“You only date alpha corporate suits.”

“Duh! They earn heaps, which makes them good providers.”

“Except, from what you’ve told me, they’re all about the next merger or the next big float. That was fine when you were committed to no-strings-attached flings. If you want the whole soccer-mom scenario, you’re better off dating a tradesman.”

“This from a woman whose rule was to only date college-educated men!” And Jess had followed suit. It had shocked her that the choice hadn’t completely protected her from the types of assholes her mother had paraded through her life.

“I was young and stupid when I said that,” Libby said easily. “Besides, I married a man who dropped out of university.”

Annoyance flashed. “Really? Is it dropping out if you leave to work in an established family business that’s at the top of its game? And Nick finished his degree part time and then did an MBA.”

Libby raised her hands in surrender. “Okay. All I’m saying is you need to think about dating men who work family-friendly hours instead of insanely long days. Better yet, date a teacher. They get school vacation.”

Jess’s hand trembled as she refilled her glass. “I’ve got a better idea.”

“Is it a mail-order Russian oligarch?” Libby laughed, amused by her joke.

“No.” Jess’s jaw tightened. She didn’t have a better idea, or any idea at all, but she’d had enough of Libby issuing dating instructions from the comfort of her marriage. Sometimes her friend’s “doctor knows best” attitude collided with her general good fortune in all things, and the result thoroughly pissed off Jess. This moment was one of those times.

“What then?” Libby asked.

Jess suddenly remembered a conversation she’d overheard earlier in the week in the office tea room. One of the office clerks had been going on and on about her IVF cycles and discussing her husband’s defective swimmers in great detail with anyone who was foolish enough to stop and listen.

“I don’t need a man to have a baby.”

“What?”

“I’ll use donor sperm.”

Libby’s mocktail squirted out of her nose. “Jess, no! You do not want to have a baby on your own.”

Jess bristled at the unwanted command and her annoyance with Libby moved closer to anger. “Why not? It’s the perfect solution. I won’t have to answer to a man and I can raise my child on my own. Heaps of women do it. My mother did.”

Libby’s eyes widened into two blue pools of sorrow. “And you’ve always said you’d never inflict the life of an only child onto a kid.”

Jess gulped champagne, needing to dull the emerging memories of her mother, but at the same time wanting to demand her place at the motherhood table. “Too easy! I’ll have two kids.”