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“I must say,” she adds, “You don’t seem very surprised”

Is it too late to adopt an “oh, no!” face?

“About your brother staying? I guess it’s like you said, he’s an honourable ether, we see through these next feeeks unscathed, my heart and my hoohaa intact Keep away from him, I mean—throw myself into ins to process how beginning by calling into the village’s equivalent of a 7/11 on the way back from the school run I’ll pick up a cheap electric kettle and some ramen I mean, it’s not like the atmosphere in the kitchen is the same as it was before Alexander arrived If I’m there less, there will be less aardness That’s not to say I can’t liberate a few supplies from there I can survive mostly on food that doesn’t need to be cooked I mean, I like ramen And cake And bread I can throw in a little fruit just to be sure I don’t get scurvy Oh, and coffee I’ll need to grab a jar of Nescafe today, too

“Sandy told me you and he h she doesn’t want to pry but can’t help herself Resisting the urge to fidget under her gaze, I reach for a china tray from the mantlepiece I put it down after a quick examination It seems pretty old

“On his fortieth birthday”

I alht? I mean, I kneas his birthday but, forty? That means there are sixteen years between us Sixteen! Well, nearer fifteen, I guess I read soe Clooney and Ah! Why a to have a happily ever after No ether—their own careers and their own money If Alexander and I were in a relationship for real, people would labelho

The duke and the girl from Mookatill

What a joke People would surely laugh all the way frohlands to my little buttphuck nowhere home

A finger of dread pokes at h labels for one lifetime I don’t want to be the nanny he once had, and I don’t want to find hts—he’s not serious about ht want more than a quick screw in the kitchen, but that doesn’t

“It created quite a stir when he didn’t turn up,” she adds lightly “His friends were furious, not least because he was reading theirthem Then afterwards, he wouldn’t say where he’d been But there was a lightness in hi to hi I’d hoped he’d ain”

I can feel her watching est her words like a cookie you don’t need but can’t resist anyway A minute on the lips and a lifetih Alexander says he wantsfor a lifetime either

Isla can’t be looking for a positive reaction froht woman to be on his arm She must know that

“When you came to us, I had no idea you knew Sandy”

“Yeah, I know,” I say with a twist toI’m certain of, if I’d turned up and said I’d slept with her brother, I’m sure I’d have been back at the train station pretty darn quick It’s nice that she see about her fa And that’s so myself

“I had no idea who he was,” Ifor an explanation as I drop my butt to the arood entleet me out of an aard encounter when he could’ve quite easily left me” My eyes find hers, and I wonder what she sees there “It was a night I won’t ever forget, but I wouldn’t have cos aren’t meant to be real”