“Shivani made you breakfast,” Gigi said, shutting the door behind her. “A cheese and sun-dried tomato omelet, you lucky thing. She’s always shoving spinach at me.”

“Tell her thank you,” Eve murmured absently, but the words were just a reflex. She’d thought—she’d wanted to make it clear to Jacob that she wasn’t messing him around, work-wise, and then he’d told her to fuck right off and quite frankly broken her heart. (At least, Eve assumed the throbbing ache in her chest was heartbreak. If it wasn’t, it must be the start of some other cardiac event.) When he’d gotten rid of her so easily, she’d felt as if her bones were too fragile to carry her. She’d had to leave. She’d had to run. Except now she was wondering if getting rid of her had been easy for Jacob at all.

She’d been so hurt by his sudden coldness, she’d forgotten what that coldness meant. Forgotten that his barbed wire was just a desperate form of protection.

“Thank Shivani yourself, darling,” Gigi was saying. “Come to our midmorning practice in the sunroom. She misses you terribly, as do I.”

Eve finally looked up at her grandmother, who was perched on the edge of her bed in a skintight, baby-blue jersey catsuit. “Um . . . I . . . I don’t think I can make midmorning practice, actually.”

“Gosh,” Gigi said. “You look a little dazed, sweetheart. Perhaps we should go and see Doctor Bobby. He was telling me all about these lovely vitamin drips they’ve had in from America, they’ll pep you right up.”

“No thank you,” Eve murmured, disentangling herself from the silky canopy of her princess bed. “I have plans today.”

“Do you, indeed? How thrilling, do share.” Gigi picked up the omelet she’d just placed on the bedside table and helped herself to a bite.

“I’m going to have stern words with the family,” Eve called as she strode into the en suite, “and then I’m going back to Skybriar where I will inform Jacob that he can’t sack me without due cause, or I shall take him to tribunal, and also that I love him, and if he wants to get rid of me he’ll have to say something definitive about that.”

There was a short pause from the bedroom before Gigi replied, “Oh, Eve. Yes. Absolutely yes. You take a shower, my little moppet, and I will choose your T-shirt.”

* * *

“I have something to say!” Eve announced as she swept into the kitchen. Then she stopped in her tracks, snapped her mouth shut, and blinked at the crowded island. “Oh. Erm. Hello, everyone.”

She’d expected her parents to be pacing about the place, since they both took Fridays off, but she hadn’t been prepared to find her sisters and their boyfriends lurking, as well. Still, she would not be deterred. Eve lifted her chin and nodded at the men. “Hello, Redford, Zafir. Since you did not force yourselves into my haven of self-actualization, you are exempt from the coming storm.”