My topsy-turvy love life had left me with only one certainty: love triangles suck.

*

I climbed out of an Uber in front of the Ovolo Hotel in Woolloomooloo. James had arrived the night before and had spent most of the day with the people from the Museum of Contemporary Art. We were meeting for dinner, and I was dressed up—way up.

I was wearing a floaty lilac dress by Review, which crossed over the bust and was cinched in at the waist, along with my lilac suede high-heeled Mary Janes and a matching clutch. My hair was pinned up in a French twist, but with my curls being their usual obnoxious selves, I’d made it a loose twist, allowing some of them to frame my face. My makeup was mostly neutral, but I’d gone with lilac-pink lipstick.

I also carried a small overnight bag. James had made it clear he wanted me to spend the night, and I wasn’t going to play coy and squeeze a toothbrush and some clean knickers into my clutch, like I’d done in London. There were no pretences this time. I was being a grown-up!

I’d been to the beautician and the hairdresser the day before. Wax—check; pedi—check; roots—check. I looked as sophisticated as it was possible for me to look, like maybe you could take me to a polo match or something—actually, not in those shoes. They’d just sink into the grass and get ruined.

Anyway, I looked good, and I was ready to see my fifty-something boyfriend. I really did need to find a better word to describe him. He was definitely not a boy.

The hotel was typical of Sydney, chic in its casualness. There was no doorman, so I made my own way inside and took in the funky foyer, which was clearly designed to highlight the features of the heritage building it once was. I approached the reception desk and a woman wearing a crisp white shirt and black trousers greeted me with a polite smile.

“Hi, I’m here to see James Cartwright. Can you please tell me what room he’s in?”

Apparently, that’s not how things work at high-end hotels, even casually chic ones. “One moment,” she said, as she picked up the phone and called James’s room. “Hello, Mr Cartwright. I have a Miss …” She looked at me enquiringly.

All the sophistication I’d felt emerging from my Uber dissolved under her overly polite stare. “Parsons,” I said, a slight frog in my throat, as though I was unsure of my own name. She repeated my name into the phone, and then said, “Of course.” She put down the phone and this time the smile reached her eyes. She gave me his room number and directions.

I had a choice—stairs to the second floor or the elevator. Another time, another occasion, I would have sprinted up the stairs, grateful for the incidental exercise. But I was dressed to woo, and if I was going to spend any time that day panting and glistening with sweat, I didn’t want it to be from climbing stairs.