The grumpy count, p.19
The Grumpy Count,
p.19
The tech in the red cap quirks an eyebrow. “You’re what, seven? And you claim you can name all the winners?”
“Quiz me!” Matteo pushes his chest out. “Go on!”
“Was it a Ferrari or Toyota that won the race?” the man asks.
Matteo rolls his eyes as if to convey the question was too easy. “Toyota Hybrid Hypercar Number 8.”
The others glance at the technician for the verdict.
“Correct,” he says. “Here’s a tougher one. Which car won in the LMGTE Pro category, Ferrari, Porsche or Corvette?”
I have no clue what LMGTE stands for, and Jonas is too engrossed in his conversation to ask. Fortunately, the technician notices my frown.
“LMGTE stands for Le Mans Grand Tourisme Endurance.”
I nod a thank you.
“Porsche,” Matteo says.
“Correct again!”
Matteo skips up and down. “Another question! Come on, ask me another question!”
“OK, here’s a really tough one. What is the name and country of the driver who holds the record number of wins at the Sarthe Circuit?”
Confusion in his big eyes, Matteo fidgets. “I don’t know what the Sarthe Circuit is…”
“Sorry, can’t help you.” The technician spreads his hands. “If you’re a real fan, you should know what it is.”
Matteo’s face is so miserable now that the man takes pity on him. “You can ask your dad or his fiancée for help.”
Matteo shoots a look at Jonas, who is absorbed in his editorial debate, before turning to me. But I know nothing about car races outside of the few fun facts I’ve picked up from Matteo. I give him a rueful shrug.
Shifting his gaze back to Jonas, Matteo cries out, “Dad!”
Jonas stops talking mid-sentence. His body goes rigid.
“Dad!” Matteo calls again. “What’s the Sarthe Circuit?”
Slowly, as if exerting a tremendous amount of control over his movements, Jonas turns toward Matteo.
“The Sarthe,” he begins before his voice cracks.
He coughs, takes a breath and starts again, “The Sarthe Circuit is just another name for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, because it’s held in the French province of Sarthe.”
“Aah! Cool!” Pivoting toward his quizzer, Matteo puts his hands on his hips. “The record holder is Tom Kristensen from Denmark.”
The technician gives him a thumbs-up. “Three out of three!”
Everyone claps.
The technician tips his cap. “You aced my quiz, Matteo. Well done!”
I sneak a look at Jonas. His eyes are trained on the boy, and the sheer happiness in them makes my breath catch in my throat. Quickly, I avert my gaze. It won’t do to start sobbing for no obvious reason on my first day in person at the studio.
As I stare at the wall, I wonder when exactly Jonas ceased to be Matteo’s uncle and became his father. Was it something he felt immediately or soon after the formal adoption? Or did it happen gradually over the first year following Stephen’s death? Or perhaps the second year?
What I do know is that when I met him in London and heard Matteo call him by his first name, it didn’t occur to me to question the degree of their connection. I just assumed their relationship was messed up. But their relationship was great. Matteo was simply out of step with Jonas. In his heart, Jonas was already Matteo’s dad, but to the boy Jonas was still his uncle.
That gap has just been bridged. Matteo caught up. From now on, he and Jonas are in sync.
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Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoyed “The Grumpy Count”. The next book in the saga is “A Knight on the Rocks”.
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Have you read the first series of rom-coms in the Montevor Royals saga?
Start now with "The Boss Prince” (It’s Raining Royals, #1)!
The week I got fired, I landed a great job in Paris.
The bad news?
My boss, Max Delaroche, looks like a remastered Greek god, as dazzling as the alarm in my head.
Whoop, whoop, whoop! Run, Lucie, run!
But the man intrigues me.
He has no office savvy. He skips important staff meetings because they bore him to death. He won’t say where he’s from.
Instead, he keeps staring at me like he’s on a treasure hunt... and I am the map.
Who is this guy?
Could he be an undercover cop investigating us?
Haha. I’m très hilarious.
If a cop can afford bespoke suits, then I’m a princess.
You shall call me Your Royal Highness, Lucie la Magnifique!
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or read an excerpt from the heroine’s delightfully weird job interview, where she meets her future boss.
