‘Crafting your next masterpiece?’ Duke asks, casting a shadow across her screen. She looks up, horrified, snapping her computer shut faster than a teenage boy with a sock in his hand. Duke is fresh from the shower, his wavy hair damp against his face and neck, looking casual in grey jogging bottoms and a T-shirt that on mere mortals no doubt hangs loose, but on Duke Carlisle clings to rock-hard biceps and solid abs.

‘You,’ Evie says, darkly.

‘I know,’ he replies, smiling with only one side of his face to convey his contrition. ‘I’ve ruined your life. I’m fairly confident it will all be tomorrow’s fish paper before you know it, but still …’

‘Fish paper?’ Evie asks.

‘It’s a British thing, I suppose. From when we used to wrap our fish and chips in yesterday’s newspaper. So: today’s news is tomorrow’s fish-and-chip paper. Ergo it becomes old pretty quickly …’

‘I see,’ Evie says, not bothering to reopen her laptop. She needs to admit defeat. She hasn’t published sixteen books in ten years by working when the muse doesn’t show up. Evie knows she can sit here for the next two hours and get maybe five hundred usable words, or she can wait until she’s had a good night’s sleep and let five thousand pour out of her in the morning. ‘Well, they say the internet has a long memory, so … It all remains to be seen, doesn’t it?’

‘Can I join you?’ he asks.

‘Isn’t that just asking for trouble? We’re fighting, we’re too cosy together, we’re sleeping together … What next? Plotting to ruin the world …? Plus, I thought you’d had enough of me last night. You stormed off.’

He looks around. It’s quiet. Most of the crew have gone out into town tonight.

‘I had had enough of you,’ he says, but he’s smiling, the handsome prick. ‘You drive me potty. But there’s nobody else here to have a drink with and I don’t know – I think I’m just a glutton for punishment.’ His voice is mischievously low, and it makes Evie smile in spite of herself.

‘Fine,’ she tells him. ‘I was going to order another anyway.’

Duke calls over the waiter and Evie admires the space. The bar is wood-panelled with red leather banquette seats and low lighting, and piano renditions of festive favourites play softly from a speaker above them. Coloured lights from trees in either corner dance slowly, reflecting light onto strategically placed tinsel. Garlands hang from the ceiling, and Evie only just realises that they must be made with real fir tree branches because the smell of pine permeates the air. Their red wine comes, and Duke looks at her.

‘Cheers,’ he says.

‘Cheers,’ Evie echoes. They clink, touch their stems down to the table for good luck, and drink. It’s heavy and full, berries and promise staining her lips.