When I said nothing, he kissed me again – a kiss that left me misty with desire. He moved in front of me this time and leant me back against the railing, and kissed me for a long, luscious time. Kissing Brody was the most aerobic thing I’d ever done. His kisses required a lifeguard.

What was happening? Who was this man? In between kisses, never letting go, he kept opening up. He told me more stories about his time in Africa, when he’d escaped vigilantes by running through a forest fire, and, another time, by wading through rapids. And then there was the day out jogging when he didn’t quite escape.

He also specialised in slightly crooked smiles and possessed a velvet touch that could make a woman’s skin tremble. He was wild, reckless, anarchic, anti-authoritarian and, yes, he also had a gloomy, pessimistic, Eeyore streak, so at odds with the kindness and humanitarianism he displayed in his job. As a doctor, he’d devoted his life to those who were suffering in conflict zones – apart from the time he’d ‘accidentally’ castrated a warlord rapist, of course.

Nor was he gloomy all the time. When we sat in the deckchairs and ordered tea, his medical anecdotes made me laugh so hard that at one point Earl Grey shot out of my nose. Not my best look, especially as the warm wind was already making a comedy of my coiffure, but it only made us both laugh harder. And then there was the fact that I felt I had so much to say to him.

Best of all was his penchant for puns. When it was time for Brody to report for duty in the medical centre, he called our parting from the quoits deck ‘quoit-us interruptus’.

How, I wondered, was I to convey all this to my sceptical sisters?

‘I don’t know what this is,’ Brody said, his hand on the heavy deck door. ‘But whatever it is or isn’t, you can’t tell your sisters.’

‘But I tell my sisters everything.’ Well, I thought with a sharp pang of guilt, not quite everything. ‘Maybe this is all a ruse on your part just to get your severance pay,’ I joked.

But for once Brody did not smile back. ‘Getting romantically involved with a passenger is a “chicken or beef” offence – as in, that’s what the air steward offers you when you board the first flight home in disgrace, because your contract will be terminated.’

‘No redundancy package?’