It wasn’t important anyway. Frazer wished she hadn’t heard anything. “I don’t know. Something some board member heard from Alec, who spoke to a surgeon, who told his wife, who told her best friend…”

Jemma waved her fork in the air. “Yeah, yeah. I know how a rumour works. What was it?”

“Cora and Alec are getting a divorce. Apparently Cora stole his car and moved all her stuff to a lover’s house after torching his clothes.”

“Wow. That’s a hefty rumour.”

“Yeah. Alec has his car, and none of his clothes look burnt. Also, she’s not in my house.”

“Maybe she has another lover?” Jemma was clearly enjoying this far too much.

Frazer tried not to twitch. “Maybe.”

“Or maybe the only true part is the divorce.”

Frazer shrugged. It wasn’t like she cared. “Maybe.”

Jemma tilted her head again and stared at her. Really stared at her. “Not that you care,” she said slowly.

“Exactly.” Frazer didn’t trust her sister’s tone not to be ironic, but she decided to ignore the insinuation. “Not that I care.”

Because she didn’t.

Frazer was done.

* * *

Cora missed Frazer.

It had taken one morning, a week after telling Frazer to leave her the hell alone, to really get that.

That one morning, she woke up with her heart racing and her hips arching off the bed, heat pooled in her centre and her hand trapped in her underwear.

Cora had never had a sex dream. Not one so vivid, so concurrent, so obviously about sex. She had never woken up in that position, a groan tearing from her throat and the memory of eyes staring up at her. One that left her mouth dry and other parts of her definitely not so.

It was really hard after that to convince herself that she simply missed the friendship parts of Frazer. But she did genuinely crave those parts too: the coffee, the lunches, the easy silence between them as they worked on the programme. The way her smile was all crooked and appealing. She missed how she could say something that dragged out a bark of laughter, as if she were managing to take the woman by surprise. Frazer was a bundle of cockiness layered over someone always looking to improve. Cora missed Frazer’s urge to brainstorm, her willingness to adapt her ideas to ones Cora suggested.

The night before, though, as sleep had started to wash over Cora, she’d instead thought of how Frazer had the softest eyes. The green of her irises would almost dampen when she looked at Cora. Her senses still remembered the wet press of Frazer’s lips against her own, the heat between her neck and her shoulder. Caught on the cusp of awake and dreaming, she’d barely questioned the shift in her thoughts.