Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
My pride? Oh no. I’m not taking lessons from him about pride when clearly all he does is let his pride talk for him.
Also, I realize I need to freaking change tactics here. I can see that Thaddius expects me to be all furious and rage at him. He probably thinks some cursing is in order. Not saying he doesn’t deserve it, though, especially since he’s not very darn chivalrous. Instead, I just stand here and study him. I know I probably look more like a dirt monster than an angel, covered in enough grime to gag a road, but here it goes anyway. My usual charm is coming on strong.
“Will you take Nina for an answer?”
He has no idea what that means, I can tell, but my sugar-sweet smiles clue him in that things are just getting started. He might want to be left alone, but I’m not going anywhere. I can be just as sweet and innocent and as angelic as all hell. It will be so much worse than being mean and pushy.
Thaddius Wonderduck isn’t the kind of man a person can convince to do anything. He won’t be responsive to threats. I’ve met people like him before, and I know for a fact that the most effective way to get what I want is to slay, slay, slay with kindness. Ignoring the fact that, right now, a shower is essentially what I want most in the world, I have to keep my eyes on the prize. That’s my freedom. Signed, sealed, and delivered by a lawyer and then signed again by Thaddius and myself. I can be sweet, nice, and convincing. If he hates those things, all the better. He’ll just have to give in faster since I know what it takes to wear a person down.
If Thaddius wants that peace he’s so desperately going on about, he’ll give in. It’s either that or I’m not budging. In fact, I like the look of that nice little white farmhouse over there. And the red barn that is so…so farmyard. I like animals of all kinds, and I’m pretty sure that little one-story farmhouse with the white peeling paint has a shower and something to eat, which sounds pretty fucking amazing to me.
Maybe this city girl would like to stay and experience country life for a few days. I know just the perfect host who will help me do it too.
And guess what? I just happen to be betrothed to him against my will.
Thaddius Wonderduck is still pretty much my “betrothed” since he refuses to sign a paper voiding the initial contract.
CHAPTER 4
Thaddius
“Oh, you have sheep!”
Oh no, she won’t dare. But she does. Nina is edging away from me, backing away from the fence and the fields. She keeps crab-walking backward, getting closer and closer to the house. Every single step she takes is getting her there. She stated the obvious as though she’d just noticed, but that had to be impossible. The sheep had been bleating on and on ever since she walked up to the fence.
I steal one last longing look at the fence I was in the middle of repairing. It’s Herman Merman’s corral—Herman Merman is the name of my donkey—but he has a temporary spot for the moment while I’m out here working anyway. There isn’t any reason I can’t leave and take a short break. Except I don’t want to, damn it. Yet here I am, breaking away and taking big plodding steps in the direction of the crazy woman who just showed up here and launched a huge freaking boulder into my day. No, she’s more like a mountain.
A very pretty, undeniably attractive mountain. Even after driving for days, probably sleeping in her car to save money, having said car break down, having to walk miles, and getting coated in grime, she’s in good spirits. She’s just had a mountain thrown into her life as well, compliments of finding out she has a betrothed. And she did something about it. It might have been something I’d classify as ill-advised, but she wrested control away and took matters into her own hands. I have to admire her for not giving up. Even if it is also pure lunacy.
My steps quickly overtake the progress she’s made in those hellish things that once used to be flip-flops but are now more like…I don’t know. Grime mops? Shudder. If those snuck up on me and touched my toes, I’d lose it, yet there Nina was, acting like she just didn’t care.
I might have to reassess my original spoiled princess analysis of her.
She’s probably funny and witty, too, damn it.
In another lifetime, she’d probably be the perfect woman. But in this one? She’s annoying and a problem I need to fix. She’s something that is throwing off my whole focus. Like now. It’s damn hard to get my brain on straight when my balls insist on pointing out that Nina might be annoying, but her breasts are perfect and perky and lovely. Her skin might also be grime covered, but she has a nice, tanned look that suits her sunshiny blue eyes and the sunlight that’s glinting off her lush, wondrously long hair.