Hotel rooms were becoming hateful places. Anonymous, lonely boxes where you had nothing to keep you company except your own thoughts and CNN. Both of which were on a repetitive loop.

As soon as she got to her room, Laura checked the Emergency Evacuation instructions on the back of the door, opened the window to let in some air and connected to the hotel Wi-Fi. Her email account still showed nothing from her buyer at Machon. Thank God.

Should she call James? Normally, she’d call him as soon as she arrived, often having to leave a message because he was busy. He liked to know that she’d arrived safely. So, he must care about her, right? But after last night, calling would feel as if she were the one apologising and she wasn’t sorry for trying to get him to talk about their future together.

It was okay for him, he could wait to have babies until he was as old as Mick Jagger. Women didn’t have that luxury. Perhaps it wasn’t a good time for either of their careers, but it wasn’t like Laura was asking for a baby right now, she just wanted to plan for it. Once they decided to get married it’d take at least a year to plan a wedding, then it would be nice to enjoy being married for a little while before they started to try for a baby – and even then, it was not a given that they’d even fall pregnant straight away.

And that was the other problem. Laura was more than a little worried that they wouldn’t fall pregnant straight away. And that would mean it would take even longer. Or even that they might need some help. But she couldn’t tell James that without telling him the whole story. And that wasn’t going to happen.

She shut down the screen of her laptop. No point sitting here, staring at her email inbox waiting for the Returns Authorisation bomb to hit. Might as well check out the room. Bathroom first. White. Chrome. Plain. Anonymous. There were two sets of towels, two flannels, two beakers. But there was only one of her.

Next, she paced out the bedroom. It took roughly three seconds to get from one side to another and back again. She needed to find something to do. Anything. What was in the minibar? Did she want Toblerone? Orangina? Maybe not just yet.

In the absence of a better plan, she might as well text James to tell him that she’d arrived. Be informative but cool. As soon as the text was sent – Arrived safely at hotel.