Jules had never believed she could be so happy. It was the sort of happiness she would have thought felt frightening, but it felt the opposite: safe, warm, content. Paul was the opposite to Lev: proud when she succeeded, supportive when she failed. He was secure in himself, which was the difference, and he felt fully evolved in a way that none of her previous partners or dates had been. He gave her space when she needed it, and she gave it back in return, not having to hide underlying feelings of clinginess, of wanting to grab on tight to him and not let go. Somehow, instinctively, she knew that she was his and he hers. She knew. And he knew too.

‘This is Julia Frey, from the London office,’ Hank had said when she arrived in New York for her secondment. The office was in the financial district, the sidewalks below as busy and bustling as Jules could have imagined, but up here, in the clouds, there was only the quiet buzz of industry. She loved it already. ‘Julia, Paul. He’s your competition over here.’ Hank had winked, but when Jules looked at Paul – and saw him good-naturedly rolling his eyes and shaking his head at Hank – she didn’t see competition at all. She saw confidence, sure, but no arrogance. His behaviour wasn’t spiked with the desperation to prove himself of other bankers she’d worked alongside. His limbs were long and languid, his expression relaxed.

‘So you’re here to make sure we’re not getting up to no good?’ he enquired. The regulatory climate was intense at that time, compliance and anti-money laundering high on Austen Miller’s agenda.

‘Not quite. The opposite, actually. You’ve got more comprehensive AML processes over here – I’ve got to feed back on how you do it so much better.’ She hadn’t meant to sound flirtatious, didn’t know why it came out the way it did.

‘Really?’ he said. ‘How about that…’ as she blushed.

‘How the New York office is doing it better,’ she corrected, adding sexy to her list of Paul’s attributes. ‘But I’m primarily transactional. Like you.’

‘Well, I look forward to working with you, Julia Frey.’ There was something about the way he said her name, a rough glint of cheekiness beneath his smooth tone.

She moved along to her own desk and sat down, blinking at the range of screens. What had just happened? It felt like someone had taken her to the top of the Rockefeller Center and pressed the button for the ground floor. Her stomach rose, her heart flew to her head.

‘Drink later?’ was all he said over the partition, and as she looked up and caught his smile she realised with relief that whatever she was feeling, he was feeling it too.

She nodded, surprised at herself. What is wrong with me? she remembered thinking. One of her personal rules was no dates with co-workers, and here she was five minutes in the New York office and finding it hard to concentrate. She tried to focus on the screens, on getting her bearings with the US systems, but the songs that so frequently got stuck in her head had changed their soundtrack. Snatches of love songs went in a loop around her brain. As soon as she managed to banish one, a different one would emerge. She was in trouble.