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bother with. I haven’t got the bottle to even try it.’
    ‘But you have to
jump out of a plane
,’ Asha points out. ‘Remind me how many people you’ve slept with, Emma?’
    I suck in my teeth and start counting on my fingers until I’ve used up both hands twice over. Then I look up. ‘Three.’
    I’m no prude; at least, I don’t think so. I’ve simply never found myself in a position to have sex with someone who isn’t a long-term boyfriend. Of whom, there have been
only three.
    ‘Surely picking and choosing things on your list destroys the object,’ Asha muses. ‘Shouldn’t it be all or nothing?’
    ‘Two minutes ago, you thought I was deranged to even consider this!’
    She laughs. ‘Maybe I’m coming round to the idea. You could spend six months ticking things off your list, then have a party to celebrate.’
    ‘I’d like a thirtieth-birthday party,’ I confess. ‘I’ve never done anything before because my birthday’s so close to Christmas. I think I’m due
one.’
    ‘Well, if you’re going to have a one-night stand, it’s Cally’s birthday night out on Saturday – that’s the ideal opportunity.’
    I squirm, really wanting to drop the subject. She notices. ‘You’re still not sure you did the right thing with Rob, are you?’
    Asha knows the story of my relationship with Rob inside out; she and I have dissected the whole thing, like a frog in a school biology class. She always has been a brilliant listener –
patient and generous, never far from the end of a phone. If only that made things any clearer.
    Rob and I met last year after he walked into the offices of Little Blue Bus Productions for a meeting with Perry about a fundraising dinner for Alder Hey children’s
hospital.
    Rob’s company is big on ‘corporate social responsibility’ so he’s often charged by his boss with generating cash for worthy causes – something he enjoys almost as
much as his day job as a ‘wealth manager’. Which, as far as I can tell, means making rich people even richer by investing their money. To great effect, as I understand.
    He turned up at our office at eleven thirty that day like the Diet Coke man, leaving the womenfolk of the parish so overcome with lust most of us could barely walk straight. He and I got
chatting in the lobby as I was leaving to grab some lunch – then carried on as we realised we were both heading into the city centre. He asked me if I would join him for lunch and, two Pret
sandwiches and a couple of lattes later, our relationship had begun.
    To call Rob eye candy would do him a disservice. He’s a feast of gorgeousness – all tanned biceps, dark blond curls and a smile so dazzling it could alert passing ships to hazardous
rocks.
    But there’s more to him than looks. He’s sweet, charming, clever, my dad loves him and, basically, he’s as close to perfection as it’s possible for anyone who isn’t
Matthew McConaughey to be. If I wrote a list of things that were right about Rob and a list of things that were wrong, there would be virtually nothing in the second column. He does own a Craig
David album, but that’s a minor misdemeanour in an otherwise overwhelmingly positive list of attributes.
    I miss him so badly it sometimes makes my insides ache. Which begs one almost constant question.
    Why
wasn’t it love?
    No. Let me rephrase that . . . why wasn’t I
sure
it was love?
    There have been so many times since we broke up that his absence has been so aching, so cold, that it
must’ve
been. Yet, something stopped me from saying yes when he asked those
big, beautiful and destructive words back in the spring.
    He’d booked us in for a couple’s spa day at a hotel in Cheshire and we’d spent many hours being massaged, pampered and steaming up the Jacuzzi well beyond its highest
setting.
    Afterwards, we went for a walk along the Roman Walls in Chester and paused to sit under a tree by the River Dee as the sun glittered on the water. He’d never