‘Shall we order first?’ I ask before I get going.

‘It’s all arranged,’ Ali tells me. ‘I thought we deserved something special.’

‘Oh, okay,’ I reply. ‘That’s lovely.’

‘I know,’ Ali says with a dismissive bat of her hand. ‘Now, spill the tea.’

‘Okay, well.’ I wiggle my bum down into the cushion-covered seat, ensuring I am in prime storytelling position. ‘It was round two of Mr & Mrs Valentine Island last night.’

I pause, so that Ali can remind me of how lame this is, but she doesn’t. She has her chin resting on the back of her hand and her eyes are glued to me.

‘So, the aim of the game last night was for the men to lift their women up and see who could hold them for the longest,’ I explain.

‘Freddie will have crushed that, surely?’ Ali replies.

‘Of course,’ I reply, weirdly proud of my man (who isn’t my man).

‘How did Eva and Daniel do?’ she asks.

‘They came second.’

‘Ergh. I suppose the little snake just wrapped herself around his neck,’ Ali suggests.

She isn’t a million miles off.

‘It was weirdly fun, and I was delighted that Freddie and I won! But Daniel wasn’t – he got really upset. He started on Freddie. He accidentally shoved me!’

‘That puny little moron,’ Ali replies just as a waiter approaches us. She turns to him. ‘Not you, babe.’

The optionally oblivious Italian man places a series of items down in front of us, along with a bottle of champagne. He fills our glasses before wishing us ‘buon appetito’ and leaving us, just the two of us, surrounded by candles and rose petals.

‘Ali, are you coming on to me?’ I joke. ‘This is pretty romantic.’

‘It’s their romantic chocolate lunch,’ she tells me. ‘But, sadly, you’re already in the friendzone.’

A romantic chocolate lunch involves a chocolate fountain, rhythmically pumping rich-smelling, silky-looking chocolate, accompanied by a variety of things to dip into it – marshmallows, biscotti, little bombolini donuts that, upon closer inspection (ate one the second they hit the table) are filled with a delicious vividly yellow Italian custard. Everything you’ve ever dreamed of smothering with chocolate (except maybe Freddie, although that might just be me – well, me and the 7.2 million followers I found out he has on Instagram last night) is right here on this table.

‘So, go on, what happened?’ Ali asks as she places an entire chocolate-covered strawberry into her mouth.

‘So, it all kicked off – all in front of an audience – and I think Freddie thinks he has everyone fooled with his sunglasses, but, other than me, I’m pretty sure everyone knows who he is, so we’ve got this massive crowd watching. The security blokes come over, march us off, take us to some little office room in the hotel. It felt like school, waiting to find out what our punishment was.’

‘If Edward started spanking you, this is definitely just a sexy dream you had last night,’ she says. ‘Weird you included your ex in it.’