He rolls his eyes but obeys. I crane my neck to watch his arse in those shorts. It’s worth a stiff neck, but I find myself having to rearrange my cock surreptitiously.

When he comes back, he’s holding his wallet. “I didn’t know if I would see you again,” he says almost diffidently.

“What? Why?”

He shrugs. “I wondered whether the sauna would make everything too awkward between us.”

His tone and posture are casual, but maybe a little too much so. Suddenly, I want to ask him about awkward things, like if he’s been wondering about me for the past two days and whether he’ll miss me when I leave London. Instead, I put all my effort into adopting nonchalance and say, “It was only a teeny hand job.”

“Same,” he says with an urbane smile on his face. I wonder what he’s thinking, and the desire to find out scares me shitless, so I clap him on the back.

“Come on. We need to get our bingo on.”

“Ack,” is his considered reply, but he ruins the stoical word by grinning at me.

I feel myself relax for the first time in two days. We’ll be okay.

I’m way more relieved than I should be, but I don’t dwell on it.

* * *

The taxi stops and when he sees the two people waiting on the pavement for us, he turns a wry look at me. “So, you’ve invited my best friend here to witness my downfall.”

“It’s bingo. Not the house of Medici,” I observe and shove him out of the taxi.

As I settle up with the driver, I watch Mags greet my sister and brother-in-law. It still stuns me that the Magnus I’ve heard both of them mention so much over the years is my Mags. Mental tyres squeal. Not my Mags.

He says something that makes my sister screech with laughter, and I remind myself that he is not anyone’s Mags. He’s a bit like a wildcat. Lovely to look at, but he will never be curling up in front of your fire. He’s powerful in his impregnability, and I envy him because my own imperviousness was severely dented on the night I went off that road.

I climb out of the taxi, and my sister hurries over. “Come on before he changes his mind, Laurie. I’ve got my phone set to record.”

I shake my head. “It’s as if your whole spirit comes alive at the idea of secondhand embarrassment.”

“Only if it’s Magnus,” she says in a duh voice. “He’s got so much material on me.”

“Really? I’ll have to speak to him about that.”

She rolls her eyes. “He’s known me since I was that clumsy first-year at uni. The ammunition is unbelievable.”