‘To catch the excess,’ Kayla explains.

Evie takes a beat to understand he’s addressing her again.

‘It’s your first day on a set?’ he says. ‘Katerina said.’

Had he really been talking about her? Odd.

‘Pretty magical, isn’t it?’ he continues.

Evie narrows her eyes. She goes to speak, realises she doesn’t know what to say, and closes her mouth again. Then she takes a breath, seeing him awaiting her words, and settles on: ‘Yup. This little old nobody can’t believe she’s here.’

She’s trying to sound gently mocking of herself. Duke issues a heightened guffaw. God, whatever energy is between them, it can definitely be filed under Does Not Work. No matter how hard either of them tries, they seem to speak different languages, miss the point of one another.

‘You do know it’s your book we’re filming here, don’t you?’ he asks, one eyebrow raised just enough to be infuriating in its cockiness. ‘I hardly think you’re a nobody.’

‘No, you misunderstand me,’ Evie says, regulating her voice to sound calm and rational. ‘I like being a nobody. I want to be a nobody. I’m not here on set because I want to hobnob with the stars. I’m only here because of a contractual obligation.’

Duke nods. He’s got the smoothest, cleanest-looking skin Evie has ever seen, like a real-life Ken doll but somehow even more attractive.

‘Yeah,’ Duke tells her. ‘I know. I asked them to put that in. I wanted to meet you.’

Evie blinks.

What?

‘You made them bring me out here?’ she asks. That doesn’t make sense. Why would he do that?

‘Yeah,’ Duke tells her, like it’s no big deal. ‘Like I say, I’m a really big fan.’

WHAT! Evie sees a red mist, her temper going from nought to a hundred.

‘I’m missing my deadline,’ she says, the control she had managed before ebbing away with speed. ‘Away from my dog, and my house, and my mother and my best friend who happens to be going through a very horrible divorce, at Christmastime, to freeze my ass off on the other side of the world because of you?’

Duke gives a little laugh that Evie assumes he thinks is self-effacing.

‘Well, yeah. I wanted to meet you, and everyone said you were up for the interviews and the behind-the-scenes documentary …’ he says, slowly, still acting like this is all one big rational conversation and not the start of the apocalypse. Evie is already getting out of the make-up chair.

‘Thank you, Kayla, but I’m all set on the glow. I’m sure I’ve got more colour to my complexion—’ she says ‘complexion’ with air quotes ‘—now that I am furious.’

She turns her attention back to Duke.

‘You made them fly me out here?’