‘So …’ Evie says. ‘Oops?’

‘Yeah,’ says Duke. ‘Oops. Okay. Let me call my driver. You’ll just get in with us, right? I mean, you kind of have no choice.’

‘I’d like to ride with you, yes,’ Evie replies, slurping from the coffee that has been made to a pleasingly drinkable temperature. ‘Did they really leave you behind?’ Duke looks at her. She says it laughingly, and the look on his face demonstrates that he agrees that it is pretty funny. ‘You’re a pretty expensive valuable to head off without.’

‘Let’s just get that coffee. My head feels scrambled.’

By 6 a.m. they’re in Duke’s luxury people carrier, upholstered in leather that Evie notes is softer than butter. They both had time to quickly shower, and Evie packed her own bags, on account of the fact that as a lowly author nobody had done that for her, as they had Duke. They threw down a breakfast sandwich and another coffee as they waited for Duke’s driver to fill up on gas and so far, now they’re on their merry way, Duke has spent most of the time on his phone.

‘Budgets,’ he grumbles, as they fly down the autostrada at a speed Evie has never travelled outside of a jet before. Apparently Germany doesn’t do speed limits. ‘They’re trying to shave two days off the production because Brad needs to make sure he’s under budget. That’s why the schedules and corresponding locations got moved so suddenly.’

‘Does that really matter?’ asks Evie, trying to watch the world go by out of the window but struggling to get her eyes to adjust to blur after blur. ‘The budget?’

‘Yes, it matters,’ Duke snaps, half looking up and seemingly deciding she’s not worth the effort and so immediately going back to his phone. ‘It impacts what he can negotiate for his next job.’

His tone is sharp, and Evie decides to write it off as a mix of embarrassment and frustration. All she meant was that surely two days would hardly make a budgetary difference, when you consider the amounts of cash everyone is dealing in. But maybe that’s naïve. What does she know? This isn’t her industry. All she knows is that in order to write On the Romantic Road she spent a lot of time googling all the picturesque towns and castles, and to actually visit the Schaezlerpalais in Augsburg is an opportunity she never thought she’d get. It’s the one thing she managed to get even slightly excited about when she signed her contract, and now she’s staying, and even trying to do it in good humour, she doesn’t want to miss it.

The blurs outside the window become more focused, then, and Evie becomes aware of trucks and other cars and vans. They slow, at first, and Duke finally looks up properly from his phone.