Duke shakes his head, feeing partly responsible. Hadn’t Evie asked who could be the ‘sources’ on set? And he hadn’t done anything about it. He’d brushed it off, acted like it was made up, and now look. The call is coming from within the house.

Daphne looks tired. Duke hasn’t asked about her and Brad, knowing that if he pushes it, he risks making her withdraw entirely. She needs to be the one to bring it up, so he can be a willing listener. He’s aware Brad isn’t in the breakfast room though. Hopefully they didn’t share a room last night. Duke knows how it looks in the photos, like they really are having a moment, but all the love he has for Daphne, somehow, even in less than a month since they broke up, is genuinely platonic. His feelings run deep and true, but they’re deep and true in the spirit of friendship. He can thank Evie for that. No matter what happens there, something has shifted in his expectations of romance. He can’t wait to bring it up with Phoebe when he’s next in therapy: he’s circling around something about greater vulnerability bringing greater rewards. He didn’t get that with Daphne, because exactly like she said he played the role of boyfriend without ever properly opening up. He gets it, now, though.

‘It might not be crew,’ Daphne offers, focusing on her fruit plate. ‘It could be staff from the hotel …’

Duke has considered this, but it doesn’t account for the photos of him and Evie back in Würzburg. Unless staff everywhere along the Romantic Road make it their business to photograph their guests, which, in his experience of the German people just doesn’t seem right. Everybody has been kind, deferential, and generally unbothered by their star power: they’ve just provided great service and gotten on with their days.

He sees Evie, then, walking across the room to the bread station.

‘Evie!’ Duke calls out, and when he waves it’s as though she looks right through him. She’s seen them. He excuses himself to go over to her.

‘I tried to find you last night,’ he says, standing beside her as she slices from a sourdough loaf and puts it on the small toaster. ‘They wouldn’t tell me what room you’re in at reception. Got to love that dedication to guest privacy.’ He’s making a joke, but he can’t even tell if she’s heard it.

‘Are you okay?’ he asks. She looks a little … peaky.

She picks up and puts down some little pots of jam and marmalade, adding two sachets of salted butter to her plate and peering over at the progress of her toast.

‘Evie?’ he prompts.

She rubs at her eyes. ‘Yeah,’ she says, absent-mindedly.