No one laughed. Not even Dad. In fact, he looked rather angry as he demanded, “How many careers do you plan to flit through while living at home and surviving on nothing but the money we give you? Your sisters have moved out, and they work—damned hard—even though they don’t need to. But you went from performing arts, to law school, to teaching. From graphic design to cupcakes to those tiny violins you used to make—”
“I don’t want to talk about the violins,” Eve scowled. She’d quite liked them, but she’d developed a large social media following by filming her musical carpentry. Then various magazines had started writing about her skills, or some such rubbish. When that Russian prodigy had shown up on her doorstep, she’d known things were going too far.
“You don’t want to talk about anything!” Dad exploded. “You dip in and out of professions, then you cut and run. Your mother and I didn’t set up the trust so you girls could become wastes of space,” he said. “We set it up because when I was a boy, I had nothing. And because there are so many situations in life that you’ve no hope of escaping from without a safety net. But what you’re doing, Eve, is abusing your privilege. And I’m disappointed.”
Those words burned, charring her edges with hurt and shame. Her heart began to pound, her pulse rushing loud enough in her ears to drown out Barbra’s comforting beat. She tried to process, to find the right words to explain herself—but the conversation was already racing off without her, a runaway train she’d never been fast enough to catch.
“We have decided,” Mum said, “to cancel your trust fund payments. Whatever savings you have will have to do until you can find a job.”
Savings? Who the bloody hell had savings?
Dad took over. “You can stay here for three months. That should be more than enough time to find a place of your own.”
“Wait—what? You’re throwing me out?”
Mum went on as if Eve hadn’t spoken. “We’ve discussed things, and your father and I would like you to hold down a job for at least a year before we restart your trust fund payments. We know finding decent work might be difficult with such a . . . unique CV, so we’ve lined up positions for you in our own companies.”
Eve jerked back in her seat, her head whirling as she tried to keep up. “But—I already quit law.” And for good reason. Eve had enjoyed law school a disturbing amount, had recognized the warning signs, and had quit before she could sublimate her entire sense of self-worth into her ability to nitpick linguistics around Tort law. She considered that a lucky escape.
Mum’s mouth tightened. “Well, there’s always your father’s accountancy firm.”
Now Eve was truly appalled. “Accountancy? I can barely count!”
Mum narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be flip, Eve.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to count. And I don’t want my parents to hand me a job because I’m too useless to get one on my own. I’m not.”
“No,” Mum agreed, “just too feckless to stick with one. To do the hard work, after the excitement and glamour has faded. Too immature to be an adult. When are you going to grow up, Eve? I swear, it’s embarrassing—”
And there it was. Eve sucked in a breath and blinked back the hot tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. They were more shock than pain, like the tears that came with a banged elbow—but she shouldn’t be shocked at all, now, should she? Of course her parents saw her this way. Of course her parents thought she was an immature little brat. She’d never given anyone a reason to think she was anything else.
“I—I need to go,” she said, standing up quickly, her voice thick with tears. Embarrassing. She was so fucking embarrassing, crying like a baby because her mother had told her the truth, running away from everything because she wasn’t strong enough to cope with the pressure.
“Eve, darling,” Mum began, already sounding softer, full of regret. Next, she’d say, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that, and everyone would decide that was enough for today, and the poor, delicate baby of the family would be let off the hook for a while because everyone knew Eve couldn’t handle difficult conversations.
No one in this family had any idea of the shit Eve could handle. No one. And while that wasn’t their fault, she suddenly resented them all for it. Every last one.
“Don’t worry,” she said sharply. “I’ve listened to everything you’ve said, and I’m taking it very seriously. I don’t need you to baby me anymore. I will deal with this on my own, and I will try not to disappoint or—or embarrass you in the process.” But now I need to go before I completely undermine myself by bursting into tears. She turned her back on her stricken parents and bolted.
Chapter Two
It had taken Eve seven attempts to pass her driving test.
