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.”