She sighed and poured her mother a cup of tea. “I guess.”

Knowing Lily, though, she wouldn’t. Diana never had; that was for sure. She remembered giving a budget update to the CEO of Addict and twelve members of the board when she was three hours into labor with Bea. It wasn’t in their blood to take it easy.

“So tell me. What do you think happened to Dad? I nearly freaked out when I saw that Instagram pic. Did he just flip his lid, or what?”

Diana hitched a shoulder. “Oh, I don’t know. In a lot of ways, I think it might make sense.”

Lily’s bright blue eyes, the same color as Evan’s and Bea’s, widened. “Make sense! Are you nuts? You know Bea told me my new stepmother-to-be, who, by the way, is younger than me, used to be nicknamed “Vidal Sassoon” because all of her brains were in her hair. Aren’t you a little grossed out that she’s going to be part of the family?”

Diana nodded. “Obviously it’s not ideal, but—”

“Ideal? She’s a gold digger, pure and simple. Not that Dad has that much gold to be digging.” Lily stared at her. “Don’t you care at all that he’s making this huge mistake?”

“Of course I do. But it’s his mistake to make. He’s a grown man, dearest, and he knows what he’s doing. The divorce is almost final, and the terms have been very amicable. He’s doing right by me, which is all I care about. So I have no say in what he does after the papers are signed.”

“But . . .” At this point, she looked more like seven than twenty-seven. “Don’t you love him anymore?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well if you do—you should be warning him he’s making a massive mistake! So what if you’re not married. You’re still friends.”

Diana raised her eyes to the ceiling. She’d been through this war—last night in her own head. She didn’t want it dragging on anymore. It was too painful.

“Lil. I didn’t come to talk to you about your father and what mistakes he may or may not be making. I wanted to tell you something else.”

“Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.” Bracing herself, Lily plopped into the seat across from her, not looking at her own cup of tea, which sloshed onto the teacup. “What?”

“Well, I’m thinking of—actually—” She stopped. She wasn’t just thinking of it any more. Did she want it, or didn’t she? Now was the chance to announce it to the world. She took a deep breath. Could she really admit this? Last chance. A dream in one’s own mind is just that. A whim. Nothing. Air. Once you give a voice to it and it’s out there in the world, it grows legs. It becomes real. “I’ve decided I’m going to take some time off work to do some traveling.”

Lily raised an eyebrow. “A vacation? Wow. You? When was the last time you did that?”