It was not Larissa’s fault, but it wouldn’t have occurred to her in a million years what was going through his mind. Money had simply never, ever been remotely an issue to worry about, and the mentality of adding things up like that had never been a part of her. Plus, she’d assumed she’d be getting it anyway; nurses were really super poor, right? He must know it was her club and her card behind the bar.

“What will you have?”

“I’ll . . . I’ll just go to the bar,” said Cormac unhappily, wondering if he could ask for tap water when he got there.

Kalitha flicked her perfectly made-up eyes to him. “Uh, they’ll take your order here?” she said, as if explaining something to a child, just as an incredibly gorgeous, young model-type person in a smart black outfit that patently cost more than anything Cormac himself had ever possessed came up to them, looking at Cormac expectantly.

“Um, pint of eighty shilling?” said Cormac automatically. He could call his bank and make sure, transfer some money over, probably. Yeah. He’d do that. The crushing thought that these beautiful, groomed creatures might snigger to themselves that he fit the stereotype of Scottish people being miserly was so shaming he wanted to bury himself.

The beautiful model-waitress smiled widely. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know what that is?” she said, her voice going up at the end. “I can ask maybe at the bar?”

“It’s a beer . . .”

“All our beers are imported? We have . . .” And she proceeded to reel off a number of names of beers Cormac had never heard before. Finally Cormac stopped her just to stop things from getting completely out of hand.

“Aye. That one,” he said randomly.

The beautiful person smiled. “Wonderful choice?”

Cormac turned to Larissa, but she was emptying the bottle of champagne into a glass and waving the empty bottle about.

“Keep them coming!”

Cormac swallowed carefully.

“Of course!” said the server, and hurried off with another perfect smile.

By the time he had turned back, Kalitha was telling a story about a red carpet that he couldn’t really follow but involved lots of squealing, then every so often Larissa or Portia, who seemed slightly kinder than the others, would attempt to bring him in to the conversation by asking him something about Scotland, and he would turn pink and mutter something very unfunny and uninspiring, not feeling like himself at all, and the others would look at him for a second and he could hear Larissa’s audible disappointment in him for not being a jolly lad or whatever it was she’d had in mind when she started all this.