Alice looked between them. ‘You got Botox?’

‘Oh, ages ago,’ Jules said. ‘Can’t you tell?’

Jules and Nina both angled their faces directly at Alice and she surveyed their crease-free skin.

‘Mine needs redoing, but I’m waiting until after…’ Jules trailed off again. She’d been living on this line, the before and after line, for too long.

‘You won’t shave your legs but you got Botox?’ Alice said to Nina, her head cocked to the side in astonishment.

‘One woman’s beauty standards are another woman’s… something or other.’ She grinned and gestured her hand around vaguely. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ she shrugged. ‘It takes ages to shave your legs. Did you go to Dr M?’ she asked Jules.

‘Of course,’ said Jules.

‘Who’s Dr M?’ Alice asked, increasingly feeling like a left-out child at a party.

‘Dr Maryam. She’s the go-to Botox person on Harley Street and she runs a clinic in the City,’ Jules explained. ‘Renowned for her needle-jabbing precision.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Alice frowned. ‘Look! I’m frowning at my frown lines!’ she exclaimed to laughter. ‘Book me in too, next time.’

‘I only had mine done a couple of weeks ago, it’s still not properly set,’ Nina said. Then asked suddenly, ‘Should you not have Botox when you’re pregnant?’

‘It’s not advised,’ Jules said. ‘Obviously. Or if you’re trying. If I were pregnant, I wouldn’t take any chances.’

Nina nodded and started rooting around in her bag for her phone.

The smell of the pastries made Jules’s stomach flip: cinnamon rolls laced with orange curd and a honey glaze, rose and cardamon threaded croissants. She had been following a strict clean-eating regime devised by Flora, her fertility doula (the best in West London), but even Flora had agreed she should take this weekend as an opportunity to relax. Could she risk a pastry? It felt so decadent. So indulgent. ‘Did you go to the café this morning?’ she asked.

Nina nodded, humming with an almost manic edge, as she looked something up on her phone. Jules recognised ‘Shake It Off’, the song she had sent to her friends this morning, and smiled. Of all the things that had gone wrong in her life, her friends were where she had gone right.

‘Just to pick up a few bits,’ Nina said.

‘Definitely not to check up on Luca,’ Jules said.

‘Absolutely not. That would imply some sort of control-freakery of which I’m not sure I’m capable,’ she laughed. ‘No, seriously, the managers are so good in there now, not even Luca needs to be there really. We’ve got a brilliant team. I woke up early so thought I’d grab some decent breakfast for us.’

‘Is Luca the perfect man?’ Alice asked. ‘Handsome, reliable, funny and gay.’

‘I think he might just be,’ Nina nodded.

To Jules at least, Nina had the perfect set-up. She ran La City Pâtisserie by day and her close friend and flatmate, Luca, ran it as a wine bar and charcuterie by night. They lived in a huge warehouse conversion apartment together with Luca’s partner, Kai. Sundays were ‘family days’, the three of them trawling a market, heading back to the flat to cook lazy Sunday dinners, other friends dropping in, including Jules and sometimes, when he was in the mood, Paul. For so long Nina had seemed lost but now she seemed complete, in a way Jules couldn’t recognise. She longed to be happy and fulfilled with her life, the way Nina was. To feel childfree like Nina, not childless. What was different about them? ‘Is the divine Flynn providing any competition?’ she enquired instead, surprised to notice Nina’s cheeks immediately flush.