‘You’re not going to ditch Sergei, are you?’ Linny asked. ‘I mean, you’ve been just like a married couple for years … well, except for having great sex, living apart and only seeing each other one day a week. But I thought it suited you both perfectly – you seemed to have it all!’

‘No, no, I couldn’t imagine life without Sergei,’ I agreed, for what would I do without him? Better a Botoxed ballet dancer in the bush than an agent by the hand, as the saying goes.

‘Nathan dropped my manuscript off personally,’ she said, ‘which was kind, though he was passing anyway, and guess what? He says it is pure Mills & Boon! He suggested I make a couple of changes and then send it straight off to them, because I wouldn’t need an agent.’

‘No, they have standard contracts,’ I agreed. ‘Gosh, well done, Linny! Are you going to do what he says?’

‘Oh, yes, because I simply hadn’t realized I was writing Mills & Boon, and I can see what he means now he’s pointed it out, so I’m going to do exactly what he advises and then maybe I’ll be published before too long!’

Well, I never took her seriously, but obviously I got it completely wrong! ‘Did he mention me?’ I asked curiously.

‘No, except that he was going to be your new agent and – oh, I invited him round to dinner next Tuesday, when Tershie is home, because I’ve got to have lots of people back, most of them boring, so I thought he’d liven things up a bit! And I asked him if he had a partner he’d like to bring and he said no, so if you’d like to come and even the numbers up, you can.’

‘Oh, thanks, that makes me feel really wanted,’ I said, but actually it was a kind bit of manoeuvring on her part – or perhaps just a malicious urge to throw us together and see what happened, whichever one you wanted to think. Or maybe a bit of both?

‘So he hasn’t got a significant other …’ I mused. ‘I wonder who that girl in the photograph on his desk is then.’

Linny shrugged. ‘A relative? Sister?’ Then she hauled out yet another catalogue and said, ‘What do you think of these hand-painted Noah’s Ark storage chests? You can have the baby’s name on the lid too, up to eleven letters.’

I tried to think of any name that was eleven letters long and failed dismally. ‘Yes, but you couldn’t have it done until after the baby was born, unless they tell you whether it is a boy or girl when you have a scan.’

‘I don’t want to know. I want it to be a surprise.’

‘Then you’ll have to choose a name that could be either sex, like … like Hilary, Lesley or Ashley.’