Rachel looked up at him, he was close and lovely and she wanted to touch his lips with her fingertips. She nodded, not able to wrest a forlorn edge from her gesture.

‘You look sad,’ Vasily said.

‘I’m fine,’ Rachel said a little too loudly.

‘It won’t last,’ he continued.

‘You’re right,’ Rachel confirmed.

‘It won’t last, I will have it again,’ Vasily continued, his apparent contradiction distracting Rachel momentarily from the fact that he was fingering the buttons on her denim shirt.

‘I don’t think so,’ Rachel said, quite crossly.

Who does he think I am? Some fucking groupie willing to dispense sex when he so demands?

‘Rachel!’ Vasily remonstrated.

‘What?’ Rachel objected.

‘I say it won’t last, I will have it again,’ Vasily said, ‘and you tell me no, that I won’t?’

‘You bloody won’t,’ said Rachel.

‘I don’t need bloody shit like this,’ said Vasily.

‘And nor,’ Rachel declared, ‘do I.’

She brushed past him and made to go. Vasily caught her arm. ‘You think it’s not possible?’ he implored. Rachel looked at him coldly, her jaw locked with indignation and hurt. She snatched her arm away and stomped towards the door. ‘It won’t last,’ Vasily declared. ‘I will have it again.’

‘Fuck off, Jawlensky,’ Rachel hissed.

‘Yesterday meant nothing. You will see,’ Vasily proclaimed to her back, ‘I will take the maillot jaune in the mountains.’

Rachel stopped stock still, closed her eyes and grimaced.

You stupid, idiot girl. He’s a fucking cyclist. He was talking about a piece of bloody yellow lycra all along. Not you. Not kissing you.

Rachel turned.

And now he looks hurt and confused. And why wouldn’t he be? His faithful soigneur has just doubted his pedal prowess.

Rachel went back to her rider and laid the palm of her hand gently at his cheek. ‘Oh shit,’ she whispered, ‘I didn’t realize. I thought you. I meant about.’

Vasily tipped his head to one side and regarded her. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘you speak better for Vasily so he can understand.’

‘Understand this,’ said Rachel, standing on tiptoes and planting a small, apologetic but emphatic kiss on his mouth. Suddenly he was kissing her back, his tongue leaping around her mouth on a mission of its own.

‘Rachel,’ he murmured, wonderfully gravelly. He took her hand and placed it against his groin. She could feel him, rock hard. Rachel took his hand and placed it over her breast. Then she guided it under her shirt to her bare flesh, her nipple enticingly at the centre of his palm.

‘What do you want?’ she whispered, dabbing her tongue tip on the dimple in his chin. He encircled her with his arms, pressed his groin against her and moved his body gently.

‘I want to stay out of trouble,’ Vasily murmured into the top of her head. ‘I need to ride near the front today but not too hard. Tomorrow, the Pyrenees. Tomorrow, I am at war with Ducasse.’

Cat’s job was not just easy to do that day, it was a true pleasure. On a glorious sunny afternoon refreshingly punctuated by a gentle breeze, the race headed out from Sauternes and through lines of the famous lime-green vines striping the land like corduroy. The route headed due south, down through Gascony to the Beam region and its capital, Pau; gateway to the Pyrenees, harbinger of the first mountain trials of the Tour de France but also a lovely old university town crowned with a picture-perfect fourteenth-century château. Cat was excited to be there; not even a nondescript modern motorlodge could dampen her delight.