Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Pushing my chair back, I stand and start pacing the room. Once, twice, thrice. I don’t get it— what’s wrong with her? Why would she be so damn rude as to turn me down like that? She doesn’t listen when I’m straight with her, and she doesn’t budge when I try to play nice. And now she’s got me spinning and confused about how to handle her.
I stop by the window and glare out at the estate. My eyes go past the immaculate lawns, the stables in the distance to her crumbling cottage squatting there like a stain. My hands flex restlessly as I head out of the office. I stalk down the hall, past the portraits of all my ancestors and into the study. I need something, anything, to settle this itch under my skin.
I grab a bottle of whiskey from the shelf. It’s old and expensive, the kind I’d usually savor in the evening before dinner. I pour a glass, the amber liquid glugging out slowly, and bring it to my lips, but drinking this early in the day is just not my thing. I set it down on the table, untouched. It’s not what I want. Not sitting here stewing alone. I remember the engagement party I was invited to by one of my old mates from Eaton.
I’d brushed it off earlier, said I couldn’t make it as I would be tied up with work, but now it might be the lifeline out of this brooding hole I’m sinking into.
I pull out my phone, swipe to the calendar, and there it is. It’s tonight in Mayfair. I check the time, and I’m glad to see that it’s still early enough for me to make it if I leave now. The idea settles in, not ideal, but it will do. A loud club would just piss me off more, but something smaller and more intimate like this party feels like a more bearable way to shake her out of my head.
I grab my keys from the hall table and head to the garage, my steps purposeful. I slide into my car, turn on the ignition, and the engine snarls and awakens, vibrating through me. I zoom out of the estate, tires screaming on the gravel, before smoothing out as I hit the open road.
I get there a few hours later, the city smearing past the windows, and pull up to Charles’s swanky townhouse. One of his staff lets me into the warm interior. A sophisticated laugh drifts through an open door. I recognize the laugh and follow. Charles is there, grinning from ear to ear, his sparkling fiancée, Camila, on his arm. When he sees me, he looks surprised, his eyebrows shooting up to his prematurely receding hairline.
“You came! What a fantastic surprise,” he calls out. “Come and have a glass of champagne with us.”
I hand over a check as my wedding gift. I hand it to Charles since I won’t be at the wedding.
“Thank you, Hugh,” Camila says with a flirtatious smile.
I’m not a fan of Charles’s fiancée. I think she’s a sly social climber, but Charles is in love and must learn the hard way. I don’t stay long in their company. The place is crawling with faces from the old days. All sprawled into sofas, jackets off, laughing without a care in the world. As I weave through the crowd, the low hum of their voices and clinking glasses wrap around me.
I spot him, James, leaning against a pillar near the bar, his tie loosened, a tumbler of something dark in his hand, and quickly make a beeline for him. My old Uni mate. One of the sharper wits I remember from our late-night debates at Oxford. He catches my eye and he grins, slow and easy, and pushes off the pillar to meet me halfway.
“Bloody hell, Hugh. I didn’t expect to see you here,” he says, clapping my shoulder.
I shrug and grab a whiskey from the bar. “Come join the others,” he says, and we drift to a couple of corner sofas tucked away from the main bustle.
We settle in, the beat-up leather seats melting under us, and the talk turns to the past, the stuffy dorms, the endless lectures, the stupid pranks we pulled to stay sane. My glass sits heavy in my hand, the whiskey’s smoky edge tickling my nose as I swirl it, half-listening.
“You were always so damn quiet,” James says, leaning back, his voice carrying that old teasing lilt.
“We thought you just weren’t an ass, but you were plotting to take over the world,” Tarquin adds.
The others erupt into laughter. I join in, a low rumble in my chest, though it’s more reflex than feeling.
“You’ve been planning it since you came out of the womb, haven’t you?” he adds, pointing his glass at me.