate. I wouldn’t say it out loud, but I was starting to wonder if I did, too.
Because she fit here.
But was that just a comfort thing? Deli had always been a part of my life. It really was no lie when I told her we were family. We always had been, and nothing was going to change that.
Nobody could change that.
All right, so it might make my life a little difficult in the future when I had to admit to a future partner that my ex-wife was my best friend and considered part of my family, but I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.
If such a bridge was ever built.
Relationships were more work than they were worth.