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“I had staff then too,” he said, unapologetically. Beneath the table, Tia dug her fingernails into her palms, hating, as always, the inequities of life on this planet. “But I’m interested in the fact that you can’t cook.”

“Because I’m a woman?”

“Because you’re thirty and most people acquire the skill along the way. You told me you grew up without luxuries⁠—”

“Actually, I said I grew up disastrously poor—no need to sugarcoat it on my account.”

She saw the way his eyes homed in on her face, as though trying to read her, and took care not to let her features show a hint of feeling. She wasn’t ashamed of her childhood, though she’d do anything she could to spare anyone else from having to go through it.

“So no staff then,” he said.

“No, Captain Obvious, definitely not.” It was so absurd she actually laughed, and found she couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry,” she said, after a minute. “The thought of some fancy-ass butler bumping around in our trailer is just too much to imagine.”

Then there was sympathy on his face, and she sobered, because she hated when people were sympathetic toward her. It made her feel like that destitute kid all over, rather than the strong, successful survivor she’d become.

“I didn’t cook growing up because the extent of food we had on offer was baked beans or tinned spaghetti. An apple was about as real as it got.”

“Hence you like nice things,” he said, that sympathy back, and she jutted her chin out with barely concealed anger.

“Probably,” she admitted, though, because of course it was part of it. “It’s funny, my best friend, Roman—we grew up together—is the opposite. He is the most proficient cook I know, because he swore he’d never be hungry again. It just didn’t affect me in the same way.”

“Life rarely does. Two people, same circumstances, different outcome. That’s what makes it interesting.”

“Maybe,” she said, lifting one shoulder, but deep down, she agreed with him. In fact, deep down she agreed with a lot of what he said, and more than that, she liked the way his brain worked. He was interesting, curious, incisive but patient. She could feel some sort of magic weaving through her, so the prospect of a little baby Tia and Hamish was starting to feel less hypothetical and more compulsory.

“He lives in New York?”

“Yes. It was his baby I met recently, that made me realise my own heart.”

“Ah, I see. So no romantic relationship between the two of you?”

“God, no, not for at least a decade. When we were teenagers, we used to make out. Bored, curious, meaningless.”

He laughed at that, then got back on track. Somehow, he’d turned himself into the interviewer, asking her questions, and she didn’t really mind. “Anyone else in your past who might have an issue with this, if we proceed?”

“You mean wildly jealous exes who’ll come beating down your door?”

“More or less.”

“No. Just casual flings, from time to time. Nothing serious. No jealous, jilted lovers.”

He nodded thoughtfully.

“And you?” She turned it back on him. “Since Cressida?”

“No.” It was abrupt and then, after a beat, with an obvious attempt at softening his response. “No one serious.”

“Let’s talk about the nitty-gritty of this, then,” Tia said, moving along. “If we do this, we’d need to have a prenup, as you said. We both have considerable assets, so it makes sense to both retain our personal wealth no matter what.”

“I agree.”

“We could establish a trust for any…progeny,” she said, after a beat, raising a brow. “Do you like that? A nice, British, Lordsy type of word.”

“You’re already fluent in my language.”

“You’re not the first Lord I’ve dealt with,” she said with a wink. “We’d establish a trust, pay into it equally, divide it between our child, or children.”

He was quiet, as he considered that. “At what age would you imagine them having access?”