She was used to passing tests immediately and without much effort, but driving had proved unexpectedly difficult. Apparently, she had serious spatial awareness problems that had taken four years of weekly lessons to overcome. But driving was one of the few things Eve hadn’t ever given up on, because a license promised the sort of freedom that wouldn’t turn sour.
For example: the freedom to drive fast and aimless down abandoned country roads while blasting music at full volume. Her mood had taken a sharp turn, and Barbra would no longer do.
As she sped past turn after turn that would take her back to the main road—to the city, to her sisters—Eve debated the pros and cons of running to Chloe or Dani for help. What, exactly, would she say? Help, Mum and Dad have cruelly demanded I hold down a job and take on some adult responsibilities? Ha. Chloe, who was hideously blunt and who had overcome more difficulties in her thirty-something years than many people did in a lifetime, would tell Eve outright that she was being a pathetic brat. Dani, who was similarly blunt and absolutely addicted to hard work, had never and would never understand why Eve avoided committing to a profession. Or to anything.
Eve had told her parents she’d handle things herself, and she would. After she finished undoing the instinctive panic caused by this morning’s conversation.
She turned up the music and drove, until the sun faded behind gray clouds and pre-rain mist soaked into her skin through the open windows. It was so safe, in that music-pounding, rain-shielded, ever-moving bubble, that Eve drove for over two hours without even noticing.
Just when she was beginning to feel the first pangs of hunger, she caught sight of a sign that said SKYBRIAR: FIFTEEN MILES.
“Skybriar,” she murmured over the thrum of cleopatrick’s “hometown.” It sounded like a fairytale. Fairytales meant happily ever after. She took the turn.
Skybriar looked like a fairytale, too. Its main road unraveled down an impressive hill, with woods standing tall on either side of the pavement. It was the kind of deep and vivid greenery that looked like it must, by rights, contain pixies and toadstools and all the rest. The air through Eve’s open window tasted fresh and earthy and clean as she drove deeper into the town, past adorable, old-fashioned, stone-built houses and people in wellies walking well-behaved little dogs.
Another turn, taken at random, and she struck gold. Up ahead, guarded by a grand oak tree and fenced in by an old, low wall of moss-covered stone, was an impressive redbrick Victorian with a wine-red sign outside that read CASTELL COTTAGE. EXCELLENT ACCOMMODATION, DELICIOUS CUISINE.
She was feeling better already.
Actually, that was a categorical lie. But she would feel better, once she ate, and took a moment to think, and generally stopped her drama queen behavior.
Eve threw the car into the nearest sort-of parking space—well, it was an empty spot by the pavement, so it would do—and cut off her music. Then she slipped in an AirPod, chose a new song—“Shut Up and Groove,” Masego—to match her new determinedly positive mood, and pressed Play. Flipping down the car’s mirror, she dabbed at her red eyes and grimaced at her bare mouth. Her waist-length braids, lavender and brown, were still tied back in a bedtime knot. She set them free to spill over her shoulders, then rifled through her glove
box and found a glittery, orange Chanel lip gloss.
“There.” She smiled at her reflection. “Much better.” When in doubt, throw some color at it. Satisfied, she got out of the car and approached the cute little countryside restaurant thingy through softly falling drizzle. Only when she reached the grand front door, which had yet another sign pinned over it, did she notice what she’d missed the first time.
CASTELL COTTAGE.
BED AND BREAKFAST.
Eve checked her watch and discovered that it was now far from breakfast time.
“Gabriel’s burning bollocks, you have got to be kidding me.” She glared at her warped reflection in the front door’s little stained-glass window. “Has the trauma of the morning’s events killed off your last remaining brain cells, Eve? Is that it?”
Her reflection did not reply.
She let out a hangry little growl and started to turn—when a laminated notice pinned up beside the door caught her eye.
CHEF INTERVIEWS: FIRST DOOR ON THE RIGHT.
