‘Shall we sit?’ Heather suggested.

Heather’s voice, Tully noticed, was imbued with a solid upper-middle-class accent, prompting Tully to reassess her hypothesis that Heather’s interest in Dad was an attempt to improve her status in life. She could be a gold-digger, but judging by Heather’s Burberry trench, the woman wasn’t hard up. Which left Tully a bit stumped. If not for money or social standing, why would an attractive woman of thirty-four be interested in Dad?

They all sat. Already Tully was exhausted. She’d spent the evening before on two-year-old Miles’s bedroom floor, holding his hand as he got used to his new big-boy bed. She managed to sneak into her own bed around 2 am, before waking again at daybreak for Pilates followed by packing lunchboxes, cleaning for the cleaner and heading to preschool drop-off, where she was bailed up by Miles’s teacher for half an hour to discuss his ‘issues’. This, plus the extra half-hour she spent crying in the car afterwards, made her late for her blow-out appointment – an unnecessary expense that, in light of their new financial situation, would almost certainly cause problems when Sonny saw it on the credit card statement. But it was going to be a tough day for Tully. A day that required her game face and blow-out.

Heather reached for the wine menu. ‘What shall we drink?’

‘Let’s stick to water for now,’ Dad said, taking the wine list from Heather and setting it to the side in a gesture that Tully found curious. ‘At least until Rachel gets here.’

Rachel! Tully had nearly forgotten Rachel was coming. At the sound of her name, she felt a curious jolt of emotion. Relief, mostly. Things were always better when Rachel was here. Which was what sparked the other emotion Tully was feeling: irritation. Why did Rachel always have to be the one to make things better?

Tully glanced at her watch: twelve thirty-five. What kind of person would be late to meet their father’s new girlfriend? Annoyingly, Dad wouldn’t be bothered in the least. Rachel would stroll in fifteen minutes late and Dad’s eyes would light up because of what Tully thought of as ‘the Rachel effect’. The superpower that rendered all men, including her own father, putty in her hands. Not only was she funny and charming, she was also sickeningly beautiful – an attribute that was wasted romantically, as Rachel hadn’t so much as looked at a man since she was sixteen. For years, Tully had been holding her breath for the announcement that Rachel was gay, but it had never come. It seemed a travesty to Tully that no one, male or female, should get to enjoy her sister’s dark eyes, tumbling chestnut hair and body that rivalled Kim Kardashian’s. Man how Tully envied that body. As an adolescent, Tully had assumed she was just a late developer – but her curves had never come, and Rachel’s just kept coming. Lately, in fact, Rachel was looking downright . . .