She grabbed her purse and took out a bottle of bloodred nail polish. She kicked off her shoes, pulled off her sock, and put her foot up on the end of the chair and painted her toenails. “This is the best invention ever. Nail polish that dries in less than two minutes.” She wiggled her toes to help them dry.

“Are you telling me that the only thing you do for yourself when you have free time is paint your toes? And the most amount of time you actually take for yourself is, what, two, maybe three minutes?”

She swiped her pinkie toe, then closed up the nail polish bottle. “Welcome to my world.”

He turned his head toward her. “Tell me about your world. What’s a typical day like for you?”

“Let’s see. I get up at seven with the boys. Camille, our nanny and housekeeper, who is amazing and the boys love her, arrives at the same time. She makes the kids breakfast and gets them ready for school while I shower and get ready for work. I usually take at least one call during this time depending on the clients I’m dealing with and what time zone they’re in. I drive the boys to school at eight and head into my office. I take care of whatever meetings I have for the day—board meetings, client meetings, conference calls, etcetera. At noon I pick up Nick from preschool and take him home to Camille, who’s already made our lunch. Nick and I eat together. It’s our one-on-one time. Then I go back to work. My office can have more than twenty laptops going, representing each of the projects I’m solely responsible for. At three I pick up Jack and take him home. We do homework for half an hour and I go back to work again. I work on projects and deal with whatever calls or meetings come up. At six I pack up however many laptops I’ll need for the night. Camille cooks dinner most nights. Sometimes I pick something up or we order pizza. The kids and I eat together. Camille goes home. The boys and I spend time playing, then I give them their baths, and put them to bed by eight. Then I work until three, maybe four in the morning, sleep, and do it all again the next day at seven.”

“You put in a twenty-hour day, five days a week. Are you crazy? No wonder you look like you’re exhausted all the time.”

“Since I’ve been here, I haven’t gone to bed before five. I’ve been sneaking into your stables at night. Remember? That’s why I’m so tired.”

He gave her a disapproving scowl and used tongs to take the food off the grill. She wrapped the tortillas in foil and tossed them on the grill to warm. “I suppose you catch up on sleep on the weekend.”

“I wish. Sometimes, if I’m really lucky, the boys sleep in until seven-thirty. I spend the day with the boys. But once they go down at eight, I’m back to work until the early morning again.”