looked wounded. ‘So no blueberry muffins for breakfast?’
‘Best you’re going to get is coffee. No laundry or bed-making service either,’ Seb replied.
Patch looked bereft and Seb knew that it had nothing to do with his level of comfort and everything to do with the absence of their elderly family confidant, their moral compass and their staunchest supporter. Yasmeen was more than their housekeeper, she was Awelfor.
‘Yas being gone sucks.’ Patch yawned. ‘I’m going back to bed, Miranda has a voice like a foghorn and I was up all night being blasted by it.’
Seb turned his head at the sound of his ringing landline. ‘Crazy morning. Father rocking up at the crack of dawn, phone ringing before six...and all I want is a cup of coffee.’
Patch grinned up at him. ‘I just want my house back.’
Seb returned his smile. ‘Then kick her whiny ass out of yours.’
Patch shuddered. ‘I’ll just move in here until she calms down.’
His father, Seb thought as he turned away to walk back into the house, was totally allergic to confrontation.
* * *
‘Seb, it’s Rowan...Rowan Dunn.’
He’d recognised her voice the moment he’d heard her speak his name, but because his synapses had stopped firing he’d lost the ability to formulate any words. Rowan? What the...?
‘Seb? Sorry, did I wake you?’
‘Rowan, this is a surprise.’ And by surprise I mean...wow.
‘I’m in Johannesburg—at the airport.’
Since this was Rowan, he passed curious and went straight to resigned. ‘What’s happened?’
He would have had to be intellectually challenged to miss the bite in the words that followed.
‘Why do you automatically assume the worst?’
‘Because something major must have happened to bring you back to the country you hate, where the family you’ve hardly interacted with in years lives and for you to call me, who you once described as a boil on the ass of humanity.’
He waited through the tense silence.
‘I’m temporarily broke and homeless. And I’ve just been deported from Oz,’ she finally—very reluctantly—admitted.
And there it was.
‘Are you in trouble?’ He kept his voice neutral and hoped that she was now adult enough to realise that it was a fair question. For a long time before she’d left trouble had been Rowan’s middle name. Heck, her first name.
‘No, I’m good. They just picked up that I overstayed on my visa years and years ago and they kicked me out.’
Compared to some of the things she’d done, this was a minor infringement. Seb walked to his walk-in closet, took a pair of jeans from a hanger and yanked them on. He placed his fist on his forehead and stared down at the old wood flooring.
‘Seb, are you there?’
‘Yep.’
‘Do you know where my parents are? I did try them but they aren’t answering their phone.’
‘They went to London and rented out the house while they were gone to some visiting researchers from Beijing. They are due back in...’ Seb tried to remember. ‘Two—three—weeks’ time.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding me! My parents went overseas and the world didn’t stop turning? How is that possible?’
‘That surprised me, too,’ Seb admitted.
‘And is Callie still on that buying trip?’
‘Yep.’
Another long silence. ‘In that case...tag—you’re it. I need a favour.’
From him? He looked at his watch and was surprised to find that it was still ticking. Why hadn’t time stood still? He’d presumed it would—along with nuns being found ice skating in hell—since Rowan was asking for his help.
‘I thought you’d rather drip hot wax in your eye than ever ask me for anything again.’
‘Can you blame me? You could’ve just bailed me out of jail, jerk-face.’
And...hello, there it was: the tone of voice that had irritated him throughout his youth and into his twenties. Cool, mocking...nails-on-a-chalkboard irritating.
‘Your parents didn’t want me to—they were trying to teach you a lesson. And might I point out that calling me names is not a good way to induce me to do anything for you, Rowan?’
Seb heard her mutter a swear word and he grinned. Oh, he did like having her at his mercy.
‘What do you want, Brat?’
Brat—his childhood name for her. Callie, so blonde, had called her Black Beauty, or BB for short, on account of her jet-black hair and eyes teamed with creamy white skin. She’d been a knockout, looks-wise, since the day she’d been born. Pity she had the personality of a rabid honey badger.
Brat suited her a lot better, and had the added bonus of annoying the hell out of her.
‘When is Callie due back?’
He knew why she was asking: she’d rather eat nails than accept help from him. Since his sister travelled extensively as a buyer for a fashion store, her being in the country was not always guaranteed. ‘End of the month.’
Another curse.
‘And Peter—your brother—is still in Bahrain,’ Seb added, his tone super pointed as he reached for a shirt and pulled it off its hanger.
‘I know that. I’m not completely estranged from my family!’ Rowan rose to take the bait. ‘But I didn’t know that my folks were planning a trip. They never go anywhere.’
‘They made the decision to go quite quickly.’ Seb walked back into his bedroom and stared at the black and white sketches of desert scenes above his rumpled bed. ‘So, now that you definitely know that I’m all you’ve got, do you want to tell me what the problem is?’
She sucked in a deep breath. ‘I need to get back to London and I was wondering whether you’d loan...’
When pigs flew!
‘No. I’m not lending you money.’
‘Then buy me a ticket...’
‘Ah, let me think about that for a sec? Mmm...no, I won’t buy you a ticket to London either.’
‘You are such a sadistic jerk.’
‘But
