Usually by now Nina would have unlocked the antique display cupboard and retrieved her grandmother’s crystal coupes, and they’d be drinking Kir royales. It grated on Jules, this booze-free regime, which she was sure was for her benefit.

Another text:

Come home.

She took a deep breath to still her shaking hands.

He often asked what drove her to do this sort of thing and it angered her, that he pretended not to get it. Not to understand how deep her grief ran, how she needed something – anything – to fill it. But it wouldn’t always be this way. It wouldn’t be like this, if she could only have a baby. A baby, a family, was all she truly needed.

‘I don’t want you to end up in prison!’ he had said the last time it happened and she had promised him, sworn on her future cytoblasts, that she would never do it again. But she couldn’t resist.

Another text:

Jules this is serious. You could be sacked for this.

But she doubted that. There were men in her team who had done the same with far larger sums of money. It just depended on how much you were still bringing in as to how valuable you were. Her thoughts got stuck there, as if hooked on a rusty nail, because she’d made a number of mistakes at work lately and she had the distinct impression that Ralph, her boss, was counting.

Her hands still shaking, she replied:

‘I’m sorry. I’m fixing it. I promise.

How many times had she said sorry? For this, for her body, for her defunct womb. How many times had she failed him? She didn’t even cry any more. She didn’t really feel anything most of the time.

She turned her phone off, slipped it into her case and took out a second, fully charged phone. Time to up my game, she thought.

*

Nina

My God, pretending you’re not pregnant is difficult, thought Nina, as their taxi moved slowly, roads and pavements full of people heading out for drinks and dinner. Like really difficult. Who knew there were so many things to avoid? Shellfish and cheese and partially cooked eggs and juicy, raw steaks. She’d never wanted to eat a juicy, raw steak with a glass of Pinot Noir so much in her life. What do French women eat when they’re pregnant? Where were all the healthy juice bars hiding? She’d been dying to eat coquilles Saint-Jacques washed down with a crisp, peachy Sancerre by the Seine earlier. She was in Paris!

They alighted from the taxi and made their way across a cobbled street towards Le Centre Pompidou, a vast contemporary art space with a rooftop bar and restaurant. They had been here countless times and it never lost its charm. Things had been harder than she was expecting. Not just with Jules – which she expected to be a little strained – but with Alice too. Nina felt on edge, like she was annoying Alice somehow, although she wouldn’t have been able to put her finger on why. And similarly, she felt like all day she’d been biting down on her own irritation. Like why was it less important she had her phone fully charged, since she had a business to run, after all? Jules and Alice acted like they had more responsibility because they had a boss and a family, respectively, but didn’t that mean they had more support? And therefore less responsibility? The success of La City Pâtisserie rested squarely on Nina’s shoulders, and hers alone.