I stared at him in wonder. I loved this man. Where had he been all my life? He was making mine so simple, so straightforward. It was extraordinary how another perspective could do that. I realized that now he’d sorted my life out, I wanted to ask him so much about his. I wanted to ask if he was on better terms with his ex-wife, if they were managing to be civil. Clearly they were, if he was allowed to take his children skiing. I wondered how old they were. If Tilly got on with them. I was sure she did – she was gorgeous. I pictured the four of them whizzing down the slopes together: blue skies, snowy mountains. That beautiful girl, erasing all the misery of Agathe – oh yes, I remembered her name.

‘Lucy? You’ll block her calls?’

‘Oh yes – yes, I’ll do that,’ I agreed. Would I? Block her? Or would I be too scared? Not with someone like this beside me. But of course, he wouldn’t be beside me. He belonged to someone else. ‘Is Tilly a good skier?’ I blurted out stupidly, involuntarily.

He looked confused. ‘Sorry?’

‘Well, I imagine she went with you? Skiing?’ He frowned, then at length, a small smile began to play around his lips. He put his coffee cup down. ‘Tilly cooks for me. I found her through a colleague of mine at work, another lone male. She’s about half my age, Lucy.’

‘Oh!’ I stared, confused. ‘But – but she called you Joshy. I thought—’

‘She says I behave like a baby in the kitchen so she gives me a baby name. Accuses me of not being able to boil an egg. She was preparing a meal for the friends I stayed with when I first came over from Paris. I’m having them to lunch next Sunday, by way of a thank you. She’s away – skiing, as a matter of fact – with her boyfriend right now. So she made it before she left. The chicken dish is sitting in the freezer as we speak.’

He was clearly amused. But I was still getting my head round this. Today was turning out to be completely extraordinary in so many ways. Taking so many unexpected turns for the better, in a manner I was so totally unused to that it was hard to assimilate. Tilly was a cook. Of course she was; she had all the hallmarks of the well-bred girls I used to work with who did that sort of thing. She had a boyfriend. Naturally she did. Naturally.

‘Would you like to come?’ Still the amused smile.

‘Where?’

‘To lunch, on Sunday, with my colleagues. A French professor and his wife.’

All my Christmases appeared to have come at once. All of them. I put my coffee cup down and sat up straight. I gave him the most radiant of smiles.

‘Oh, I’d love to come.’

He grinned. ‘Great.’