“No way,” she said after a moment of incredulity.

“Way,” I replied mock-seriously.

“You have the most incredible fucking life,” she said, a generous measure of jealousy in her tone.

“You say that like this sort of thing happens to me all the time.” She made a little noise in the back of her throat. I read it as, “it does—you lucky, lucky cow.” “It doesn’t! You know that better than anyone. My love life has been a parade of cheating dickheads for years now, and just because I go on one date with James, doesn’t mean my whole life has changed.” I punctuated my point by expertly cracking an egg onto the edge of the bowl.

“But it’s not just the date with James, though, is it? There’s the hot American too. Maybe this is a turning point for you, for your love life.” I continued cracking eggs while she gave me a dose of her “I know you better than anyone” rhetoric. “And anyway, history with men aside, you do have an incredible life. You travel, you have a good job, you live in Sydney where there’s actual sunshine more than four days a year—”

It was my turn to cut her off. “True, yes, all true. And, I do need to focus more on the positive, but this whole trip—meeting Josh and James—that’s all new. That’s not me having ‘an incredible fucking life’ as you put it.”

“You’re right.” Who was this woman and what had she done with my sister? “I’m a little jealous, that’s all.” I whisked the eggs and eyed her suspiciously. Cat didn’t typically tout her shortcomings.

“It’s just that I wouldn’t mind a handsome millionaire schlepping me about London in his fancy car and adoring me.”

“Hang on …” I stopped whisking—seriously, who was this woman? “Did I just hear Cat Parsons say she wouldn’t mind having a boyfriend?”

I could see the gears turning behind her eyes as she realised what she’d said. Because Cat didn’t do boyfriends. She didn’t do dating, casual or otherwise, and she certainly didn’t do “adoring men”.

Cat was anti love. Full stop.

“You know what I mean,” she back-pedalled. “I could go for a handsome millionaire lover, is all.”

“Cat, he’s not my lover.” Yet. I didn’t voice that last part. I rarely won arguments with my sister, and I wasn’t about to lose on a technicality.

“Well, he’s something—and there’s Josh—two hot lovers, Sez. They’re gunna make you hand in your sisterhood card.” She punctuated her point with one of her looks. Crap, she was going to win this one.

“Okay,” I conceded, “I get what you’re saying. But really, this thing with James, it’s just a bit of fun, like a karmic reward for all the crap Neil put me through. And if I spend more than five minutes thinking about it … well, it’s just bizarre, like it’s not even real,” I added before going back to the eggs.

“Well, of course! That stuff in the museum, that’s soppy romance-novel stuff. That’s a frigging Nicholas Sparks novel. Julia Roberts will probably play you in the film.” She got me laughing with that.