Angela shut the door without responding. Ben, grinning, beat a tattoo on his desktop. He felt immensely better. Angela was a great girl. Woman, he corrected himself. She’s a great woman. Suddenly, he wished he knew someone he could set her up with. There was no one at Hopkins, at least no one he would want to see her with. And he had no idea what kind of guy she might be interested in anyway.

Then he thought of Hudson Jones. He and Angela were probably close in age. Hudson was a good-looking guy, and he seemed intelligent. Yes, he thought, they might be good together. And since Hudson was coming to dinner that night, he had the perfect opportunity to introduce them.

He was now in a much-improved mood. He would invite Angela to dinner, but he wouldn’t tell her about Hudson. Nor would he tell Hudson about Angela. It was perfectly natural that he would have the two of them over. Except that you’ve never had anyone over before, he reminded himself. He brushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter. Angela would come, and Hudson had no idea that he was Ben’s first dinner guest in recent memory.

Having come up with a plan, he realized that he had given almost no thought to dinner itself. Pasta had been in the back of his mind, but now that seemed inadequate. The problem was, he didn’t know how to make anything else. It was his one culinary accomplishment. And you saw how well it went over with Caddie, he thought.

Caddie. He’d been avoiding thinking about her. They’d had dinner together the night before, a strained half hour during which they’d downed Chinese food that Ben had picked up on his way home. He’d asked Caddie about her day and gotten vague answers in response. He hadn’t pressed her. She’d at least deigned to eat with him, which was an improvement over the previous two nights.

After dinner she’d retreated to her room, claiming exhaustion. Ben had let her go, happy to spend the evening alone in his office. Peaceful disinterest was preferable to outright hostility, and if Caddie didn’t want to talk about her life with him, he would let her have her secrets. How much trouble can she get into in Monterey anyway? he’d thought. It wasn’t like L.A., with its endless temptations for a young woman.