‘I think I have a good idea,’ I reply, running my hand from his chest slowly down his abdomen.

I feel emboldened by his interest in me. I’m not usually an instigator, unless I’m with a boyfriend and I know it’s a sure thing. But with Freddie I feel full of confidence – because he makes me feel as if I ought to be – but also intoxicated by the risk I’m taking.

‘Again?’ he jokes.

‘Again,’ I insist.

Freddie finds a surge of energy to jump on top of me. We’ve barely started kissing when we’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

‘Could it be Ali?’ Freddie asks.

‘I doubt it – she’d call,’ I reply.

Whoever it is knocks again.

‘I’ll go get rid of them,’ he insists, jumping out of bed, throwing on a dressing gown and heading downstairs.

‘Hurry back,’ I insist with my best attempt at ‘come to bed’ eyes.

I roll around in bed with joy. I can’t believe Freddie and I slept together. Even more surprising than that, suddenly I feel an overwhelming urge to write my book, just, y’know, after we do it again.

My phone vibrates on my bedside table. I open a text from Ali saying she’ll be round in ten minutes – we’re definitely going to need more than ten minutes. I’m just about to type a reply, buying us some more time, when I hear raised voices downstairs.

‘Freddie Bianchi,’ I hear an east coast American accent boom through the suite.

‘Marty,’ I hear him reply. ‘What are you doing here?’

Freddie’s voice is much harder to hear that Marty's – and I never did learn my lesson when it comes to listening in on other people’s conversations – so I creep across the bedroom to grab a dressing gown, my feet touching the floor as lightly as possible.

‘I’m here to take you home,’ Marty says.

‘I’m on vacation,’ Freddie points out. ‘I’m allowed to go on vacation.’

‘Sure you are,’ Marty replies. ‘But they have to come to an end. You can’t just go off, not tell me when you’re coming back, not answer my calls or my messages. So I’ve come to drag you back to reality, kicking and screaming if I have to. You’ve got to get back to real life now – I mean, come on, you don’t have to get back to real real life. Real real life is shit, working all day, going home to your wife and screaming kids who don’t appreciate you. You’re a movie star. You’re Freddie fucking Bianchi.’

This is honestly the worst pep talk I’ve ever heard, and Ali prepped me for my first bikini wax by telling me I’d die alone if I let things ‘grow over’ down there. I want to get a look at this guy, this loud, obnoxious person telling Freddie he has to leave.

I tiptoe down the stairs and peep into the living-room area. Marty is a middle-aged man with a middle-aged man’s belly trying to hide under a designer suit. He has thick salt-and-pepper hair with a pair of eyebrows to match that jump up and down as he makes his case.