Shauna could just picture Josh in with this lot, he’d be like a roaring lion among a herd of timid gazelles. Spoiled, over-privileged women and their husbands, a bunch of air-conditioned arseholes who sat behind a desk all day, pushing pens on paper or shouting buy buy buy. Those men weren’t physical, like Josh. They couldn’t lift hay bales or lay a ton of tarmac in the burning heat of summer, or bench-press their own body weight down the gym like he could. You might as well cut their hands off, because they only ever used them to get their dicks out.

‘It sounds great,’ she lied. It was hot out here in the late Indian summer, and despite the parasol’s shade she felt a bit sick, a bit queasy.

‘Of course, Shauna’s pretty new to all this,’ said Philippa. ‘Aren’t you, Shauna?’

Shauna looked directly into Philippa’s enormous blue eyes. Oh really? You starting this again?

‘Meaning?’ said Shauna, as the maid cleared away the remnants of their meal. No pudding this time; all the girls were watching their weight, particularly Chloe, who had pushed her food around the plate while drinking a bit too much.

‘Oh, nothing. Just that maybe this is all a little too civilized for you, really.’

‘Phil—’ started Tanya.

‘Tanya doesn’t know your background, of course. Not like I do.’

Shauna looked at Tanya, then at Chloe. She thought of Josh, blowing Andrew Meredith’s head off his shoulders at Philippa’s husband’s request. She was crazy-mad with that high-toned bitch across the table, but she was going to have to rein it in, be careful. ‘I’m a gypsy,’ she said. ‘My husband’s a bare-knuckle fighter,’ she told Tanya. ‘I think Chloe already knows that.’

‘Oh yah. Sure,’ said Chloe, her elbow slipping from the tabletop.

‘Just thought you ought to know, Tanya,’ said Philippa, her eyes glittering with malice as she smiled across at Shauna.

Shauna guessed that she wasn’t going to be included in Tanya’s round-robin dinner parties after all. She’d seen the shocked and – yes – disgusted look on Tanya’s face. While Tanya walked out to Chloe’s Porsche with her, there was a moment in which Shauna was alone in the hall with Philippa. The maid was in the kitchen, washing dishes. Shauna looked left and right, then she shoved Philippa up against the wall so hard that the blonde’s head banged into the plasterwork. Philippa let out a cry. Shauna glared with feral hatred into the woman’s shocked eyes.

‘What the f—’ gasped out Philippa.