‘Can you listen to what I want for once?’ I threw a pointed look at Henry, who had realised too late that in trying to help he’d actually made things worse. ‘I haven’t decided if I’m going to take it yet, so you can save the champagne until I do.’

‘Oh, no,’ Mia groaned, sounding devastated about a job offer that was nothing to do with her. ‘This is not good.’

‘I hardly think that taking a few days to consider it is a disaster,’ I huffed, gripping the chair to prevent me running out of the room screaming.

Mia finally looked up from her phone. ‘Someone’s made the connection between you and Nana Joy.’

26

There wasn’t a lot we could do beyond phoning the hospital to let them know. Having retired from the spotlight years ago, Joy Papplewick being in hospital was hardly likely to cause a paparazzi frenzy, but the eighty-seven-year old star ‘hovering between life and death’ might well result in a few news-famished journalists sniffing around. We also agreed to release a short official statement, just in case, so I wrote a couple of sentences about how my grandmother, Joy Papplewick, was currently recuperating well after a fall and expressed her love and thanks in return for all the kind words and gifts, adding a request for privacy so she could mend in peace.

After posting the statement, I gulped down the rest of my second glass of champagne, Jed having opened the bottle despite the original reason being discarded, and headed to bed for some desperately needed oblivion.

I bumped into Henry at the bottom of the stairs.

‘Thank you for what you said back there.’ I reached a slightly tipsy hand out before realising that I had no idea what to do with it, opting to give his arm a gentle prod.

‘I can’t believe your family are so oblivious to your career,’ he said, frowning as he zipped up his coat. ‘Don’t you fill them in on what’s going on?’

I shrugged. ‘I used to try, but they just don’t get it.

‘Because they don’t try to get it?’

I shrugged again, hoping he couldn’t see how I was swaying a tiny bit. ‘It is what it is.’

‘What it is, is wrong.’ He pulled on a hat. ‘Anyway, I hope what I said helped.’ He paused then, fingers still midway through tying a scarf in a regimental knot. ‘Apart from what I said about the job offer. I genuinely hadn’t twigged that you might not have told them. Given that you told me, and I’m not exactly your closest confidant.’