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a second, it would turn out like this.’

      ‘Yeah, well if it was really that easy, why didn’t you talk her out of it yourself?’

      Sarah grimaced. ‘I tried. Erica tried. Believe me. No luck.’

      Adam poured more whisky into his cut crystal tumbler. ‘And who the hell is Erica?’

      ‘Lane’s housemate. Erica’s a flight attendant.’

      ‘Ah, a flight attendant. Now you’re talking. Where’s her contract? I’ll sign that one in a heartbeat.’

      ‘Dream on. They’ve known each other since they were kids—next-door neighbours, living in each other’s pockets, sleepovers, the works. Erica’s not going to whistle that history down the wind by stealing you out from under Lane’s nose. It’s a girl code thing; there’s no breaking the code.’

      ‘Bullshit.’

      ‘Language!’

      ‘There’s no such thing as a girl code.’

      ‘Maybe not in your fast and loose world, but there most certainly is in ours. And in any case, Erica has a boyfriend, Jeremy, who isn’t insane enough to stand aside for you to have a crack at her. And she certainly doesn’t need to hire anyone for sex. She’s got enough raw material to write a regular blog on the subject.’

      ‘In your league, then. How many boyfriends are we up to for the year, Sarah? Remind me, will you?’

      ‘About on par with your excessive number of girlfriends, Casanova Quinn.’

      ‘They’re not my girlfriends.’

      ‘No they’re not, are they? Which makes my dating patterns more morally defensible than yours. At least I’m looking for love, not just shagging my way around the city of Sydney a street at a time.’

      ‘Who says I limit myself to Sydney?’

      ‘Ugh! You really are shameless. Brazen, blatant, debauched—’

      ‘Yada, yada, yada. Give the thesaurus a break and just think for a moment about your “morally defensible” crapola in light of the fact that you’re pimping me out to your friend.’

      ‘You weren’t supposed to sign,’ she said through her teeth.

      ‘And yet I did, and you set it up, therefore you are my pimp.’

      ‘Well someone had to step in.’

      ‘No, Sarah, they didn’t. At least not someone from this family. We’ve got enough problems with divorces and marriages happening like they’re on a spin cycle. We’re the last ones anyone should come to for sex therapy.’

      ‘Well that just goes to show that you know nothing, Adam Quinn, because it was Mum who suggested you for this job despite where she currently is in the spin cycle.’

      He jerked upright. ‘What the—the fuck? You did not—tell me you did not!—talk to Mum about this.’

      ‘Well of course I did!’

      ‘I am going to murder you, Sarah.’

      She opened her eyes at him. Wide, bright blue. Innocent. Like hell innocent. ‘I had to talk to someone!’

      ‘What about Erica the flight attendant? If she and Lane are so close, where was she when she was needed?’

      ‘Well duh! Thirty-five thousand feet in the air, that’s where! She was rostered on a flight to LA this morning, and that’s a four-day trip so she’s beside herself over what might happen while she’s gone. Which is probably why Lane chose last night to divulge her great plan. You know, get it out there and deal with the initial fallout knowing Erica wouldn’t have a lot of time to talk her out of it. So the end result is that I’m catapulted into the hot seat, with Erica begging me to come up with something to keep Lane safe in her absence. Damage control, that’s what Erica calls it. I’ve been nothing short of petrified, because Lane doesn’t see things the way the rest of us see them.’

      ‘Yeah, I’d say you’ve got that right. Jesus!’

      ‘Oh and I suppose you know everything about her, do you, after just one meeting? Because you don’t—that I can promise you!’

      ‘Okay, okay, so tell me: how does she see things?’

      ‘Straight like a ruler. Got a problem? Her brain tells her to fix it by going direct from A to B in the straightest line possible, no deviation. Whereas my brain goes all convoluted with curlicues and twists, via, F, G, and M, so I usually need someone to help me keep track of things, and when I woke up this morning and it all came flooding back to me and I realized there was nobody to help me and—’

      ‘Sarah, stop!’

      Sarah stopped.

      ‘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

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