But I don’t think either of us asked the important question.”

“Which one?”

“Whether we would still choose each other with nobody watching.”

We sat with that for a while.

She asked about Lauren and the boys, and I told her only what Lauren had agreed I could share.

Blair didn’t press for private details.

Instead she described the previous evening at the estate: my mother insisting that the engagement would be rescheduled, Walter pacing near the dining room, and her father demanding to know which business agreement might now be at risk.

“It took until midnight for anyone to ask whether I was all right,” she said.