Then Amanda ruins it by saying, “So is he attractive?”
“No.”
Nour tilts her head.
I correct myself. “Objectively, yes. Subjectively, irrelevant.”
Amanda laughs. “That is the least convincing sentence you have ever said.”
“It’s perfectly convincing.”
“It sounds like it came from an HR policy written by someone having a breakdown.”
“He is here because he wrote an article that undermined me.”
“Subtly undermined you,” Amanda says. “We’ve covered this.”
“Yes, thank you. I was there.”
“And now he’s here learning not to do that again.”
“He is here for two weeks.”
“Long enough.”
“For what?”
Amanda gives me an innocent look. “Personal development.”
Nour picks up her wine. “Very immersive personal development.”
I lean back in my chair. “There is nothing happening.”
“Did anyone say there was?” Amanda asks.
“You’re implying it.”
“I’m your sister. Implying things is in the contract.”
I take a sip of wine and decide that, sisterly contract or not, Amanda is absolutely reading far too much into one exhausting day.
10
Chapter 9
AJ
By the next morning,my legs are staging a protest.
Not a dramatic one. They are not refusing service entirely, but they have made their position clear every time I sit, stand, move, breathe, or consider having ambitions. My shoulders are worse. My shoulders have gone beyond complaint and moved into quiet, dignified betrayal.
The stairs at Rose Cottage nearly finish me before breakfast.
Not because there is anything especially wrong with them. They are perfectly normal stairs. Possibly even charming stairs, if you are the sort of person whose thighs have not recently been introduced to hose drills by Pippa Hart.
I make it down one careful step at a time, holding the banister with the grim concentration of a man descending from Everest rather than room six.
The owner, a cheerful woman called, very fittingly, Rose, asks if I slept well.
