Page 11 of The Romance Library

‘Mr Davis?’

‘Who else would I be?’ he snapped. Cecil raised an eyebrow. ‘Who are you?’ Mr Davis snarled at me.

‘I’m Jessica.’

‘And what are you doing here?’

‘I’m not entirely sure… I think perhaps your… Mrs Davis left me some books?’

I wasn’t sure how they were related. It was possible he was her son as he was probably in his late fifties, but there were no obvious signs of a family resemblance, so for all I knew he could be her younger ex-husband.

‘Ugh.’ He grimaced. ‘She was obsessed with those stupid things. I’m glad to hear your charity shop will be taking that junk away.’

‘I’m not from—’

‘Shall we get started?’ Cecil jumped in, preventing me from clarifying why I was here.

Cecil read out a load of formalities, and once that was done, he turned over the page.

‘And now to the will itself,’ he announced. ‘To Miss Jessica Johnson, I bequeath my entire book collection—’

‘Oh my God!’ I gasped.

Her entire collection? I thought she’d just leave me a few novels. And now I was the owner of thousands of books? Bloody hell.

But where would I put them? My crummy bedsit was barely big enough to do a cartwheel.

It was a shame she hadn’t lived long enough to bring her library idea to life. That would’ve been a much better use of all those books than just giving them to me.

‘I hadn’t quite finished,’ Cecil announced.

‘Sorry, please continue.’

‘I’ll start again. To Miss Jessica Johnson, I bequeath my entire book collection on the understanding that it will be used to stock The Romance Library.’

‘Brilliant!’ I said happily. ‘I’m so glad that’s still going ahead.’

‘Still not finished…’ He glanced up from the page, then dropped his gaze again. ‘I hereby appoint Miss Jessica Johnson to build and run The Romance Library on my behalf.’

‘Wait, what?’ My eyes flew from their sockets.

‘To make this possible,’ Cecil continued, ignoring my shock, ‘I leave Miss Jessica Johnson the sum of one million pounds to purchase and renovate the building and bring The Romance Library to life…’

‘What?’ Mr Davis leapt from his chair in horror.

‘In addition, Miss Jessica Johnson will be paid a salary of forty thousand pounds for the period of one calendar year to ensure that getting the library up and running can be her primary focus.’

I sat in silence.

My brain scrambled.

I tried to process what I thought I’d just heard but failed.

‘This is outrageous!’ Mr Davis shouted. ‘Who the hell are you? And what did you do to trick my mother into this?’

I blinked rapidly. I attempted to open my mouth and speak, but the words wouldn’t come out.

I desperately wanted to reply. But I was still in shock.

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