The big shots up at Head Office were absolutely fantastically brisk all the time. They were amazing. There were no shops on this wide street that he was walking along, only a line of tall houses on each side, all them identical.
They had porches and pillars and four or five steps going up to their front doors, and it was obvious that once upon a time they had been very swanky residences. But now, even in the darkness, he could see that the paint was peeling from the woodwork on their doors and windows, and that the handsome white facades were cracked and blotchy from neglect. Suddenly, in a downstairs window that was brilliantly illuminated by a street-lamp not six yards away, Billy caught sight of a printed notice propped up against the glass in one of the upper panes.
There was a vase of pussy-willows, tall and beautiful, standing just underneath the notice. He stopped walking. He moved a bit closer. Green curtains some sort of velvety material were hanging down on either side of the window. The pussy-willows looked wonderful beside them. He went right up and peered through the glass into the room, and the first thing he saw was a bright fire burning in the hearth.
On the carpet in front of the fire, a pretty little dachschund was curled up asleep with its nose tucked into its belly. The room itself, so far as he could see in the half-darkness, was filled with pleasant furniture.
There was a baby-grand piano and a big sofa and several plump armchairs; and in one corner he spotted a large parrot in a cage. Animals were usually a good sign in a place like this, Billy told himself; and all in all, it looked to him as though it would be a pretty decent house to stay in. Certainly it would be more comfortable than The Bell and Dragon. On the other hand, a pub would be more congenial than a boardinghouse.
There would be beer and darts in the evenings, and lots of people to talk to, and it would probably be a good bit cheaper, too. He had stayed a couple of nights in a pub once before and he had liked it. He had never stayed in any boardinghouses, and, to be perfectly honest, he was a tiny bit frightened of them.
The name itself conjured up images of watery cabbage, rapacious landladies, and a powerful smell of kippers in the living-room. After dithering about like this in the cold for two or three minutes, Billy decided that he would walk on and take a look at The Bell and Dragon before making up his mind. He turned to go. And now a queer thing happened to him. He was in the act of stepping back and turning away from the window when all at once his eye was caught and held in the most peculiar manner by the small notice that was there.
Each word was like a large black eye staring at him through the glass, holding him, compelling him, forcing him to stay where he was and not to walk away from that house, and the next thing he knew, he was actually moving across from the window to the front door of the house, climbing the steps that led up to it, and reaching for the bell.
He pressed the bell. Far away in a back room he heard it ringing, and then at once - it must have been at once because he hadn't even had time to ta ke his finger from the bell-button - the door swung open and a woman was standing there. Normally you ring the bell and you have at least a half-minute's wait before the door opens. But this dame was a like a jack-in-the-box.
He pressed the bell - and out she popped! It made him jump. She was about forty-five or fifty years old, and the moment she saw him, she gave him a warm welcoming smile. She stepped aside, holding the door wide open, and Billy found himself automatically starting forward into the house. The compulsion or, more accurately, the desire to follow after her into that house was extraordinarily strong.
She had a round pink face and very gentle blue eyes. It was less than half of what he had been willing to pay. Do you desire an egg for breakfast? Eggs are expensive at the moment. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website.
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Necessary Necessary. Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases—a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old. It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice—with a professional.
Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan—from foreplay to more-than-missionary position Before long, Stella not only learns to appreciate his kisses, but crave all of the other things he's making her feel.
Their no-nonsense partnership starts making a strange kind of sense. And the pattern that emerges will convince Stella that love is the best kind of logic A heartwarming and refreshing debut novel that proves one thing: there's not enough data in the world to predict what will make your heart tick.
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Kiss Quotient comes a romantic novel about love that crosses international borders and all boundaries of the heart Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions—like grief. And love. He thinks he's defective. His family knows better—that his autism means he just processes emotions differently.
When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can't turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs.
Seducing Khai, however, doesn't go as planned. Esme's lessons in love seem to be working She's hopelessly smitten with a man who's convinced he can never return her affection. With Esme's time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he's been wrong all along. And there's more than one way to love. A woman struggling with burnout learns to embrace the unexpected—and the man she enlists to help her—in this new New York Times bestselling romance by Helen Hoang.
When violinist Anna Sun accidentally achieves career success with a viral YouTube video, she finds herself incapacitated and burned out from her attempts to replicate that moment. And when her longtime boyfriend announces he wants an open relationship before making a final commitment, a hurt and angry Anna decides that if he wants an open relationship, then she does, too.
Translation: She's going to embark on a string of one-night stands. The more unacceptable the men, the better. Their first attempt at a one-night stand fails, as does their second, and their third, because being with Quan is more than sex—he accepts Anna on an unconditional level that she herself has just started to understand. Anna and Quan have to fight for their chance at love, but to do that, they also have to fight for themselves.
I loved this book. For Penny Lee, high school was a total nonevent. Now Penny is heading to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to, you know, see each other.
It's high time for Stella Lane to settle down and find a husband - or so her mother tells her. This is no easy task for a wealthy, successful woman like Stella, who also happens to have Asperger's. Analyzing data is easy; handling the awkwardness of one-on-one dates is hard. To overcome her lack of dating experience, Stella decides to hire a male escort to teach her how to be a good girlfriend.
Faced with mounting bills, Michael decides to use his good looks and charm to make extra cash on the side. The book was published in multiple languages including English, consists of pages and is available in Kindle Edition format. The main characters of this romance, contemporary story are Stella Lane, Michael Phan. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator.
We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in The Kiss Quotient may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.
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