Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3) - Talia Hibbert Page 0,19
needed watching. She could run from the scene of the crime right this second, return home in time for a late yoga class with Gigi and Shivs, and tell Mum and Dad all about her day’s successes while completely leaving out the part where she bombed an interview and drove over the interviewer.
Except . . .
Well. Except that seemed a little bit terrible. Jacob might be an arsehole, but in this situation, she was even arseholier, which was really saying something. She should stick around to make sure he was okay, attempt to apologize to his annoying, strawberry ice cream face, et cetera.
Plus, whispered a voice inside her head, no job in the world will regain Mum and Dad’s respect if you keep running away from the trouble you make.
Hm. Eve usually kept that annoyingly sensible voice—a voice that sounded irritatingly like her eldest sister, Chloe—under strict lockdown. The stress of the day must have released it from its chains.
After a few moments of deep breathing and loin-girding, Eve swallowed her anxiety and forced herself out of the dining room, across the foyer, and up the stairs. She hadn’t ventured onto the upper floors of Castell Cottage at all today, but now she found them much the same as the lower ones—if a little lighter and brighter, the corridors narrow but well-lit, the walls covered in ditsy, yellow flower prints and the floors covered in plush, emerald carpet. She kept an eye out for Jacob or Mont as she climbed to the first floor, then the second.
Only at the top of the third set of stairs did she see the door that might lead to her doom. It was a slab of imposing mahogany with a pearlized handle and a gold sign marked PRIVATE.
Yep. Jacob was probably in there.
She smoothed out her braids and straightened her T-shirt as she approached. Then she hovered, awkward and uncertain, for a few seconds before raising a hand to—knock? Shove the bastard open like a TV detective?
In the end, it didn’t matter, because the door swung open before she could touch it. There stood Mont, who looked surprised for a moment, then pleased. “Oh,” he said. “You came up.”
“Well.” Eve fidgeted on the spot. “It seemed as if there were things to discuss.”
Mont arched an eyebrow. “Interesting. And here I had you for a runner.”
“A runner?” she repeated with all the righteous outrage of a woman who had totally been moments away from running. “Never.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“Right.” He grinned. “Then what I’m about to say won’t bother you at all.”
Eve experienced a deep and powerful sense of foreboding. “Have at it.” Her voice squeaked on the last word. Oops.
“Come in,” Mont ordered—and it clearly was an order. Eve stepped through the doorway, jumping a little when he closed the door behind her. She looked around to find herself in what could only be described as Jacob’s quarters. This section of hallway had five doors: one that showed a glimpse of bathroom counter and neatly folded towels, one open cupboard with a washer-dryer thrumming away, two doors that remained neatly closed, and one at the end of the corridor that was slightly ajar—but not enough to see through it.
Eve’s nosiness was therefore thwarted.
Mont led her to one of the closed doors, which turned out to be locked. He produced a key and she found herself ushered into the most anal-retentive office she’d ever seen in her life. It was a box room with a desk set in front of tall, wide windows, a trio of filing cabinets lining the magnolia walls, and absolutely nothing else. No books, no photographs, not even any of the old, jazzy rugs thrown about elsewhere in Castell Cottage. A blank slate.
“Is this—Jacob’s office?” she managed.
Mont, who was already standing behind the desk rifling through drawers, shot her a look. “It helps him focus.”
Well, Eve bloody bet it did. The only possible distraction in this room was the window, and Jacob apparently sat with his back to it.
Mont straightened up, a stack of notebooks in his hands. “All right, listen up. I don’t know if Jake got a chance to mention it before you ran him over—”
Wow. Okay, they were being blunt, then. She could respect that.
“—but we were chasing after you to give you the job.” When Eve stared blankly in response, Mont added, “The chef job. Here. Jacob figured out a couple seconds after you’d gone that you’re pretty much our only hope, so yeah.”