She feels the touch of his fingertips on her cheek, smoothing out her hair to her ear. She could melt at the feel of him, physically melt, right there, into a puddle.

But it’s all for show.

This fauxmance! Whose idea was it anyway? She just wants him to kiss her, and mean it. And, honestly, she might have orchestrated this, but she wants the cameras to bugger off so they can talk properly. What kind of grown man spends his life stalking people with a camera anyway? It’s disgusting, even if Duke says it is part of the game. It shouldn’t be. She wishes Clive would just disappear into a cloud of paparazzi smoke.

‘Duke …’ she says, readying to make some bold declarations, and then there’s a scream that chills her blood.

Duke pulls away, looks back to where Clive had been stood, and then runs to look over the edge of the steep hill.

‘Jesus!’ he says, and he disappears, then, over the hill as well, and Evie runs. She can’t see them, can’t see either of them. It’s all just white, white, snow, and then she hears a voice shout up from down below, somewhere in amongst the trees, ‘Evie! Call an ambulance! Clive has fallen!’ and she sprints, as fast as she can, back to the others.

‘Evie,’ Magda says, in a low voice, that night at the hotel. ‘There’s a very hot man staring at you. Evie!’

Evie looks up into a pair of twinkling baby blues, a strong-set jaw and a wide smile.

‘I was trying to decide if it was you,’ he says, smiling.

‘Markus!’ Evie exclaims. ‘Oh my gosh, what are you doing here!’

Evie introduces Markus to Magda, who says she can’t believe that they met in some random gas station, back in the snowstorm, and are now in the same place at the same time again.

‘My sister,’ Markus says. ‘She runs the hotel.’

‘And a great job she’s doing too! It’s fantastic here,’ Magda enthuses, and Evie would recognise that look on her face anywhere. She’s flirting. The woman can turn it on like a light switch.

‘How long have you been staying here?’ Markus asks. ‘Do you need anything? Drinks? Some food?’

Magda flicks her hair off her shoulder and smiles, holding deliberate and smouldering eye contact.

‘Well, aren’t you a gentleman,’ she says, and Evie has to give it to her, she’s not backwards about being forward.