As for Clarke’s ex, Elizabeth Milsap wasn’t yet a wife or a mother, as far as Audrey knew, but she was a high-powered lawyer who’d left New York for DC a couple of years ago with political aspirations that hadn’t involved Clarke. Audrey suspected that his mother had been more upset about the breakup than Clarke himself, and it didn’t surprise Audrey in the least that Linda would try to maneuver Elizabeth and Clarke into getting back together.

Linda loved her son. She just had a manipulative way of showing it.

“Okay, but what does Elizabeth being back in the city have to do with the fact that the gossip section of the Post seems to think we’re engaged?”

“Well.” He draped the towel over the back of his neck and tugged on both ends. “After we had lunch—”

“Wait, you actually stayed and had lunch with Elizabeth?” Audrey was surprised. Clarke was a pretty easygoing guy, but not when it came to his mother’s machinations. If Linda told him to turn right, he’d run left. When she’d suggested he wear a blue tie to prom, he’d worn red. When she’d told him to go to Yale, he’d chosen Dartmouth. When she’d told him to follow Elizabeth to DC, he’d bought a townhome in Manhattan.

The fact that he’d go along with anything arranged by his mother was unusual.

He grunted. “What was I supposed to do, just leave Elizabeth sitting there?”

“Would that have led to you and me not being engaged? Then, yeah.”

“Nah, it wasn’t lunch that did it. It was after lunch as I was leaving the restaurant. Tilda Covey was walking in as Elizabeth and I were walking out.”

Audrey groaned. Tilda Covey was one of New York’s most notorious busybodies, and one of Linda West’s closest friends.

“Exactly,” Clarke said in response. “She told me she heard congratulations would soon be in order, followed by humming that damn wedding stomp.”

“It’s the wedding march.”

“Whatever.” He tugged at the towel harder. “My mom obviously had told her Elizabeth and I were involved, and seeing us together all but confirmed it for Tilda.”

“And your knee-jerk reaction was to say you’re engaged to me?”

“Do you have a better idea?” he asked.

“The truth! Tell Tilda and your mother that it was one lunch and that you haven’t seen Elizabeth in years.” She paused and frowned. “Have you?”

“No,” he said. “But you know Linda. I wouldn’t be surprised if she had an engagement notice ready to send the papers in hopes of forcing me into it.”

“She wouldn’t do that,” Audrey protested.

Clarke gave her a look.

“Okay, maybe she’d have done it. And maybe your reason for making us engaged was understandable. But now”—she lifted a finger in warning—“undo it. Today. Get us un-engaged.”