The Accidental Countess (Forever His Series Book one)

Chapter 1

Someone once said that there are three things in life you can never recover.

The word after it's been spoken, the moment after it's been missed and time after it's gone.

Well they were only right on two counts. At least by my reckoning.

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"Morning buttercup...yea I just finished for the night."

"Cassie...you need to get a normal job, all these nights you're working cannot be doing any good for your and Alec's sex life."

"Gracie!" I cry. "We are not having this conversation again. Besides I like my job, you know I do."

"Mmm I suppose, but being a night guard in some stuffy offices sounds pretty bloody boring to me"

I sigh. Gracie my best friend will never understand what I'm trying to say. I like the quiet solitude I get from being a night security guard. There's something magical about being up when everyone else is fast asleep, the peace is all encompassing.

"Cassie! Are you still there?"

"Yes yea...sorry. Just day dreaming again." I murmur.

"I guessed as much, shall we get breakfast? I'm craving a bacon sarnie from Donovan's"

Donovan's is our favourite café in at the top of the high street, the climb up the steep hill is awful but the breakfasts are so worth it when you get there and can people watch from behind the old fashioned glass paned windows.

"Yea sure; sounds great. I'm nearly home now so I'll just jump in the shower and meet you down there."

"Ok hun! Love you"

"Love you too Sunbeam" I tease and we both chuckle before I hang up and carry on towards home, walking faster with the anticipation of eating one of the South's best bacon sarnies. It's only a short 5 minute walk to and from work so living in Arundel was ideal for me.

I love this place. The real reason I pushed Alec to rent here was because you just can't beat the view. The beautiful medieval castle and Cathedral dominate the skyline and I have the perfect viewpoint from our lounge balcony. In the evenings the sun sets behind the castle and at weekends when I'm not working I have a glass of wine, admiring the sky change into a myriad of warm oranges and reds in the minutes before it drains away into night and the stars come out. It's easily my favourite time of day for that very reason. That fleeting moment of beauty that envelopes you and is burned into your retinas. That feeling that you'll never see anything so beautiful as this.

Anyhow I digress. Alec and I moved here about a year ago after I got the night guard job and it suits us just fine. I work my nights, he works his days and we meet somewhere in the middle. He always leaves me sweet little notes on the mirror in the bathroom for when I get home in the mornings, just so I know he's been missing me. So cute.

We've been together for two and a half years and it's been great. We met at the local cinema, I'd been dragged by Gracie to see this god awful B Horror movie that she was dying to see and spent most of the film jumping and watching through my fingers. I went for a toilet break halfway through just to avoid a particularly scary moment and bumped into him on the way back inside. We made each jump and somehow started talking outside the screening room.

He was gorgeous.

Blond hair, striking blue eyes, a smile with dimples that made me melt and what looked like a lot of toned muscle hiding under his navy t-shirt. We were talking for so long that Gracie came out to find me once the film had finished and Alec invited us both out with him and his friends for drinks. We've been inseparable ever since.