“What’s it on?”

He looks at me from under those long lashes. “You’ll be bored with just the title.” There is a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Try me.”

“How the rise in micro-transaction forex trading has led to anomalous positions that may threaten unstable infant democracies, and what responsible nations can do to assist in smoothing short-term fluctuations.”

No wonder he thought Leah would be bored. But I’m an accountant with a side interest in politics and I want to know more. I’d love to watch him give his speech, but I know that even this moderated version of Leah I am with him wouldn’t. So instead I giggle. “And people pay you to talk about this stuff?”

“They pay me a lot.” He shrugs. I want to touch his face and tell him that I think he’s brilliant, but I pull my hand back. If only I could introduce him properly to Fi. Not so that she could have him, but so she’d be impressed that a man like this is interested in me. Unlike when she met Chris and he tried to mansplain the U.S. bond market to her, despite that having been the subject of her masters dissertation. Which she got from Yale. So, yeah, she definitely knew more than he did.

“Let’s go find our hotel,” I say to Tom instead.

I’ve always had this picture in my mind of brilliant azure skies and the sun beating down on the bevy of half-dressed revelers spilling from the bars and casinos on to the Strip. But today the sky is a soft baby blue, the sun gently warming through the jumper I am wearing. Even the showgirls, parading up and down outside the big hotels, taking photos for tip money, are wearing tights under their skimpy thongs.

You see Las Vegas on TV and it looks like a gaudy nightmare of hotels crushed up against each other. The reality is so vastly different. We have a reservation in a restaurant two hotels up the Strip from where we are staying. We think we can walk it in about two minutes; after all, the sign is clearly visible—how far can it be?

We are still walking thirty minutes later, the sign growing in front of me only slowly as my feet weep for mercy. The sign, which I had assumed was, well sign-sized, is in fact about five stories tall. The scale of the place blows me away. There are over four thousand rooms in our hotel, about the same as the population of a mid-sized village. Madness. True madness. But I love it.

The dinner we have is exquisite. Bacon-wrapped shrimp to start, really living up to the idea that everything tastes better when you add bacon. For the main course there is pepper-crusted New York strip. I am too full for dessert, but Tom orders warm chocolate cake with two spoons, which turns out to be the perfect end to a perfect evening. We wander very slowly back to our hotel, past the fountains and the dazzling lights shining in the desert. I feel almost disembodied, the jetlag, lack of sleep, huge meal, the wine, lights, and the warmth of Tom next to me combining to make my head spin.