‘Three?’ I echoed. I stared at her open-mouthed for a second, my glass halting before my lips. ‘And how do you know that?’
She grinned and preened a little.
I shook my head and tutted. ‘Typical Barney. No concept of client confidentiality.’ I paused before asking idly, swirling the wine in my hand. ‘So do you know whose boxes she ticked?’
‘Not so worried about client confidentiality now?’ crowed Kate.
I pulled a face at her, wrinkling my nose and wriggling uncomfortably. The bar stools were designed for someone with more flesh on their backside than me. ‘Just spit it out, you old harpy.’
‘Some chap called Anthony. One of Barney’s mates, Charlie, and I can’t remember the name of the other one.’
Three!
‘Blimey. Poor Daniel,’ I said in disgust.
‘Olivia, what planet have you been on for the last few months? Surely you can see what she’s like. I don’t know what Daniel sees in her. He’s way too good for her.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘I always thought—’
I interrupted her. There was no way I wanted her going down that road. ‘Emily’s not that bad.’
‘Olivia. Yes she is. She’s one of those girls who are always on the lookout for their next victim. She’d be out on-the-pull the night before her wedding, just in case. Has she ever not had a boyfriend?’
Kate was being unnecessarily harsh. Although on reflection, in the time I’d been sharing with Emily, she’d always had someone in tow, some overlapping occasionally.
‘No,’ I said trying to be fair. ‘But that’s because of her mother’s disastrous marriages. She’s very insecure.’
‘Huh, she hides it well.’ Kate’s face said it all.
‘You don’t know her that well. Her mum’s had two husbands walk out!’
Kate sniffed with a marked lack of sympathy. ‘What was it Oscar Wilde said? “To lose one, may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two seems like carelessness.”’
‘Kate, you are so heartless.’ I pretended to be shocked. She grinned at me. Was it my imagination or was she spikier than usual these days?
‘Sorry,’ she said unrepentantly. ‘Tell me about your speed-date. Barney says you made quite an impression on one of the guys.’
‘Did he now? That would be the Barney that blatantly ignored the fact that I didn’t hand in my card.’
Kate grinned.
I wondered ever so fleetingly if she hadn’t put him up to it. Of course she bloody had.
‘Barney must mean Ned, the guy with ESP, who worked out my email address all by himself,’ I observed dryly. ‘He was quite nice.’
‘So, are you going to meet him?’
I shrugged. ‘I might meet him for a drink... but that’s all. So don’t get excited and start telling Mum or anyone.’
She looked at me over the rim of her glass. ‘You should go for it. It’s well past time you started seeing people properly again.’
‘Why?’ I held her gaze.
‘To prove you’re over Mike.’
‘I am,’ I said indignantly.
Mike! Give me a break. I hadn’t thought about him in years even though he had done the dirty thoroughly. She was dipping her toes in the wrong ocean. Mike, love of my life in my university days, had been well and truly eclipsed by someone else.
‘Olivia!’ she said crossly.