Well, now. That was rather interesting. So interesting, in fact, that Eve’s witchy sister Dani would likely call this literal sign . . . a sign.
Of course, Eve wasn’t Dani, so she simply called it a coincidence.
“Or an opportunity,” she murmured slowly.
Eve, after all, could cook. She was forced to do so every day in order to survive, and she was also quite good at it, having entertained brief fantasies of opening a Michelin-starred restaurant before watching an episode of Hell’s Kitchen and developing a Gordon Ramsay phobia. Of course, despite her private efforts, she had never actually cooked professionally before—unless one considered her ill-advised foray into 3D genital cakes cooking.
Still, the more she thought about it, the more this seemed like the perfect job for her. Wedding planning had been too satisfying, too exhilarating, the kind of career she could easily fall in love with—which meant that when she inevitably failed at it, she’d be left broken. But cooking at some small-town bed and breakfast? She certainly couldn’t fall in love with that.
“Your father and I would like you to hold down a job for at least a year before we restart your trust fund payments.”
Her parents didn’t think she could get a job on her own and clearly doubted her ability to keep one. They thought she needed supervision for every little thing, and if she was honest with herself, Eve understood why. But that didn’t stop their doubt from biting like too-small leather boots. So, securing her own job the day she left home? And also, quite conveniently, not having to return home with her tail between her legs after this morning’s tantrum-like disappearance? That all sounded ideal, actually.
One year to prove herself. She could do that. In fact, Eve knew better than anyone that she could do anything.
She opened the door.
* * *
Contrary to popular belief, Jacob Wayne did not create awkward situations on purpose. Take right now, for example: he didn’t mean to subject his latest interviewee to a long, glacial pause that left the other man pale and jittery. But Simon Fairweather was a certified prick and his answers to Jacob’s carefully considered interview questions were nothing less than a shit show. With each meaningless response, Jacob felt himself growing even colder and more distant than usual. Perfect conditions for the birth of an accidental awkward pause.
Simon stared at Jacob. Jacob stared at Simon. Simon began to fidget. Jacob reflected on how bloody irritating he found this man and did nothing to control the derisive curl of his lip. Simon started, disturbingly, to sweat. Jacob was horrified, both by the rogue DNA rolling down Simon’s temples and by his obvious lack of spine.
Then Jacob’s best friend (all right, only friend) Montlake heaved out a sigh and leapt into the breach. “Cheers, Simon,” he said. “That’ll be all, mate. We’ll get back to you.”
“That’s true,” Jacob allowed calmly, because it was. He watched in silence as Simon scrambled up from his chair and exited the room, nodding and stuttering all the while.
“Pitiful,” Jacob muttered. As the dining room door swung shut, he wrote two careful words on his notepad: FUCK. EVERYTHING.
Not his most adult choice, granted, but it seemed more mature than flipping the goddamn table.
Beside him, Montlake cleared his throat. “All right. Don’t know why I’m bothering to ask, but . . . Thoughts on Simon?”
Jacob sighed. “Are you sure you want to know?”
“Probably not.” Montlake rolled his eyes and tapped his pen against his own notepad. He, Jacob noticed, had written a load of intelligent, sensible shit about today’s applicants, complete with bullet points. Once upon a time, Jacob had been capable of intelligence and bullet points, too. Just last week, in fact. But then he’d been forced to sit through the seven-day-straight parade of incompetence these interviews had become, and his brain had melted out of his fucking ears.
“Well,” Mont went on, “here’s what I put: Simon’s got a lot of experience, but he doesn’t seem the sharpest tool. Bit cocky, but that means he’ll eventually be confident enough to handle that thing you do.”
Jacob narrowed his eyes and turned, very slowly, to glare at his friend. “And what thing is that, Montlake?”
“That thing, Bitchy McBitcherson,” Mont said cheerfully. “You’re a nightmare when you’re panicking.”
“I’m a nightmare all the time. This is my ordinary nightmare behavior. Panic,” Jacob scowled, “is for the underprepared, the out-of-control, and the fatally inconsistent.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard. From you. Every time you’re panicking.”
