“Do calm down, Joy,” Gigi huffed. “Your vibrations are giving me a migraine.”

“Mother,” Dad said warningly.

“Yes, darling?” Gigi said innocently.

“For God’s sake,” Mum said . . . rage-ing-ly, “Eve, we’ll continue this in the study.”

* * *

The study was Mum’s office, a neat and tidy room on the ground floor of the family home. It had an atmosphere of focus and success, both of which Eve found singularly oppressive. She fidgeted awkwardly under her parents’ stares.

“Where,” Mum asked, straight to the point as always, “is your website?”

Eve blinked. She had, in her time, owned many websites. Her oldest sister, Chloe, was a web designer, and Eve had always been a loyal client. “Erm . . .” Before she could formulate a response—a nice, precise one that covered all relevant information in exactly the way she wanted—Mum spoke again. That was the trouble with Mum. With most of Eve’s relatives, in fact. They were all so quick, and so uniformly relentless, their intellect blowing Eve about like dandelion fluff in a hurricane.

“I directed my good friend Harriet Hains,” Mum said, “to your business, because her daughter is recently engaged, and because I was so proud of the success you made of Cecelia’s wedding last week.”

For a moment, Eve basked in the glow of that single word: proud. Mum had been proud. Eve had, for a day, achieved something her brilliant and accomplished mother valued enough to deem it a success. Giddy warmth spread out from her chest in cautious tendrils—until Eve remembered that her success was now over. Because, behind the scenes, she’d fucked things up. Again.

Why did she even bother? Why did she even try?

You don’t, really. Not anymore.

“Harriet told me,” Mum forged on, “that your website URL led her to nothing but an error message. I investigated for myself and can find no trace of your wedding planning business online.” Mum paused for a moment, her frown turning puzzled. “Except a largely incoherent forum post claiming you stole an entire bevy of white doves, but that is an obviously unhinged accusation.”

“Obviously,” Eve agreed. “I paid for those doves, that lying cow.”

Mum gave a glacial stare. “I beg your pardon, Eve Antonia Brown.”

“Let’s focus on the issue at hand, shall we, love?” Dad interjected. “Eve. What’s happened to your business?”

Ah. Yes. Well. There was the rub. “The thing is, Dad, Mum . . . I have decided that wedding planning isn’t for me after all. So, I dissolved the business, deleted the website and disconnected the URL, and closed down all associated social media accounts.” It was best, Eve had found, to simply rip off the bandage.

There was a pause. Then Mum said tightly, “So you gave up. Again.”

Eve swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable. “Well, no, not exactly. It was just an experience I stumbled into—Cecelia’s original wedding planner was rubbish, so—”

“She was an ordinary woman who couldn’t deal with a spoiled brat like Cecelia Bradley-Coutts,” Dad cut in, his brow creased. “But you could. You did. And you seemed to enjoy yourself, Eve. We thought you’d—found your calling.”

A cold bead of sweat began to drip, slow and steady, down Eve’s spine. Her calling? Eve wasn’t the sort of woman who had callings. “It’s for my own good, really,” she said, her voice aiming for light and hitting scratchy instead. “Everything went suspiciously well—you know I couldn’t re-create such success again. Wouldn’t want to disappoint myself.”

Dad stared, crestfallen. “But Eve. You’re disappointing us.”

Ouch. No pulling the parental punches today, then.

“You can’t avoid trying at anything in case you fail,” he told her gently. “Failure is a necessary part of growth.”

She wanted to say, That’s what you think. Eve’s parents had never failed at a bloody thing. Eve’s parents knew who they were and what they were capable of, as did her sisters. But Eve? All Eve really knew was how to be fun, and experience had taught her she ought to stick to her strong suit and avoid reaching too high.

She used to reach, once upon a time. But it hurt so terribly to fall.

“Enough is enough, Eve,” Mum said into the silence. “You’re twenty-six years old, perfectly intelligent and absolutely capable, yet you waste time and opportunities like—like a spoiled brat. Just like Cecelia.”

Eve sucked in an outraged breath. “I am not spoiled!” She thought for a moment. “Well, perhaps I am mildly spoiled. But I think I’m rather charming with it, don’t you?”

No one laughed. Not even Dad. In fact, he looked quite angry as he demanded, “How many careers do you plan to flit through while living at home and surviving on nothing but the money we give you? Your sisters have moved out, and they work—damned hard—even though they don’t need to. But you—you dropped out of performing arts college. You dropped out of law school. You gave up on teaching. You went from graphic design, to cupcakes, to those tiny violins you used to make—”

“I don’t want to talk about the violins,” Eve scowled. She’d quite liked them, but she knew far better than to make a career out of anything she liked. Those were always the failures that hurt most.

“You don’t want to talk about anything!” Dad exploded. “You dip in and out of professions, then you cut and run before things get real. Your mother and I didn’t set up the trust so you girls could become wastes of space,” he said. “We set it up because when I was a boy, Gigi and I had nothing. And because there are so many situations in life that you’ve no hope of escaping from without a safety net. But what you’re doing, Eve, is abusing your privilege. And I’m disappointed.”

Those words burned. Her heart began to pound, her pulse rushing loud enough in her ears to drown out Barbra’s comforting beat. She tried to process, to find the right words to explain herself—but the conversation was already racing off without her, a runaway train she’d never been fast enough to catch.

“We have decided,” Mum said, “to cancel your trust fund payments. Whatever savings you have will have to do until you can find a job.”

Savings? Who the bloody hell had savings?

Dad took over. “You can stay here for three months. That should be more than enough time to find a place of your own.”

“Wait—what? You’re throwing me out?”

Mum went on as if Eve hadn’t spoken. “We’ve discussed things, and your father and I would like you to hold down a job for at least a year before we restart your trust fund payments. We know finding decent work might be difficult with such a . . . unique CV, so we’ve lined up positions for you in our own companies.”

Eve jerked back in her seat, her head whirling as she tried to keep up. “But—I already quit law.” It had only taken a few seminars with hyperfocused geniuses for Eve to realize that she wasn’t nearly clever enough to get her head around the unwritten constitution.

Mum’s mouth tightened. “Well, there’s always your father’s accountancy firm.”