Good at Games by Jill Mansell

don’t we just leave it to the lawyer to sort out.’”
    â€œSounds more like one of my disastrous marriages,” Jaz observed with a grin.
    â€œBut I do want to see her again. I mean, imagine, all this time I’ve had a sister I didn’t even know about! I always wanted a nice sister, not a bossy, neurotic older one like Julia. And think what it must have been like for Lucille, growing up in the same city and thinking that we didn’t want to meet her.”
    â€œWhat’s she like?” Jaz looked interested.
    â€œBeautiful.”
    â€œNothing like you then.”
    Suzy kicked him efficiently under the table.
    â€œOuch.”
    â€œYou know I’m gorgeous. She’s just got it in a different way. Taller, thinner, real cheekbones, that kind of thing.”
    â€œAnd this Harry fellow—the one you were so keen on—he’s her boyfriend?” Maeve was standing at the head of the table, briskly chopping her way through a mountain of tomatoes.
    Suzy shook her head.
    â€œJust a friend, apparently. They grew up next door to each other in Stockwood. I did manage to tell him that I hadn’t run out on him at the Avon Gorge the other week, I explained about being kidnapped and mentioned in passing that I wasn’t seeing anyone else at the moment. I was rather hoping he’d ask me out.” Suzy popped another grape into her mouth. “But he just frowned and said, ‘I hardly think this is the time or the place.’ Which was a bit of a bugger. Still, never mind,” she concluded brightly. “He can always get my number from Lucille.”
    â€œSo subtle, so shy, so retiring.” Jaz eyed her with amusement. “You really should be a real estate agent.”
    Suzy glanced at her watch.
    â€œSpeaking of which, I’d better make a move. I’m showing a gynecologist around that new apartment in Guthrie Place at nine fifteen.”
    â€œWhat does she do for a living?” asked Jaz.
    â€œI just told you.” Suzy was busy tucking her pink shirt into the waistband of her white skirt. “Gynecologist. Funny kind of a job for a woman”—she mimed peering up something with an imaginary flashlight—“but there you go; I suppose it takes all sorts.”
    â€œI meant Lucille.”
    â€œOh.” Hurriedly, Suzy smoothed her skirt over her hips and reached for her jacket. “No idea. She didn’t say.”
    * * *
    Nobody had been more amazed than Suzy herself when she had taken to selling property like a Scot takes to porridge. Having plowed her exams in spectacular fashion—because who needed exams; she was marrying a rock star!—she had emerged two years later from the wreckage of her marriage to Jaz dazzlingly ill-equipped for…well, pretty much anything. Taking pity on her, but not at all sure that it was a smart business move, Rory had offered her a job at the agency, and—not at all sure that it was her cup of tea, but touched by his concern—Suzy had accepted.
    Happily, they were both proved wrong. Meeting prospective clients and matching them to the perfect home came so naturally to her that within three months Suzy was outperforming the senior agent—who promptly threw a tantrum and left. Rory promoted Suzy, crossing his fingers hard and praying she wouldn’t get bored.
    She didn’t. The buzz of successful selling had Suzy in its grip. She made the clients laugh, startled them sometimes with her honesty, charmed them so naturally that they half fell in love with her, and never for a moment lost her infectious enthusiasm for the job.
    * * *
    â€œWell?” said Rory when she erupted into the office at ten thirty.
    â€œSold to the gynecologist with the creepy rubber gloves.” Waving her cell phone in triumph, Suzy threw herself onto the nearest swivel chair and did a victory twirl. “She offered two three five, and the Clarksons accepted.”
    â€œShe