“How much for?” said Carmen, then when he looked stricken she had to laugh at his appalled expression. “I’m kidding, you idiot. But do you just unburden yourself on any random stranger that walks past?”

He gave his card to the waiter. “You’re not random . . .”

“Carmen,” she supplied again.

He glanced at his watch, ignoring his buzzing phone. “You know, I have a little time before the hospital.”

She looked at him.

“And my room is just upstairs.”

She sat bolt upright and almost burst out laughing. “Is this you living your authentic life?”

He shrugged. “Um . . . a bit.”

“Ha. Well, well done, I suppose.”

“You mean that?” He got up and grabbed his jacket.

“No, I mean well done you for being authentic. I’m patently not coming upstairs with you.”

“Okay!” he said, somewhat insultingly. “No harm done.” He asked the waiter to call him a cab, something Carmen hadn’t realized you could actually do.

“Nice meeting you . . .” he said, back to the low tones he had had before.

“Carmen.”

“Carmen.”

She got up to leave, shaking her head. “Thanks for lunch.”

But he was on the phone and not even looking at her.

Chapter Eighteen

Sofia slumped in her chair, exhausted. She was putting off maternity leave as late as possible—she absolutely hated looking as if she couldn’t handle anything or wasn’t in complete control, and frankly walking from her office to the maternity wing was the kind of person she would like to be. Federico was unsure about this but had learned long ago not to get in his wife’s way. So she managed to keep a fairly good display at the office, but by the time she crawled home she was fit for nothing.

Skylar was going out again, and Carmen was supposedly making dinner (while moaning about having to do it), which only involved her heating up a pie she’d bought and opening some tins of beans, which Sofia was too exhausted to complain about and, anyway, she secretly thought smelled quite nice.

She’d been hoping for a quick nap but had just heard some surprising news that made her lift her head up.

“You turned down Blair Pfenning?”

Then she felt bad for sounding so surprised. Thankfully Carmen, normally so incredibly touchy, let it go for once. Maybe it was because she was being allowed to eat pastry.

“Oh, he would have stuck it into a postbox if it was handy,” said Carmen, who was in fact still a little tipsy from the Champagne.

“Are you absolutely sure this happened?” Sofia said. “He wasn’t . . . you know, just saying thank you?”

“Yeah, you’re right, what could someone half decent possibly see in me,” said Carmen.

Ah, there it was.

“That’s not what I meant!”

“That’s exactly what you meant!”

“Please, Carmen . . .”