I watched them; Michael stroking Bianca’s arm; her nuzzling his shoulder as they listened to an uncle telling a story. Sometimes Michael would say something just for her and her eyes would close slowly, as though it was the most gorgeous thing she’d ever heard, then they’d kiss, and rejoin the conversation. It was like they’d stepped out into their own little world, only for a second, before stepping back in. Bianca would present him with little gifts – a napkin folded into the shape of a bird or a heart bitten out of a slice of cucumber. Silly shit, too pure for even the likes of me to take the piss out of.

I started doing the same with Raf, to show him all his loving gestures weren’t in vain. I’d kiss him when he wasn’t expecting it. I’d present him with little gifts – a shell I’d found, a grey pebble in sort of the shape of a heart, and a little wooden turtle with a nodding head I bought from Salomé’s gallery.

But unlike his parents, me and Rafael didn’t know each other inside out. Rafael hadn’t known me long at all. We hadn’t even had sex by this point. He didn’t know anything about me, except my name. My fake name. And that was the difference. With him, I could be anyone I liked. I didn’t have to be Rhiannon. Nobody knew me as Rhiannon in that family.

And if I wanted it to last, that’s the way it would have to stay.

Thursday, 9 May – Holiday Inn en el Agua, Rocas Calientes

Rafael invited me to join him and the fam at their hotel for a pool party – they had taken over the whole place, it seemed, and the men were in the water playing a particularly violent game of volleyball. There had been three nosebleeds so far, one of them an elderly aunt.

There were a lot of people on the pool terrace when I got there, all different family members from the previous two nights, so I had to endure another punishing round of hugging and kissing but I was strangely used to it by this point. I almost welcomed it. I met his older brother, Nico, who was an older, more hench version of Raf, and his wife Ariela with their three kids, Ana, Elijah and Mateo – the little dude I’d given the shells to.

‘Ah so you’re the girl who’s brought the smile back to my little brother’s face, eh?’ said Nicolas, enfolding me in a gentle chokehold with his enormous Popeye arm. ‘Well, you were a little late in getting the good-looking brother, sadly. I’m afraid I’m already taken by this old ball and chain.’