“He’s been leaving me alone. I heard he’s moving down to San Diego with some chick. God help her.” Neve passed a hand over her face.

“Good. So I thought Daniel was exactly the kind of guy you were looking for? He has a stable job, a nice place, and treats you with respect. You said that’s what you wanted. Deal breaker without those qualities.”

Neve shot her an annoyed look. “Thank you, Dr. Phil. You know, you don’t choose someone to love based on checking off all the right boxes. I guess you never learned that. But then again, you don’t date, do you?”

Of course, Neve knew exactly what wound to poke to cause Olivia the greatest discomfort. She hadn’t actively dated in the last few years because she’d been too busy . . . and still thinking about Conrad, which was unfair to the guys she’d tried to enter relationships with. “We’re not talking about me, Neve.”

“We never do. You give out all this great advice for other people, but you don’t ever turn the finger you’re pointing back at yourself. Why is that, I wonder?”

“I don’t point fingers.”

“Feels like it. You judged me about Scott, but you don’t understand what it’s like to take a chance, to hope beyond all hope that someone has changed. You refuse to live in a glass house because you’re afraid of the stones that would be hurled back at you. You’re like a hobbit living under the ground, safe and snug . . . and dead inside.”

Olivia gripped the arm of the couch. “What a nice comparison. Thanks, Neve. So you know, I’m not protecting myself. I’ve just been busy.”

Liar.

That word might as well have been shouted in the space between them. Olivia could see as much in her sister’s eyes. Neve knew she was lying. Olivia knew as well. But thankfully her sister remained silent for a few seconds, giving Olivia an out. A generous move for a woman who wasn’t always generous.

“So what do you want to do with this place?” Neve asked after a full minute had ticked by.

“Not rent it. It’s actually a great place for the type of therapy I do, so I had been thinking we should keep it.”

“So you can work with spoiled rich kids? What are you going to do? Teach them how hard life is by making them scrub the floor or chop wood?”

Olivia’s lips twitched because her sister had totally simplified her therapy down to the bare bones of truth. Yet take the activity of chopping wood—one utilized the physical self, completed a task from start to end, used the resulting product for practical purpose. Overall, learning how hard work benefited a person was one of the building blocks of Square One. “Eh, maybe. A little.”