I was just resigning myself to three months of working in a paperless office with none of the technologies that made paperless offices actually work, when the door opened and Alex Twaddle stuck his head in.

“If this is about the deer…” I began.

“No, no. Fully acknowledge that the deer was a cruel hoax.”

I made a frustrated noise at the back of my throat. “It wasn’t a hoax. It was a joke.”

“Luc”—Alex folded his arms—“I don’t think it’s at all funny to mock a deer with a serious disability.”

“There. Was. No. Deer.”

“It’s the principle of the thing. And if you’re going to be insensitive, I’m not going to invite you to my wedding.”

The old me would have thought if I ever needed encouragement to be insensitive, this was it. And, frankly, the new me thought the same. “You’re getting married?” I asked.

Alex’s sleepy eyes flashed shock at me. “How do you know?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “You just threatened not to invite me to your wedding, and that would be a weird thing to do if you weren’t getting married. Also, you’ve been engaged for at least two years.”

“I say. Well deduced. That dashed clever boyfriend of yours must be rubbing off on you.”

“Clearly.”

“Anyway, Miffy and I thought we should, you know, do the decent thing. Being engaged is smashing and everything, but one is technically supposed to get married at the end of it. Besides, can’t keep a girl waiting around forever. And neither of us are getting any younger.”

Crap. I’d reached the stage of my life where people who were younger than me were worrying that they were getting too old for stuff. “I mean,” I said, “you’ve still got plenty of time, haven’t you? Really?”

And now what was I doing? Why was I trying to talk Alex out of marrying the gorgeous, heiress fiancée he’d probably—although knowing Alex not necessarily—been engaged to for years.

He shrugged. “Well, maybe. But you never know what could happen. You could get trampled by a horse tomorrow.”

“In London?”

“No, but back at the house. Happened to my uncle Freddie. Three days before his wedding, wasn’t looking where he was going. Wandered into the middle of a polo match. Absolutely flattened. Or my uncle Simon. Two days after his wedding. Celebratory shooting party. Wife mistook him for a pheasant.”

“Did she?” I eyed him carefully. “Because that sounds like a murder to me.”

“Oh, no,” exclaimed Alex. “She was terribly upset, poor thing. So upset that my uncle Timothy had to move into the house to comfort her. And when she wasn’t feeling better a year later, they moved to Tokyo.”

“Big fan of Japanese culture, was she?”