Jacob wondered if today would be the day he murdered his best friend and decided, after a moment, that it was entirely possible. The hospitality industry had been known to drive men to far worse. Like plastic shower curtains and brown carpets.
To lessen the risk of imminent homicide, Jacob pushed the fine frames of his glasses up his nose, rose to his feet, and began to pace the B&B’s spacious dining room, circling the antique table that took up its center. “Whatever. And you’re wrong about Simon—he isn’t right for Castell Cottage.”
“You don’t think anyone’s right for Castell Cottage,” Mont said dryly. “That’s kind of why I’m here. Voice of reason, and all that.”
“Actually, you’re here because you’re a respected local business owner, and proper interviews need more than one perspective, and—”
“What’s wrong with Simon?” Montlake interrupted.
“He’s a creep.”
Mont, who had a habit of leaning everywhere—probably something to do with his ridiculous height and the natural effects of gravity—sat up straight for once. “Who told you that? The twins?”
A reasonable assumption, since Mont’s sisters were the only women in town who actually spoke to Jacob—aside from Aunt Lucy, of course. “No one told me. Just watch the guy some time. Women bend over backward to avoid being alone with him.”
“Christ,” Mont muttered, and ripped a page out of his notepad. “All right. I know you hated the first two, and you’ve written off all the previous candidates.” He paused significantly. If he was waiting for Jacob to feel bad or something, he’d be waiting a long fucking time. “So that leaves us with Claire Penny.”
“Nope,” Jacob said flatly. “Don’t want her.” He stopped mid-pace, noticing that one of the paintings on the aubergine wall—a landscape commissioned from a local artist—was slightly crooked. Scowling, he stalked over and adjusted it. Bloody doors banging all day, knocking things out of whack, that was the reason. “Can’t have a chef who slams my doors,” he muttered darkly. “Doesn’t create a restful atmosphere. Bastards.”
“Is that the issue with Claire?”
“What? Oh.” Jacob shook his head and went back to his pacing. “Claire knows how to shut a door properly, so far as I can tell. But she smiles too much. No one smiles that much. Pretty sure she’s on drugs.”
Mont gave Jacob the dirty look to end all dirty looks, wh
ich was a natural skill of his. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m always serious.”
“She’s sixty-four years old.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “You think people stop making bad decisions when they hit sixty? Nope. Anyway, you remember before I left for the city, she used to work at Jimmy’s? I ordered a slice of her apple pie once, and there was a hair in it.”
“That’s why you don’t want to invite her back?”
Jacob frowned at his friend. “Why are you using your Jacob’s being unreasonable voice? I don’t want hairy pie, Montlake. Do you want hairy pie? Because if you’re that hot for hairy pie, I will make you a hairy pie.”
“You couldn’t pay me to eat your cooking, which is kind of why we’re here.” Mont scrubbed a hand over his face and screwed his eyes shut for a second. “Come on, man. You left five years ago. You think she hasn’t learned how to wear a hairnet in five years? Call her back, let her cook for us, give her a chance.”
“No.” Jacob knew he sounded like a dick. He knew even Mont, who got him better than everyone, probably thought he was being a dick. But sometimes it was easier to keep his thought processes to himself because other people either had trouble following them, or thought they were unnecessarily blunt.
Bluntness was never unnecessary.
About the Author
TALIA HIBBERT is a Black British author who lives in a bedroom full of books. Supposedly, there is a world beyond that room, but she has yet to drum up enough interest to investigate. She writes sexy, diverse romance because she believes that people of marginalized identities need honest and positive representation. Her interests include beauty, junk food, and unnecessary sarcasm.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Praise for Talia Hibbert
“Talia Hibbert is a rock star! Her writing is smart, funny, and sexy. . . . She’ll make you fall in love with her sweetly imperfect characters, who are so real you’ll wish you could give them all a hug.”
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