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)
“You know … like a French kiss. But … down under?” Lucy said, making Pandora choke on her tea as she laughed.
“I know. I’m hilarious,” Lucy said, rapping hard on Pandora’s back.
“You all right?” Victor called across the café.
“Look at you, being a concerned fiancé,” Lucy said, beaming at him. “She’s fine. Just … wrong pipe. Speaking of pipes …”
“Stop!” Pandora said, charmingly scandalized by her friend’s outrageous comments.
“What?” Lucy asked, the picture of innocence. “I was just going to say that it’s, you know, really important for pipes to be long and firm, and—”
“You’ve got no shame, have you?” Pandora asked, shaking her head.
“You can’t blame me. I’ve been DJing my own party for ages now. I have to live vicariously through you until some hot groomsman sweeps me off my feet.”
“I will pray for your sake that Victor’s best friend, Sebastian, is as hot as you are hoping.”
“Make him hotter. My standards are on the floor lately,” Lucy said with a wince. “Though, you can’t pray, so I guess I will have to settle for him retaining at least half of his hair and having decent dental hygiene.”
“Reaching for the moon there,” Pandora said as a small crowd of customers came in.
She managed to spend some time with Victor before he headed home to get some sleep, their conversation helped on by the constantly interjecting Lucy.
But, eventually, it was time to go home.
She truly had no intention of letting the cat out of the bag about her engagement as she reached to open the front door of the Von Ashmore house.
She genuinely was going to stick to her own plan.
Until, suddenly, the words were tumbling out of her mouth.
Really, it was all her cousin Bellatrix’s fault.
10
“Pandora, darling,” Ophelia called out, making Pandora tilt her head back and fight the urge to run.
Those squeaky floorboards had given her away.
But she’d put off seeing her aunt, uncle, and cousin for long enough already.
“Mum,” Pandora said, plastering a smile on her face as she moved into the sitting room.
Where Lucian, Ophelia, Pandora, and Dante were all dark-haired and robust, Aunt Anastacia and Uncle Alexander, as well as their daughter, Bellatrix, were all fair-haired, wafer-thin, and pale, making them seem to Pandora like specters haunting her home whenever they were around. She half expected to wake up to one of them standing over her in bed, speaking to her in hushed whispers.
“There you are,” Ophelia said, and Pandora could sense a hint of censure in her tone even as she held out an arm to draw her daughter further into the room. Ophelia ran a hand over Pandora’s hair, which had gone a bit frizzy from another rainy day. The Von Ashmore house was ancient and drafty. The moisture had a way of sneaking in through the stone façade and around the window frames, its sole purpose seeming to be to ruin any possible good hair day she might have. “Were you on your way out again?”
She was.
But not to work or on a date with Victor.
She had a pint of fresh blood waiting for her at the butcher’s and if she didn’t get there soon, the place was going to close. Which meant she was going to go hungry. And start doing dangerous things like staring at people’s necks at work later.
She couldn’t, however, tell her mother that, so she lied.
“I was just looking for Dante. I haven’t seen him much lately. Hello, Aunt Anastacia. Uncle Alexander. Bellatrix,” she said, trying hard not to let her voice go hard on that last name.
Bellatrix had grown to be a beautiful woman, with her pin-straight hair that seemed immune to the effects of the humidity in the air, a delicate face, big stormy blue eyes, and a long and lean figure with just the barest hint of curves.
“Hello, Pandora,” her aunt greeted her, offering her cheek for kissing. Pandora broke away from her mother to do just that. First to her aunt, then to her uncle. But she couldn’t bring herself to do the same for her cousin.
“You seem well, Bellatrix,” she said instead, internally wincing at how much she sounded like her parents just then.
“You …” Bellatrix gave Pandora a slow once-over, then clearly decided she couldn’t afford Pandora the same civility, instead saying, “You haven’t changed.”
“Bellatrix was just telling us all about her travels to France and Italy,” Ophelia said as Pandora moved as far away from her extended family as possible. Which put her right next to her father.
Over the rim of his goblet full of thick, fresh blood that made Pandora’s stomach tighten at its own emptiness, Lucian widened his eyes at her as if to say he knew how she felt.
“Really? Fascinating,” Pandora said, watching her father’s lips twitch slightly at her words and tone.
“She has picked up a passion for opera,” her aunt said, sitting up straighter in her chair. If there was anything a parent loved, it was the ability to brag about their child. Even if that child was one hundred and twenty-six years old.