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‘Well, what do publishers know, hey?’ he replies. ‘Sex sells. You want to think about it. It’s what women want these days.’

My jaw drops ever so slightly.

‘I’m sorry – are you mansplaining women to me?’ I ask. ‘And my job? And… and…’

I notice Ray’s eyebrows shoot up and, if I didn’t know better, I would say he looked almost scared.

‘I… I… I wasn’t, I would never,’ he insists. ‘Is everything okay? You seem a little…’

Ray’s voice trails off. Ah, shit, is this me? Am I just determined to have a bad date tonight? Perhaps I should be honest, show him that I’m a genuine person, I’m just having a bad day.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I pretty much came here from my parents’ house, where they sat me and my brother down and told us that they were getting a divorce, so my mind is all over the place. So, that might be why I seem a little… off.’

‘I was going to say “intense”,’ he replies. ‘But, wow, that’s rough. Did they say why they were divorcing?’

‘I guess they’re just not happy together any more,’ I reply with a sigh. ‘I don’t know, it all sounded so confusing.’

I take a big gulp of my drink. This is the last thing I wanted to get into but perhaps it will be good to talk about it?

‘No wonder you don’t think of yourself as a romance writer,’ he points out. ‘Between your parents, and your own love life, there’s not much to feel inspired by, is there?’

I don’t know if Ray is trying to insult me, or whether his speciality really is just saying the wrong thing at every opportunity, but I don’t need this. To borrow Ray’s analogy from him, it’s not Christmas Eve yet, so I don’t need to settle for ‘whatever is left’ tonight.

‘I’m guessing the sex isn’t there either then?’ he continues.

Yep, that’s my limit.

‘Listen, sorry, but I need to go,’ I tell him – apologising yet again.

‘Oh?’ he says, and he sounds surprised, which is hilarious. Does he think this is going well? ‘But you’ve hardly touched the food – it was expensive.’

‘I’m sure it was,’ I reply. ‘Let me give you some money for it.’

I’m on my feet now, hurriedly fussing with my clutch, so that I can give him some cash and then get out of here as fast as I can.

As I pull out my purse, my still kind of wet knickers fall out of my bag, landing on the table in front of him. For a second or two, Ray just stares at them.

‘What, er…?’

I think he might finally be speechless.

I snatch them up, quickly stuffing them in my bag.

‘Sorry, sorry, that’s from… before you got here,’ I blurt, not making any sense.

Ray’s eyebrows shoot up.

‘Oh,’ he says, his voice so much higher than it has been so far.

Oh. Oh God. He thinks I mean something far, far different to what I actually mean. Ah well, he was implying I was sex-starved a moment ago, and I am, but I don’t want to spend another second on this date so I may as well own it.

‘Anyway, bye,’ I tell him.

He doesn’t even say goodbye.

Wow. I really, really didn’t expect to show my date my knickers tonight, and yet here we are.

Bloody table 13. I couldn’t have got more unlucky if I’d tried.