Maybe I should try to stop seeing babies everywhere. Maybe I should romp round the bedroom with Jake, exhibiting gay abandon and not consulting my charts to see whether it would be a waste of effort. Maybe I should try not to view my monthly period as if I were being afflicted by some deadly disease. Maybe I should think more positively.

But how can I, when everyone else in the world is pregnant except me?

Chapter four

Chapter four

Jake was in the boardroom, preparing for his presentation. It was possibly the very last thing on earth that he wanted to be doing. He wasn’t the slightest bit interested in portraying Mr Egg—‘The Good Egg’—as the most creative advertising campaign of all time. He was sick to death of eggs—chicken, human and any other kind there might be. The presentation was due to start in half an hour. It was a multimillion-pound promotion, and the importance of it was steadfastly refusing to stay in his mind.

At the moment his PowerPoint wasn’t playing ball either. He punched a few keys on his laptop. There were some impressive whirring noises, but nothing—absolutely nothing—appeared on the projector screen. Jake felt his slender grip on his patience slipping away. ‘Oh, bollocks.’

His friend and fellow Dunston & Bradley inmate, Pip Henshall, crossed his feet, which were up on the highly polished, yew boardroom table. ‘Take five minutes to calm down, Jake,’ he advised. ‘It’ll be all right on the night.’

Jake tossed down the laser pointer and threw himself into the seat opposite Pip. He blew the air out of his lungs in a steady stream.

‘That bad?’ Pip asked.

‘Worse,’ Jake said. He looked rather sheepishly at his friend. ‘I’ve told Lyssa I’m staying with you.’

‘Oh, thanks. Involve me in your sordid little schemes.’

‘This isn’t sordid.’

‘Office flings always are.’

Jake shook his head. ‘This isn’t a fling. Not for me.’

‘And what does Lyssa think?’

‘She doesn’t know,’ Jake admitted.

Pip made a steeple with his hands. ‘Marvellous.’

‘I could hardly tell her that I was moving in with Neve, could I?’ Jake raked his hair. ‘Walking out while she’s in the middle of her latest baby quest is bad enough. I can’t tell her that I’m going to shack up with a nubile twenty-five-year-old with legs like Lara Croft whose urge to go through the motions of procreation is very much in evidence. It would crush her.’

‘I didn’t realise you were so sensitive.’

‘What would you do in my situation?’

‘I’d like to think that I possessed more sense than to get myself in your situation.’

‘I feel terrible about leaving Lyssa,’ Jake said. ‘Terrible.’

‘But not terrible enough to stay?’

‘I’d stopped being a boyfriend and become a baby-producing machine.’ He shook his head in dismay. ‘We’ve been at it every night for months.’