Act Your Age, Eve Brown (The Brown Sisters #3) - Talia Hibbert Page 0,24

Diamond. Drill.

“Erm,” Eve squeaked. “Me?”

Lucy stared in a very violent manner.

Eve began mentally cataloging all the knives in the kitchen and their whereabouts in relation to Lucy’s hands.

After a tense moment, the older woman said, “Are you . . . are you trying to tell me that my nephew, your employer, is currently in bed because you hit him with your car?”

A new guest popped up at the window like a video-game toadstool. “What’s that? Someone hit Jacob with a car?”

“No,” Eve said.

“Apparently,” Lucy said.

“Blimey. Any hash browns going?” asked the guest.

Eve bit her lip. “I’m—I’m certain I can whip some up if you give me just a—”

Lucy held up a hand. “Please, don’t let me keep you. I will be upstairs, checking my nephew’s still alive.” She swept out of the room.

Oh dear.

Eve supposed, all things considered, she’d better do a damned good job with this breakfast.

* * *

“Why in God’s name didn’t you call me?!”

Leaning against his dresser, Jacob squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his thumbs to his temples. Didn’t help: his headache still flared in time with every outraged lilt in Aunt Lucy’s voice. He sighed and opened a drawer, rifling through it for his spare glasses. “Because you were busy.”

“Busy?! A couple of clients and a weekly book club is not busy, Jacob!”

“I didn’t want you to worry.” He found his old case and pulled out a pair of glasses identical to his current frames, except for the fact that these were undamaged, and also weaker by 0.75 in the right eye. Sliding them on, he blinked until the slight blurriness became almost unnoticeable. These would do, for now.

“It’s my job to worry about you, you plonker,” Aunt Lucy said. He turned to face her, and this time, he could see her furrowed brow and pale cheeks clearly. His gut squeezed with guilt. And with a little pain from the ache in his skull and his back and his stomach. The stomach was hunger. But he hadn’t even managed to shower yet, so hunger would have to wait.

“Sorry,” he said, because he knew from experience that she wouldn’t leave him in peace until he apologized. “But in my defense, I was concussed when I told Mont not to tell you.”

“Ha! I’ll be having a word with young Eric soon enough,” Lucy said, looking menacing.

Sorry, Mont.

“But first—what on earth is the woman who hit you doing in the kitchen? I mean, I’m all for forgive and forget, babe, really, I am, but I know very well that you aren’t.”

Jacob opened his mouth, then closed it. The woman who—? “I’m sorry, what?”

Slowly, Lucy said, “The woman. Who hit you. Is in. Your kitchen.”

Oh. Oh shit. “Eve? Eve is still here?”

“That is what she called herself, yes. Purple hair, about this tall, wearing a T-shirt that I’m sure belongs to one of the twins.”

One of the . . .

Jacob set his jaw and sucked in a breath. No. No way would Montrose actually hire the living terror who literally ran Jacob over yesterday—

Except someone needed to take over, and Mont is even more practical than you sometimes. So this is exactly the kind of thing he would do.

“Fuck,” he hissed. Then, “Sorry, Aunt Lucy.”

“Don’t mind me, sweetheart.” Lucy was already straightening up his perfectly tidy room, throwing back his bedcovers and opening the window. She gave his curtains a considering look. “Would you mind if I just popped these off and gave them a quick iron? They’d look proper smart with a nice crease in the—”

“Whatever you want,” Jacob called over his shoulder. He didn’t have time to argue about the relative merits of curtain ironing. He had an Eve to remove.

* * *

Righteous outrage propelled Jacob out of his private quarters, but when he hit the staircase, reality kicked in. Specifically, the reality of his body, which fucking killed. Gripping the banister with his good hand—his left hand, and what bloody use was that?—Jacob eyed the steps warily before tackling the first one.

Pain sang to life along the length of his spine, from the dull ache near his shoulders to the sharp stab at his tailbone. When his foot made contact with the next stair down, his head throbbed inside his skull like he’d jumped off a building.

“For shit’s sake,” he muttered. “You have got to be kidding me.” His injuries definitely hadn’t hurt this badly yesterday.

Then again, much of what he remembered about yesterday wasn’t exactly coherent. Except for the part where Eve Brown stormed his