“What’s wrong?” Rowyn asked as she pulled the door open.
Eliza’s eyes went dark, and Rowyn worried something had happened with the kids.
“Uh, no, nothing wrong. I know I was supposed to be home for the rest of this week, but I have something urgent to attend to and need to go to the office. Can you let the kids know when they wake, please?”
Rowyn frowned at the hitching of Eliza’s voice before it dawned on her. She hadn’t had much energy to do anything after therapy last night. She had shed her pants and crawled into bed in her T-shirt. HerwhiteT-shirt, sans bra. Eliza’s gaze flickered down and back up quickly as Rowyn relaxed. This she could handle. Rowyn leaned casually against the doorframe.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll let them know. Will you be back in time for dinner?”
Rowyn needed to know how much food to make. More importantly, she enjoyed making Eliza’s cool exterior flush and wanted to draw it out a tiny bit longer.
“I don’t know yet. Make something for the kids and I can bring us pizza later, if you don’t have plans again.”
It was a peace offering, one that Rowyn hadn’t allowed Eliza to make yesterday. If she wanted this job to work out, which she did, they would need to have that talk. Her therapist would be proud. Maybe not of the blatant flirting her legs were doingbeneath the hem of her not quite oversized T-shirt, but of the chance Rowyn was willing to give Eliza to correct the issue rather than letting it fester.
“Pizza sounds good, thanks. Throw in some ice cream too and I’ll let you apologize properly.”
Eliza’s eyes widened and she shook her head softly. She was suppressing a smile, though, so Rowyn hadn’t overstepped too badly. Eliza stepped back and turned to go before looking over her shoulder once more.
“What flavour?”
Rowyn stepped back and held the door as she let a smile form.
“Anything but vanilla.”
Rowyn ran to find her ringing phone that was lodged somewhere between the couch cushions before the noise woke the kids. Her body was pushed way past exhaustion, and the last thing she needed was even more bedtime delays.
“Hello?”
Rowyn fell back onto the couch as she pressed the phone to her ear without looking at the display.
“You sound out of breath. Running after brats again?”
Rowyn smiled at the familiarity of her little sister’s voice. It had been too long since she’d heard it, and she mentally chastised herself for being the worst at keeping in touch.
“Niamh, I miss you,” Rowyn said with sincerity.
“Did you just remember that when you heard my voice because you forgot I existed till then?”
The teasing lilt to Niamh’s voice made Rowyn chuckle. Her sister knew her far too well, and luckily wasn’t the least bitoffended at Rowyn’s confirmation.
“Out of sight, out of mind, sis. Tell me everything.”
“Not a lot to tell, really. Still living at home, still working for evil, blah blah blah.”
Working for evil translated to the company that their parents had spent their whole lives building, which had left little time for actual parenting. Rowyn had gotten as far away from it as soon as she could, but Niamh was happy to follow the expected path. Although Rowyn worried about her sister often, she learned early that they had to choose their own methods of coping.
“How’s Fionn, have you heard from him much?”
“Nah, not much. He’s living it up in Amsterdam last I heard, and I see his updates on social media, so he’s alive.”
Rowyn’s heart clenched as she thought about her little brother. The boy who had once been her sweet little baby had become an angry, rebellious teenager. Now nineteen and with access to more money than sense thanks to parental guilt, he had spent the past couple of years travelling, drinking, and doing who knows what. Rowyn couldn’t blame him.
Fionn had craved their parents’ attention as a kid and had been left mainly with a clueless, teenage sister instead. At least Rowyn and Niamh, who were only three years apart, had been raised by their nannies in their earlier years. By the time Fionn was old enough to remember much, her parents had given her that role instead. Why pay a stranger when you have the eldest daughter to dump your duties on?
“You need to bite the bullet and join social media so I at least know what part of the country you’re in occasionally.”
“I’m not joining social media. My current phone doesn’t even have internet access. Basic brick, as you call it. You’d be horrified.”