You’ll find it after the full list of my books and series.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Facts
Below are the details that are historically accurate:
The desk given to Jane Austen by her father in 1794 remained for nearly two hundred years in the family branch descending from Jane’s eldest brother. In 1999 Joan Austen-Leigh donated it to the British Museum, where it is currently on display.
Eliza Austen, née Hancock, was Jane’s cousin. She became the novelist’s sister-in-law after she married Henry Thomas Austen, one of Jane’s brothers. Before Henry Thomas, Eliza had been married to Jean Capot, Count of Feuillide, guillotined in 1794.
Fiction
Margot Nolan is a fictional character. In real life, Jane’s brother Henry Thomas Austen and his wife Eliza had no descendants.
BOOKS BY ALIX NICHOLS
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Feisty heroines. A country at stake.
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A Royal for Christmas
The Grumpy Count
A Knight on the Rocks
Kiss Me, Princess
The Darcy Brothers (complete series)
Follow stuck-up Sebastian, bad-boy Raphael and vengeful Noah as each meets his match where he least expects to, and falls madly in love!
Find You in Paris
Raphael’s Fling
The Perfect Catch
Clarissa and the Cowboy (companion novella)
Complete Series Box Set
Playing to Win (complete series)
3 hunky French athletes.
3 passionate women who fall under their spell.
3 hot and tender love stories.
Playing with Fire
Playing for Keeps
Playing Dirty
Complete Series Box Set
La Bohème (complete series)
Escape to a delightful Parisian café and join a group of friends as they find love, friendship, and hope in the City of Light.
What If It’s Love?
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1. The Traitor’s Bride
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4. The Samurai’s Lover
5. The Vestal’s Steward
PREVIEW OF THE BOSS PRINCE
IT’S RAINING ROYALS, BOOK 1
Lucie
A surprisingly large group of people observe me from the other side of a long table in the middle of the room. I say hello, wondering why so many busy managers would show up to grill an applicant for a “junior consultant” post. Maybe it’s part of the company culture. Or maybe they aren’t that busy.
One after another, they introduce themselves—head of Human Resources… senior expert at Research, Analysis and Guesswork… head of Internal Oversight and Foresight… director of Urban Fieldwork… Their voices and faces fuse into a garbled smudge. It seems to me there’s something slightly off with this lot’s job titles, but I can’t quite pinpoint what.
One of them invites me to sit down.
Lowering myself into the sole chair on my side of the interrogation table—I mean, interview table—I do my best to look relaxed and focused as I imagine an accomplished and self-confident professional would.
Bright smile, thoughtful stare. Bright smile, thoughtful stare.
Hmm, not sure I’m doing this right…
The room is eerily silent. The senior managers and department heads eyeball me with an unhealthy curiosity that unsettles me. To avoid their gazes, I look past them, out the window, where puffy white clouds blanket the sky like a backlit duvet.
Fortunately, someone in the blur of suits and faces picks up their Evian bottle and drinks noisily. Glug. Glug. Glug. The gurgle of water breaks the intensity of the moment and puts an end to the panel’s intimidating inspection of me.
Remembering how to breathe, I steal a glance at the loud drinker.
Wow, he’s handsome! In his early thirties, the man is toned, tall and firm jawed. His sensational suit is cut from a deluxe wool cloth that Mom would kill to have a roll of in the shop. She’d have no use for it because it’s the wrong kind of fabric for a fan, but she’d want it anyway so she can eye and touch it to her heart’s content.
We’re still talking about Mom and the suit, right? Not about Lucie and the loud drinker in that suit?
Just checking.
The man wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, sets his bottle on the table, and locks his unbelievable cobalt blue eyes on me.
The panel members open their laptops and rustle their papers.
A silver-haired woman speaks first. “Tell us, Lucie, would you rather ride a giraffe to work or an elephant?”
What?
I glance at the other interviewers, but all of them look dead serious. All right, then.
“My first choice would be an electric scooter,” I say. “But if only a giraffe and an elephant are available, then I’ll assume I’m working in a wildlife reserve. In which case, I’ll go for an elephant.”
“Why?” she asks.
“On the off chance he can fly like Dumbo.”
Damn! I should’ve given a practical reason, something like the giraffe’s back being too steep. This is not the time or the place for lame jokes, Lucie!
The woman makes a note on her computer. I bet she typed “impertinent fool.”
