‘Come on, mate, nothing?’ Clive pushes, and Duke plays the game. He’s given his rehearsed no comment for the production team, now he’s to give his rehearsed ‘everywoman heartthrob’ comment for his personal management, to help with his – God save him for using their word, the word he hates so much – profile.

Duke sighs, sticking the book he’d been reading on the flight under his arm and pulling off his sunglasses to rub the bridge of his nose. He feigns trying to think of the right thing to say, something that captures both that he’s a decent guy, isn’t a pushover, and that he still believes in the good things of the world. That’s his role, isn’t it? To keep romantic hope alive? He has to say this like he isn’t worth three to five million a movie, because money can’t hide your longing to be loved. It can’t even cushion it. He might be Duke Carlisle, but his job in whatever he says next is to make every woman who sees it believe that maybe, just maybe, they could be the next Mrs Duke Carlisle.

If only they could.

He’d kill for real love.

‘Daphne and Brad?’ Duke starts, careful to look off camera to Clive’s other eye and not directly into the lens. ‘I’m happy for them. Truth is, we’d actually been broken up for a while. We’re still great friends, and I’m happy if she’s happy. Everyone’s got the wrong end of the stick. I can’t speak for Brad’s marriage but from our end, Daph and I went back to being friends ages ago. I’m really loving making the movie with her. Any bloke is lucky to have her. But truly, we decided long ago that we’re more like brother and sister than anything else.’

The lie comes out easily. He takes a breath and decides to finish on his truth, earnest as it might be.

‘I’m very much looking for love myself, though,’ he says. ‘I’m looking for the woman of my dreams, in case you see her.’

A group of fans issue a collective aww, and he waves one last time before ducking outside to the winter chill and into the luxury Mercedes people carrier waiting for him, the windows thankfully blacked out. If he thought the driver wouldn’t leak it to a gossip mag, he could almost let himself cry. Everything is a performance for him, even his real feelings. It’s enough to send him mad. It’s enough to make him feel like the loneliest man in the world, even when everybody knows his name.

3

Evie

The call from the care home comes right as Evie is at the departure gate, boarding pass in hand.