Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99700 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 499(@200wpm)___ 399(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
“OK. Well, we can work out exactly how much. How much you will need to finish your PhD, for example. Plus a food, living, and clothing stipend.”
“I thought you said I would be living with you.”
Pandora felt a warm sensation in her chest at all the images that thought conjured up. The two of them standing side by side in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew. Sitting with each other on the couch, each lost in their respective books. Heading down the hallway toward the bedroom …
But just as many negative thoughts flooded her mind. Where would she hide her blood, for example, while she was living with Victor? How much human food that she didn’t need, or particularly enjoyed, would she have to choke down? What if he caught her drinking blood?
“Pandora?” Victor called out, snapping her out of the tsunami of bad thoughts. That warm feeling crept across her chest again at the sound of her name on his lips. She hadn’t realized he knew her name.
“Yeah?” she asked, suddenly aware she’d been staring at him. Likely with hearts in her eyes.
“Living expenses.”
“Oh, right. So, like, retroactive ones. For this time period between now and when we actually get married. Since, normally, you would be going back home.”
“I have some savings,” Victor said. “I was going to use them to buy a car to maybe travel back and forth from my parents’ place and London. I’ve really become attached to the area. But I can use it to live on for a few months.”
“What about UCL?”
“I’m paid up until the end of the autumn term,” he said. “I was just going to leave early, since there seemed to be no use finishing it up if I was out of money anyway.”
“That works out perfectly, then. You can keep going to uni. I will keep working here. And then we can move in together once we’re married.”
“In three months,” he said.
“Yes.”
“This is mad,” he said, watching Pandora with a mix of amusement and disbelief.
“It really is. But?” she prompted him.
“But it seems like it’s the answer to both our problems. One year,” he said, holding out his hand to shake.
Pandora felt a fluttering sensation move through her belly as she pressed her hand into his. “One year.”
“I guess there is only one more thing to say,” Victor declared as Pandora saw Lucy walking past the windows.
Her friend froze, turned, and stared at the two of them, with their hands still clasped, her mouth falling open in a comical O.
“What’s that?” Pandora asked.
“Will you marry me?”
7
“That’s what you’re wearing?” Lucy asked the following evening, her gaze panning down over Pandora’s work uniform over which she’d thrown a warm red cardigan that had been a gift from her mother – a woman who believed only three colours existed: black, grey, and red.
“What’s wrong with it? He’s seen me in it every day since he started coming to the shop.”
“Therein lies the problem,” Lucy said with a huff. “This is your first date. You need to look the part.”
“Luce, it’s a fake first date,” Pandora said, reminding her friend.
Lucy frowned. “It’s still supposed to look like a real first date.”
She had a point.
Would her parents be suspicious that she hadn’t at least gone home to run a brush through her hair and slapped on something cute? Maybe a little make-up or perfume.
That was the kind of thing Ophelia would find suspicious. Even with her strange, nontraditional daughter.
Every woman wanted to look as nice as possible for a date, right?
“I mean, you’ve been alive, what? One hundred and twenty-four years. You’ve got to have some cute outfits in your wardrobe. But to be clear.” Lucy held up a hand, a smirk on her lips. “By ‘cute outfit’ I don’t mean one of those floor-skirting numbers from the nineteen hundreds, when ankles were the epitome of sexy scandal.”
To be fair, Pandora had chests full of clothing from her long life. Even her first pair of pants, when those had finally become acceptable for women to wear.
But, well, she’d also always been a creature of comfort. Meaning almost everything she did have was of the casual variety, not the kind of things she’d wear on a first date.
“OK, come on,” Lucy said, slinging her handbag up on her shoulder. The two of them had swapped shifts with the afternoon staff because of Pandora’s date and Lucy’s need to head out of town for the full moon. Thankfully, the awnings on the windows made it possible for Pandora to be inside without burning when the afternoon sun beat down on the street. “I’ll give you a ride home before I head out to the country.”
“OK.” Pandora grabbed her own bag before following her friend toward the front door.
Lucy was parked on the street right out front, having nabbed a coveted spot between the lunch and afternoon rush, and the sun had just about set, so Pandora didn’t need to duck and run like hell.