Leaning back in his chair, the hottie studies my face. Is it me, or did his lips curve up into a fleeting smile?
A stocky middle-aged man fires the next question. “If a plane crashed on the border between France and Italy, where would they bury the survivors?”
Is the entire interview going to be like this? Aren’t they going to ask me about my professional experiences or my skill set, which is supposed to be the reason I’m here?
“It would be very cruel to bury the survivors,” I say. “Don’t you think?”
Outside the window the clouds part, creating a hole. A powerful sunray shoots down through the gap, right into the hottie’s left eye. He shuts it and keeps peering at me with his right eye.
“Let’s talk about your long-term and short-term life goals,” a stocky man says. “Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Ah, finally, a reasonable question!
This is my last chance. Forget about honesty. Give them the answer they expect from an applicant who isn’t too dumb to live.
I school my features into a serene expression. “I hope to be doing something in the field of neat and diligent heritage conservation, building upon the experience I will hopefully acquire at MINDFUCH, if you hire me.”
Well done!
The hottie shifts to avoid the glare of the afternoon sun, which is now blinding both of his eyes.
“What about a year from now?” he asks.
“I see myself at MINDFUCH,” I say brightly. “Your organization is such a perfect fit for my skills that I would love to stay on and grow within it.”
Phew. I feel drained from so much effort to say what I think they think I should say. Let’s hope they’re done with this line of questioning.
“Where do you see yourself in an hour from now, when you walk out of this room?” the stocky man asks.
Oh no! They plan to keep at it for another hour?
“Um…” I wince apologetically. “I see myself in the restroom if possible.”
Am I the only one around this table hearing the call of nature?
There’s a noise that sounds like a suppressed laugh from Mr. Handsome’s end. The gap in the blanket of clouds has grown bigger, the sunray stronger, and the room warmer.
Placing his folder on the table for a moment, he removes his million-euro jacket and his silk Hermès tie.
Ooh-la-la!
I nearly whistle at the sight of his V-shaped, muscular-yet-lean upper body. In his crisp white shirt and slate pants, his hair dark and his eyes blue, the man is graceful like a big cat, suave and much too sexy to be allowed anywhere near an interview panel.
He whispers something in the silver-haired woman’s ear, who then leans over to the stocky guy and whispers in his ear. They continue their “telephone game” until the last remaining pair of ears has been made privy to whatever the hottie said.
The silver-haired woman shuts her laptop. “We won’t torture you any longer, Mademoiselle Laborde. You’re hired.”
I must’ve misheard.
She pulls a document out of her folder and pushes it in front of me. “We’ll need you to sign this confidentiality agreement before you sign the consultancy contract. If the first month goes well, we’ll consider an extension.”
Too staggered to say anything, I skim the three-page agreement. It says in a nutshell that I am to keep the details of my future work and special assignments secret. If I reveal anything, even to a family member, I consent to pay a six-figure fine.
I’ve come this far…
We sign the papers, shake hands, and say goodbye. I start on Monday. Living with my mom at twenty-six doesn’t make me proud, but it makes moving to another city for a month or more much easier than if I were renting. MINDFUCH will pay for my hotel room for the duration of the initial contract in addition to my salary.
Is that amazing or what?
I rush to the restroom at the end of the corridor. When I’m done, I head to the elevator area and press the down triangle. Which reminds me how my best friend Jen asked if the building had elevators the moment I told her about my upcoming job interview. The fiend! One drunken confession about elevator sex being my hottest fantasy, and she’ll keep finding ways to bring that up until the end of time…
The elevator arrives and I walk in. Just before its sliding doors touch, someone sticks a hand in the narrow space between the doors. They reopen.
The hottie from the interview panel, wearing his suit jacket and tie once again, steps in.
“Ground floor, I presume?” he asks in his deep, caressing voice.
I nod, spaced by the scent, sight, and sound of him.
“My name is Maximilian Delaroche,” he says. “Please, call me Max.”
“Delighted!”
Yikes. Why did I say that? Who says that anymore?
He magnanimously ignores my cringeworthy response. “I am the head of the Very Special Assignments Department and your immediate supervisor.”
“Splendid.”
Did I just say “splendid”?
Please shoot me now.
END OF PREVIEW
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Alix Nichols, The Grumpy Count
