I couldn’t help glancing back at him as the video finished, the room breaking out into cheers and applause. With a jolt I found his eyes like laser beams, fixed straight on me. A shiver rippled across my skin, but when I offered a smile he merely frowned, quickly turning to a nearby teacher.

Work finished, I caught the bus just after seven, and was home by half past. That gave me an hour to shower, change, sort my hair and make-up, and flap around squawking about why on earth I was spending New Year’s Eve with a man who was eagerly waiting for my answer to his proposal.

It had been a stressful few days to say the least. All I really wanted was a long bath, a good book, and a greasy pizza.

However, glammed up maybe not quite to the nines, but at least a solid seven in a shimmering, mint-green dress, I was ready and waiting when Adam knocked on the door.

‘Wow,’ he breathed, leaning in to kiss my cheek. ‘Every time I see you it bowls me over again.’

‘You scrub up pretty well yourself,’ I said, which was an understatement. It wasn’t simply the dinner jacket combined with floppy hair swept back and smooth skin freshly shaven. Adam was glowing with an energy that I’d not seen in him for years. I felt a prickle of unease that this might be due to me, even as I half hoped that by the end of the evening I’d be feeling it too.

There was only one way to find out. I took hold of his offered hand and followed him to the waiting taxi.

We spent most of the evening talking about the events of the day. I sensed that Adam was deliberately keeping things off the topic of our future, which I appreciated. We ate the fancy five-course meal at a table for two in a discreet corner of the glittering room, although various acquaintances did come over and offer their complicated fist-bumps of congratulations for the video, which had now gone stratospheric. Some of them I recognised, but all of them Adam introduced me to, making it clear that he was with me as he laughed off invitations to join them at a poker game, or for shots at the bar.

‘No, thanks, mate.’ He grinned at a guy called Cisco who’d tried to talk him into joining the band onstage to perform ‘Outside the Box’. ‘Bea and I were about to dance.’

Cisco was almost as dumbfounded as me.

‘You can do the song,’ I said as Adam pulled me onto the dance floor. ‘I’d actually love to hear it live.’