‘Cat?’

‘Um?’

‘I was on for a Hollywood-style reunion. I’m out here after all – hoping my gesture speaks a thousand words.’

‘What?’

No! Don’t step towards me. Don’t look at me longingly, lovingly. Don’t let me go back. Don’t make me. Don’t be the person who says ‘See! It was all a dream’.

‘Let’s give it another go.’

‘No!’

The vehemence of Cat’s response staggers both of them.

‘Are you shagging someone else, then?’ he asks, pulling himself upright and fixing her with the familiar look that can instantly make her shudder and shrink and her blood chill.

‘I have to work,’ she pleads.

I have to run! Go forwards to what I now know and believe in. Not tiptoe backwards.

‘Where are you staying?’

I can’t believe I’ve just told him. Walk away.

‘And you’re working there too?’

I can’t believe I’ve just nodded. Run.

‘I’ll come by later. We’ll talk. Try to sort things out. OK?’

And he’s going. And Cat is swaying on the spot, unable to keep tears at bay. She lets them fall but fixes her gaze on the large screen as if watching the beautiful sport of cycling is the sole provenance of her emotion.

‘Jesus!’ Alex exclaimed when Cat returned to the salle de pressé. ‘You told us you’d be emotional but you didn’t warn us what it would do to your face.’

Josh tipped his head and regarded her. ‘There aren’t even any cyclists on the Champs-Elysées yet,’ he reasoned, instinctively sensing that Cat was in some kind of torment. ‘See, they’re arriving just now. Cool! Chris Boardman is off the front.’ Cat stared at the screen, lips aquiver, whilst her two colleagues observed her and winced at their impotence to do absolutely anything about her tangible distress. Josh knew that if he put out the supportive hand he so wanted to, Cat would possibly fall to pieces.

‘Have you seen that thing down the corridor?’ he asked instead, manipulatively ambiguous, voice easy. She shook her head a little more slowly than her body was shaking.

‘You must see it, come on, I’ll take you there.’

Obediently, Cat followed Josh. Tactfully, Alex stayed put and stared witheringly at any of the press men daring to stare.

Josh walked ahead of her before stopping just after the corridor turned a corner. He gave thanks for the fact that no one was around. He faced her, his head tipped gently to one side. His eyes implored her to trust him. And how she did. Josh Piper. Her colleague. Her friend. This time tomorrow he’d be on the opposite side of London to her.

‘Josh,’ she croaked.

‘There there,’ Josh soothed, having chosen those precise words with utmost care, ‘what’s up?’

‘What am I going to do,’ she whispered, ‘without you, without all of this?’

‘You’ll have it again in Spain,’ Josh encouraged, ‘at the Vuelta.’

‘But I haven’t heard from Maillot,’ Cat said, knowing that she was straying away from confiding the true reason for her distress. She sniffed and snorted, gave a little cough and dabbed her tongue against the mix of tears and snot forming a viscous moustache. Josh tucked her hair behind her ear, a touching gesture which made her feel safe. ‘It’s not Maillot,’ she said very slowly, ‘it’s Him.’