I had been hoping she wouldn’t ask, and it would be so easy to lie. She would never find out, as I was certain the evidence had been erased and my co-star in the only other home sex movie I’d made was highly unlikely to tell. I didn’t want to lie, though, and didn’t think I had any need to.

‘Once,’ I said.

Charlie was quiet for a long time, so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep.

‘With Harriet?’ she said, just as I was about to drift off myself.

‘No. She wouldn’t have . . . She would never have wanted to do anything like that.’

From my position, with Charlie’s head on my chest, I couldn’t see her face, just the top of her head. But I could feel how tense she was. Again, I was tempted to lie. But I couldn’t.

‘It was with Karen,’ I said.

Charlie sat up rapidly. ‘I need to go to the toilet,’ she said. She almost ran out of the room, naked.

When she came back, she sat on the edge of the bed, wearing my dressing gown. ‘I want to see it.’

I had been close to dozing off again. I squinted at her. ‘What?’

‘I want to see the tape you made with her.’

‘You can’t, Charlie. It doesn’t exist anymore. We made it as a bit of a joke, using her phone, watched it – not even the whole way through, because it was too cringeworthy – and then deleted it straight away.’

‘Are you sure she hasn’t kept a copy?’

I reached out for her but she shrank away. ‘I’m certain, sweetheart. I deleted it myself. And there’s no way I’d want you to see it anyway.’

‘Why?’

‘For fuck’s sake, Charlie. If there was a tape of you having sex with another guy out there, it would be the last thing I’d want to see. Jesus.’

She didn’t respond.

‘Please, come back to bed. Don’t spoil the evening.’

But she wouldn’t move. ‘Do you ever wish you were still with her?’ she asked.

I laughed. But when I saw her expression I said, ‘You’re serious?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘You mean, leave you and go back to her?’

She nodded.

‘Why on earth would I want to do that? Karen and me – it was just a fling. It came with a built-in expiry date.’ I reached out for her. ‘We’re not like that, are we?’

Like a bubble bursting, her expression changed back to a smile. ‘Sorry. I was being an idiot.’

She slipped back beneath the quilt and cuddled up to me.

I told her that I loved her.

‘You swear?’ she said.

I laughed. ‘You want me to swear?’

She laughed too. ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’