“Never?” She gaped at him, glossing over the track-record comment. They could come back to that later. “You live in New York City and you’ve never used a dating app? How do you meet women?”

“Apparently through my mother,” John answered drily. “If the last few months are anything to go by.”

“Has she set you up with a lot of women?”

“Just you and Tilli.”

“The cup of weak tea?”

“The very one.”

“And nary a love connection.” Mary shook her head in mock sadness. “For all her conniving plans, I’m starting to think your mother isn’t very good at this.”

“She’s not,” John said with a cold laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “She doesn’t have so great a track record herself, except for Cormac. And she’s kept the poor guy in no-man’s-land for twenty-five years. I don’t think either of us should be taking dating advice from Estrella.”

Mary and John’s pace had slowed just a bit, going from a brisk stride to a medium-paced stroll. His shoulders were still tight, she could see, and his eyes were on the ground. But the silences weren’t quite so stifling. “Why won’t she marry Cormac? Is it really because she doesn’t believe in second marriages?”

“Yeah. And the divorce from my father definitely hit my mother hard. But there’s more to it than that.” John glanced at her, as if mulling something over in his mind. “I guess there’s no reason to put my best foot forward anymore, huh?”

“Your best foot—What do you mean?” She was confused. In her mind there was always a reason to put your best foot forward. She had no idea what he was talking about.

“I just mean that I’m not trying to impress you or anything, so there’s no reason to hide it, I guess.” He scowled, his frowny eyebrows and turned-down mouth back in full force. “My father isn’t exactly a stand-up guy. He’s a sleazeball. He left my mom right after she gave birth to me. Got another woman pregnant before he and Estrella were even officially divorced. Maddox is only my little brother by eleven months.”

“Wow.”

John was telling this story like it was someone else’s, like it didn’t have a hugely personal effect on him, his hands in his pockets, his strides long and easy. But Mary looked at the lines on his face. The same way she’d once seen the lives of his clients in the surly lines of his expression, now she saw the weight of his father’s betrayal there as well. Estrella’s inevitable pain at having been left.