Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92668 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 463(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Brandon grimaced. “No, but he’s certainly trying to.”
“Well, he can keep trying,” I said firmly. “I’d rather die than sell to someone like him.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“I think you’ve lost your mind,” Jade said, and the phone line crackled as I moved into a weak signal spot.
I quickly moved back to the window and what seemed like the only strong signal spot in the room. “I had a feeling you’d say that,” I replied, adjusting the blind so the vanes untangled and I could easily open it. “But what else am I supposed to do? I can’t just leave it there. It’s so sad.”
“It’s a building, Lottie. Buildings don’t have feelings.”
I mean… they did, but whatever.
“For me, you idiot,” I said. “I have so many good memories there, and it’s heartbreaking to see it in such a state. I feel like I owe it to Grandpa to fix it up.”
“Then sell it, right?”
“I don’t know. It’s going to take a while.”
“And what are you going to do for work?” Jade was asking all the practical questions, apparently. “Renovations require funding, and that money your grandpa left you is going to disappear sooner rather than later. You need to be able to bring in a cash flow.”
I shrugged even though she couldn’t see it and looked out the window as someone passed with two dogs on one of those fancy double leads. “I’ll figure it out. The annexe isn’t too bad. I could always rent that out for some income and just live here. It’s not like I don’t already live with my parents.”
“Charlotte, people don’t want to go on holiday and stay on a building site. I wouldn’t pay you to stay there, no offense.”
“I don’t know, I’ll work it out. I won’t know until a surveyor goes in and I get the report, and it’s either going to be worse than I thought or better than I thought. I can make a final decision then.”
“Yeah, but by all accounts, you just pissed off a guy who offered you at least a million for the place. That’s fucking insane.”
Oh, well. He’d live.
“I wouldn’t sell to him anyway. I couldn’t do it knowing what he’d do to the place. Besides, it’s not like I’m leaving behind some amazing career,” I reasoned, turning away from the window and grabbing my jacket from the back of the chair in the corner. “I think a break will be a good thing for me.”
“I think you’re making a huge mistake,” Jade said, and the line crackled once again as I left the bedroom.
“Duly noted. I’ve gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.” I hung up before she could dampen my mood any further and shoved my phone in my pocket.
Stupid move, really.
Pockets in women’s clothes weren’t nearly large enough for something as trivial and unnecessary as a phone.
I pulled it back out before it tumbled out and went on its jollies down the stairs, and I stopped dead at the bottom.
I hated the mirror that was here. I’d loved it as a superficial teen girl who’d needed to check her lip-gloss or check her backcombed hair bump one last time before leaving, but now?
Ugh.
All it showed was that pimple on the crease of my nostril, the smudge of yesterday’s mascara dawdling in the corner of my eye, and the fact I’d put my t-shirt on inside out.
Fan-bloody-tastic.
Ah, well. If I tightened my jacket around me, nobody would know. Besides, it wasn’t like I was going to run into anyone.
I was only going over to the bed and breakfast. It’d been quite overwhelming yesterday, and I wanted to go in today to the annexe and view it when I wasn’t quite so dramatic about the rotting badger.
Although, if there was ever a time to be dramatic about a rotting badger in a kitchen, yesterday was it.
I also wanted to check the cameras I’d set up late last night. Grandpa had rented this house out once he’d moved in with us, and one of the things he’d purchased after his tenants had left six months ago was chargeable cameras.
They even had solar panels to charge them.
I wasn’t sure they were much good in England for at least six months of the year, given the propensity the UK had to attract rain, but one of the bonuses of a small town was that the neighbours were a bit, well, neighbourly, and Stan next door had often unscrewed them to charge them for Grandpa.
Therefore, I’d swiped one of those battery-operated security cameras, its solar panel charger, and loaded the corresponding app onto my phone before I’d spirited it away to the B&B after the wake last night.
Declan Tierney had scared me a bit.
I hadn’t admitted it to anyone, but his brazen approach and pushy demeanour had unsettled me a little at the bar. What kind of a heartless knobhead approached someone at their grandfather’s wake to buy the property they’d just inherited? How cruel and cold-hearted did one have to be to do such a thing?