Kiss Don’t Tell

‘Draw breath, Sarah!’

Sarah, obligingly, drew breath. And then: ‘Whew, okay!’ she said more calmly. ‘So this morning, I popped into Mum’s for coffee, and I was talking to her about something that had nothing to do with Lane, something completely different, but she knew—’

‘She wormed the real story out of you the way she always does.’

‘Ha ha ha! I was going to say that she knew there was something seriously bothering me and …’ She threw up her hands. ‘And yes, all right, she wormed the story out of me. And I was glad, too, because she had the perfect solution. Only now, because you couldn’t do one simple thing, it’s turned out to be not so perfect after all.’

‘If you’d told me it was Mum’s idea, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near it.’

‘Which of course is why I didn’t tell you.’

‘And now I’m stuck in the hell of being pimped out not only by my sister but by my own mother as well! It’s fucking disgusting, Sarah.’

‘Language!’

‘You are on such thin ice, I suggest you step carefully with the “Language” stuff.’

‘Then perhaps I’ll just remind you, again, that you were supposed to talk Lane out of it. That was the basis of Mum’s suggestion. It was all supposed to be over and done with tonight. And let me tell you, I have no idea what Erica’s going to expect you to do when she gets back.’

‘So you and Mum and Erica-whoever-the-hell-she-is—’

‘Erica Wilder.’

‘—are basically a coven of fucking witches standing over a cauldron and controlling my moves. And do not say “Language!” to me, or I will pick you up bodily and throw you out of this fucking house.’

‘I weigh more than you think.’

‘You weigh about as much as a half-starved sparrow but every gram is packed with pure evil when you get a plan in your head.’

‘Sheesh, Adam, you signed the contract, not me!’

‘Sarah …’ Warningly.

‘How about if I promise not to discuss it with Mum again? I’ll tell her you did the job you were supposed to do, scared Lane silly, as you’d scare any girl with even half a brain let alone Lane with her one-and-a-half, and it’s all over, and her plan worked. Okay?’

‘Not okay! You know she’ll worm the truth out of you again.’

‘No she won’t. This morning was my one window of opportunity with her because tonight, Massimo raised the prospect of taking her on a Mediterranean cruise in a few weeks’ time and then home to Siena to meet his family, and now she’s not interested in anything else. She’s told me she’s going to be popping in and out of the house but staying with him until they depart. She is seriously goo-goo eyed over him, so forget getting any sense out of her for the foreseeable future.’

Adam shook his head in disgust. ‘She’s going away with Massimo before the divorce is even final?’

‘Yep,’ Sarah said, and sighed.

Adam examined his sister’s face, saw that she was blinking away an out-of-character tear, and his temper drained away. ‘Want a drink, squirt?’ he asked, all gruff, the way he always was when confronting emotion.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do,’ Sarah said.

‘Whisky?’

‘Why not?’

Adam got up to pour her a small measure of Scotch, and by the time he brought it to her, she had herself under control again.

‘How about we move you out of the granny flat while she’s gone?’ he asked. ‘Then you won’t have to deal with what I’m sure will be her new husband when they get back. If they ever get back, that is. She’s gone so far off the deep end about Italy lately I wouldn’t put it past her to move there.’

Sarah sniffed at her drink, wrinkling her nose. ‘Massimo’s okay, and I’m pretty isolated from the main house anyway.’

‘Yeah, well if he’s ever not okay, you know you only have to say the word.’

‘I think one attempt at stepfather-castration is enough for this lifetime.’

Adam poured more whisky for himself and took his seat again. ‘I castrate on a needs-must basis.’

Sarah giggled then, and reached across for his hand. She held it, then squeezed it, and Adam’s heart squeezed right along with it as he gripped her hand back. ‘I’m sorry she’s dumping Bertie,’ he said. ‘I know how much you love him.’

‘He’s the only decent step-parent in the bunch. I just wish I knew what she thinks is missing. Not that Dad’s any better. What are they looking for, Adam, and why can’t they find it?’

‘They’re looking for the same thing you keep looking for. Perfect love. And they can’t find it for the same reason you can’t find it—because it doesn’t exist.’

‘What if it does exist?’

‘Then we obviously don’t carry the gene for it—giving or receiving.’

Silence, and then Sarah sighed again and released his hand. ‘So okay, let’s talk about how we extricate you from the thing with Lane.’

Adam shook his head. ‘I can’t be extricated.’

‘Of course you can.’

‘I signed a contract, Sarah.’

‘Yes, but it’s not legally binding. It can’t be. It’s a sex contract. Like Fifty Shades of Grey. They’re not enforceable.’

‘It is not like Fifty Shades of Grey. Jesus, Sarah! Do you really think I have a red room?’

‘So you’ve read Fifty Shades have you?’

‘No I bloody well have not, but I haven’t been living under a rock, you know.’

‘Anyway, how would I know whether or not you have a red room?’

‘Because you’ve snooped all over this house, that’s how! And that’s not the point, anyway. It doesn’t matter whether the contract is legally enforceable or not. I signed and that’s it. You know how I feel about commitments. If you make them, you keep them.’

‘Yes, yes, I know. Which is why you don’t make them to women, as you’ve been at pains to point out ever since you hit puberty. So I just can’t work out why you did it. I mean Lane is a woman, isn’t she?’

Why had he done it? It was a question Adam had been asking himself ever since signing on the dotted line. He didn’t like the only answer he’d come up with: that Lane’s particular combination of defencelessness and intractability had goaded the self-control and common sense right out of him. He sure as hell wasn’t going to admit such a thing to his sister.

‘This isn’t a commitment to a woman—not as such,’ he said. ‘It’s a paid business proposition.’ Which was the truth—what was between him and Lane Davis was nothing like a normal relationship—but damn if he didn’t sound like a snake oil salesman saying it.