Carina Lau can still look forward to days of being wild

We hoped celebrity couple Carina Lau Ka-ling and Tony Leung Chiu-wai were expecting a baby when paparazzi last month photographed a curvier Lau in a loose-cut outfit shopping for flats instead of high heels in Central.

But the 44-year-old actress this week denied rumours she was three months' pregnant and seemed keen to show that she was not.

'I'm not pregnant,' she said, resplendent in 10-centimetre heels and a blue silk cocktail dress at Tuesday night's Chaumet dinner at the Four Seasons hotel. The local rumour mill, Lau said, was perhaps 'even more anxious' than she was about her health, 'maybe because I don't have a lot of film projects coming up this year'.

The star of Days of Being Wild didn't seem eager to have a baby after two years of marriage to her actor husband. In-vitro fertilisation or adoption were out of the question, she said.

'Having a baby is not something that we can rush into,' Lau said. 'I'm at the stage where I don't want more things. I'm very happy with what I've got now and I'm happy Tony agrees with me.'

And then - as if to make a statement - she ran a couple of steps in those heels to greet her fellow guest, the actress Joan Chen Chong. Maybe that little sprint was the first symptom of Lau's slimming regimen.