Evie gives him a polite smile that is non-committal. Why does he keep trying to charm her? Surely he has bigger fish to fry, the egomaniac. She mostly just wants that wine, in bed, ready to doze off in a slightly buzzed slumber before the criminal wake-up call of 5 a.m. tomorrow. Why she has to get up that early she doesn’t know – something about cast morale?

Milling around are about a hundred of the team, and after their meeting Evie makes polite chit-chat as a buffet is unveiled. It’s not a bad gig, per se, being in Germany on somebody else’s dime, staying in a fancy hotel and being fed and watered, it’s just her deadline really is looming. She looks at her watch. Maybe she can get a thousand words in before bed.

‘I have to get you to sign my copy of Once in a Blue Moon,’ Duke tells her, as she heads back to the buffet table for more poached salmon. He might have even been waiting for her, the creep. He’s too eager to please. Too chirpy. It smacks of inauthenticity. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he adds, noting the look on her face.

Evie loads up her plate. ‘It’s okay,’ she tells him. ‘Nobody else can hear.’

He blinks.

‘You don’t have to pretend with me,’ Evie clarifies. ‘You don’t have to kiss my ass?’

Duke nods. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘You think I’m just saying I like your work because … I’m in it?’

‘I don’t know why,’ Evie replies, looking for the herby hollandaise she had earlier. It was delicious. There was lemon in it, capers too, but something else, something she couldn’t put her finger on.

‘I understand,’ Duke says, picking up the bowl she was looking for like he can read her mind. He offers it up as if to say, this? and Evie begrudgingly reaches for the serving spoon to drizzle some onto her plate. ‘Why would a bloke be reading romantic comedies in his spare time? Well …’ he says, setting the bowl back down when she’s done. ‘It just so happens I’m an unabashed idealist, and I was once on holiday with Adele, who had brought along your No Stopping Us, and it got me hooked. She adored it, and so I read it too, my gateway drug. You write about people who meet and fall in love, yes, but there’s so much more. You have them end up so wise, and it makes me think that you must be wise. Do you get that a lot?’