I thought back over the evening. I was sure that for a lot of the time I was sitting quietly, enjoying listening to other people’s opinions on the book. “I wasn’t! I’m sure I wasn’t.”

“You were, babe. You were dominating the conversation, and the thing is . . .” He hesitated, his eyes on mine, then said, “The thing is, they have English degrees, don’t they?”

My face was hot and I felt close to tears. “I don’t know. Maybe one or two of them do, but I don’t think they all have.”

“They seemed really smart. And the way they were talking, well, it was proper literary criticism. And you—well, I know you thought you were being funny, with what you said about the protagonist—that means the leading character, by the way—but it was a bit embarrassing.”

I turned away and brushed my hand across my eyes. “I didn’t realize you were listening.”

“I couldn’t help it,” he said. “The door was closed but I could still hear you.” He laughed. “Lucky it wasn’t summertime with the windows open. We would’ve had complaints from the neighbors!”

I walked into the kitchen to get away from him. He was making me relive every moment and see it through a different lens. The thought of him being embarrassed by me was horrifying. On the kitchen counter was a tray of snacks; I’d made far too many. He picked them up and said, “Oh, these didn’t go down too well, did they?” and put them into the fridge. “You’ll have to take them to work for lunch, to use them up.”

So when Sarah said, “You should come to the next one,” I said, “Maybe,” but I had absolutely no intention of putting myself through that again.

“How’s work?” I asked.

“Ugh,” she said. “It was horrible today. I was so busy I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.”

I knew I shouldn’t ask her, I knew it would be torture, but I just had to. I said, “What happened?” I steeled myself for the mention of Harry.

“Oh, he wasn’t there,” she said airily. “He’d taken the day off. He said he’d promised Emma he’d spend more time with her.” She drank some of her wine. “I think they were going to choose things for the nursery.”

“Really? Isn’t that a bit early?”

She shrugged. “Apparently Emma spends all her time looking at baby clothes. Harry says she hasn’t bought much yet as she’s waiting for the scan results, but he thinks he’ll be bankrupt by Christmas.” Sarah looked at me out of the corner of her eye and said, “Does it bother you, thinking of Emma being pregnant?”