‘Maybe I liked hearing about the dustman. It was real. It kept me down to earth.’

‘And maybe I got tired of just being your “down to earth”. You did all the flying for both of us. I was just earth-bound.’

‘I didn’t even know you tonight,’ he complained. ‘I left a librarian and I came back to the last of the red hot mommas.’

‘Not mommas,’ she said quickly. ‘Not red hot or any other kind.’

He frowned. Then her meaning hit him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said with a sigh. ‘It slipped out without my thinking. I didn’t realise it still hurt you so much after all this time.’

‘Yes, it’s seven years ago. I should have forgotten all about it,’ she said tensely. ‘Like you.’

‘That’s not fair. I haven’t forgotten that we nearly had a child. A child I wanted very much, by the way.’

‘Yes, enough to marry me just because I was pregnant,’ she said quietly. She didn’t add what she was thinking, And that was the only reason.

Perhaps wisely, he decided not to answer this. ‘Anyway, I meant the “red hot” bit,’ he said. ‘You really set the room alight this evening. Maybe I should stand in line behind Carl and Frank, and half a dozen others.’

‘No, you were at the head of the queue, but your time has been and gone. It’s over.’

‘But how “over” can it be when people have meant that much to each other for eight years?’

‘Now you’re being sentimental,’ she said firmly. ‘You meant “that much” to me, but I meant very little to you.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Yes, it is. Jake, this is probably the last time we’ll ever meet, so just for once let’s be totally honest. Let’s get the facts straight before we draw a line under them and move out of each other’s lives. You married me because I was pregnant and you believed in “doing the decent thing”.’