Page 19 of Her Every Fantasy

I nodded. ‘Yep. He was supposed to lease a yacht to close a business deal. He ended up buying the vessel and marrying the owner.’

Her smile widened, her beautiful eyes glinting. ‘That must have shocked Aunt Flo’s hair white.’

‘Especially when he was supposed to be on some sort of sex ban.’

She laughed, a warm sound that washed over me in ways I didn’t want but couldn’t help absorb. ‘What?’

I mock shuddered. ‘Don’t ask me the details. I didn’t want to know then, I’m even less interested now.’

She laughed again. ‘I look forward to hearing it from the horse’s mouth one day.’ She took a sip of wine, then sent me a sober look. ‘So how are things with you two?’

That tingling recommenced. Any and everything to do with my family had always been a touchy subject. In the past Savvie had heeded theno trespassingsigns. I wasn’t sure how I felt about thisinterestedside of her. ‘You want to know if we’re bosom buddies now he’s married?’

She toyed with the stem of her glass. ‘Maybe not bosom buddies but...are you?’

‘Answer is...we’re better. He reached out when he was on the yacht and we’ve seen each once or twice since his wedding.’

‘That’s good.’ Her face grew serious. ‘And your sister?’

‘Graciela passed through on her way to Australia for some PR assignment for TMG. I took her out to lunch. That was a few months ago. I haven’t seen any members of my family since. Is the interrogation over?’

Her face closed. ‘You said you weren’t the same person you were three years ago but in some ways you haven’t changed at all.’

‘Because I haven’t suddenly developed a huge fondness for my dysfunctional family?’

‘Because from the sounds of it you’re still pushing everyone away.’

‘Thin ice, rosebud,’ I warned.

She ignored me. ‘They don’t reach out to you so you don’t reach out either?’ She shook her head. ‘Do you know how nuts that is? To have people you know are in the same situation as you and actively ignore them? To choose to remain alone?’

‘Are we talking about me or you right now?’

I hadn’t twigged onto the isolation she’d felt within her family until she’d flippantly informed me, after I’d asked what her parents thought of Dan, that she hadn’t spoken to them in months. That they weren’t coming to her wedding. When she’d insisted she didn’t want to talk about it, I’d left it, the subject of family one I was deathly allergic to. But some part of me had experienced a sting of guilt for believing everything was fine all those years before.

For not seeing the real truth. But then, hadn’t that been our way? Believing one thing only to discover it was an illusion?

She gave that same flippant hand gesture that didn’t quite ring true. ‘My situation is different.’

‘Is it?’

‘Yes. Stop deflecting.’

‘Maybe we should’ve gone for a pizza after all,’ I said, in no way welcoming the determined gleam in her eyes.

‘Graciela called me when she was in New York last month,’ she said abruptly. ‘She told me about your lunch. She also told me you couldn’t wait to be done. She even thinks you had your EA call with a fake business problem.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I silently cursed the heat creeping up my neck, thankful our space was dark enough to disguise my guilt.

‘Was it true?’

Only partially. The business call hadn’t been fake, but I’d used it to shorten the lunch. Graciela liked to play thewhygame every time we met.

Why are we so screwed up?

Why did our parents leave us?

Why aren’t we all in therapy about it?

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