Closing her eyes, Gabriela drew in the silence on the other side of the door before Ivan spoke again. It was then that she realised she was shaking with cold. Standing, she took a towel from the heated rail on the wall and wrapped it around herself.

‘Gabriela, I’m worried, are you OK?’

‘I’m fine,’ she managed, her voice disconnected from her body. ‘I feel feverish, I think it’s just a cold. I’m going to get dressed and have a lie-down.’

There was a hesitation and then he said, ‘All right, well, I’m going to take Layla down to the crèche. You don’t want lunch?’

‘You go. I’ll have something later.’

She imagined him straightening himself and winking a reassurance to their daughter.

‘No problem. Sleep well.’

When she woke later, Ivan still wasn’t back. Sliding open the windows, she looked out over Harvey Nichols and the Lamborghinis and Brazilian blow-dries that typified this corner of Knightsbridge: just a couple of miles from the part of the city in which she had grown up, but another world entirely.

Feeling in need of a change of scene, she walked down to the spa, moving gingerly at first, checking that there was no one there who might recognise her, however unlikely it seemed in a place that cost this much per night.

Leaving her clothes in the locker room and moving through to the spa area, she peeled off her robe and opened the door to one of the steam rooms where she was hit by the smell of eucalyptus, so strong it filled her throat, seizing her chest so that her breath became slow and heavy.

Leaning back against the tiles, the heat making her flinch, she closed her eyes. When the door sprang open a moment later, she felt herself gasp.

‘Sorry,’ a woman’s voice said and she smiled as she settled herself on the other side of the room.

Finally, Gabriela allowed her eyes to close again and saw Tom’s face drift in front of her, her fingers tensing against the ledge she was sitting on, the sweat streaming from her forehead mingling with the tears that shook her body.

How much longer could she go on like this, the lies following night and day so that there was no rest, even in sleep? And yet, how could she escape? Unless she told Tom. When the thought occurred to her now it seemed the most lucid she’d had in a long time.

Leaving Tom, she was under no illusion, would mean exposing herself not just to him but also to Sadie and Callum – but what choice did she have left? Leaving Layla was not an option, not when she was so young, so in need of her mother in every way.