really ought to be used to it by now because, while the envy she felt at Gaby and Rafael’s evident closeness had taken her by surprise at first, she’d lived with it for as long as she’d known her neighbour. If anything, though, instead of lessening the envy had grown and, the more she’d listened to Gaby, offering words of either awe or sympathy depending on the circumstances, the more she’d come to realise that she didn’t have anyone who knew her or whom she knew quite that well. And in the early hours of the mornings when she’d been unable to sleep she’d begun to wonder if she might not be in the state she was in if she too had had someone that close to turn to.
‘It must be nice to have siblings,’ she said a little wistfully as the image of a two-point-four family popped into her head.
‘Don’t you have any?’
‘Nope,’ she said, pulling herself together because there she went again, wishing for the impossible. ‘It’s just me and my parents.’
‘Lucky you,’ he muttered, then got up and headed to the barbecue.
As she watched him slap the steaks on the grill Nicky frowned. She’d always got the impression from Gaby that while there was frustration aplenty between the sisters and their brother there was also a lot of affection. ‘Really?’
She heard him sigh. ‘No, not really,’ he said, leaving the steaks to sizzle and spit on the grill and returning to the table. ‘They’re fine. Except when they’re hassling me.’
‘Do they do that often?’
‘More often than I’d like,’ he said, sitting back down and taking a mouthful of wine.
‘So what do you do about it?’
‘Well, the last time it happened I came down here.’
The tone of his voice made her insides cringe. ‘Which was when?’
He set his glass down and gave her a look. ‘Yesterday.’
Oh, dear. ‘Looking for a bit of peace and quiet?’
He nodded. ‘Only to be attacked with Don Quijote.’
Nicky felt her cheeks flush with mortification. ‘I really am sorry about that, you know.’
‘Don’t worry, it was infinitely less traumatic than the quadruple whammy of one mother, two sisters and an ex-girlfriend.’
As her blush receded Nicky resisted the urge to roll her eyes because if that was what he considered traumatic he should try what she’d been through in the last six months. She’d take a mother, two sisters and an ex over the ghastly effects of burnout any day. ‘Which was highly traumatic, I imagine,’ she said as sincerely as she could, which wasn’t very.
He raised an eyebrow at her arch tone. ‘It seemed so at the time. Especially on top of such a busy time at work.’
Nicky reined in her cynicism because everyone had their hangups and actually what made hers any worse than his? ‘Do they often gang up on you?’
‘My sisters?’
She nodded.
Rafael tensed a little and her curiosity rocketed. ‘Not since I was about eight.’
‘Why? What happened when you were eight?’
‘I chose not to let it bother me.’
The words were spoken casually enough but she caught the almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw and for some bizarre reason her heart squeezed again, only this time she didn’t think it was with envy. ‘Did it work?’
‘Beautifully,’ he said dryly, and gave her an easy smile that thankfully made the squeeze release its grip on her heart. ‘Trying to rile someone who won’t be provoked isn’t much fun. They very quickly lost interest and left me alone.’
‘Ingenious.’
He shrugged. ‘Not so much ingenuity as a need for self-preservation. Anyway it worked because we now get along pretty well.’
Fleetingly wondering if choosing not to let things bother him was a strategy he still employed to deal with difficult situations, but realising that there was no way she could ask such a personal question, Nicky decided it would be safer for her heart and its surrounding muscles to move on to more neutral ground. ‘So what does corporate troubleshooting involve?’ she asked, toying with her glass as the mouth-watering scent of sizzling steak drifted towards her.
‘I sort out companies in difficulties.’
‘What sort of difficulties?’
‘Anything really. A board might have a problem with staffing or be going through a tricky merger or there might be issues with the management. I go in wherever I’m needed and leave when I’m done.’
‘So you fix things.’
‘I do.’
‘Have you ever failed?’
‘Not so far.’
‘Do you fix people too?’ she asked as it suddenly occurred to her that he might be able to fix her. And then almost as quickly she dismissed the idea as ridiculous because, for one thing, why would he want to help her when he didn’t even get involved with his sisters’ problems? And for another she was pretty sure that no one could fix her but her.
He shuddered. ‘Absolutely not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it would inevitably get...emotional...and therefore messy.’
‘And you don’t do emotion or mess,’ she said with a nod because the way he’d hesitated, the way he’d just flinched, said it all.
‘Not if I can help it.’
As Nicky wasn’t particularly fond of either, emotional detachment when it came to personal relationships was something she could definitely identify with, but nevertheless... ‘Not even for your sisters?’
‘Especially not for them.’ He frowned. ‘I wouldn’t even offer them advice.’
‘Really?’ she asked, becoming increasingly intrigued by these insights into family life because as an only child she knew nothing about the dynamics of siblings, and with parents who championed independence she’d become so self-reliant she couldn’t remember a time she’d asked for advice about anything.
‘Absolutely. If the advice I hypothetically gave them was wrong I’d invariably end up being blamed and if it wasn’t taken then what would be the point of giving it in the first place? It would be a no-win situation, not to mention an insanely frustrating one.’
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