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“That’s precisely my point, Maximillian. If you shouting at a bunch of overpaid pricks kicking a bag of air around a giant field is real, then so are my books.”
Oh, dear.
This might have gone a little far.
“You know what you need? To read, you uneducated little swine.”
I spun around and leant over the back of the sofa. “I have a bachelor’s degree!”
“I didn’t know they gave those out for idiocy.”
“Grandma!”
She scanned a bookshelf, running her finger along the edge. “This needs dusting. Do you not dust?”
Good grief. “I’m not sure I’ve ever dusted. Not sure I’ve ever seen you do it, either, for that matter.”
Grandma huffed. “Sylvia is slacking. I think we need a new cleaning team. Why can’t we have them full-time like we used to?”
“Because I’m the only one who lives in the house and they deep clean once a month anyway,” I said slowly. “I don’t need a staff of twenty like you and Grandpa had back in the day.”
“Your parents had it,” she muttered, still scanning the shelves, occasionally pausing to brush the dust off her fingertips. “I’m just saying that a deep clean could stand to be done more than once a month.”
“I’ll talk to Sylvia about it this week,” I acquiesced. There was no use arguing with her—besides, she was right. I’d never say that out loud as I wasn’t about to set such a dangerous precedent.
She already knew she was right, anyway.
She didn’t need me to tell her.
She huffed again, but that was the end of that conversation as she pulled a bright blue book from the shelf. “Here. Read this.”
I took the book from her and grimaced when I saw the title.
The Rules for Dating an Earl.
And the author.
Ellie Aarons.
“You cannot be serious.” I looked at Grandma. “Of all the books, this is the one you give me?”
“This is my favourite book by her.” She tapped two fingers against the front cover. “And no, it’s not the signed one. I don’t trust you to touch my signed books. They’re in my safe.”
I… wasn’t even going to ask, honestly.
“Yes, but I wasn’t expecting a romance.”
“Are you really in a position to question this? Isn’t you being a judgemental little shit the reason she’s not talking to you?”
It was hard to believe I was thirty sometimes.
And a duke, for that matter.
She’d have been beheaded for that four hundred years ago.
“If you want to understand why her characters are so real to her and her readers, this is surely the best place to start.”
“I don’t read romance.”
