I jumped as Liv made her announcement the following day, suddenly appearing by my table in Starbucks, sounding far brighter than I felt. ‘What?’ I asked sleepily as I took another long drink of my vanilla iced latte. She sat down opposite me with her iced coffee and handed me one of the muffins she had bought. I felt sluggish with jet lag. Once I’d got through Heathrow and found my case, Jake had disappeared so I got the Tube by myself to my flat, where I slunk into my bedroom, closed the door and flopped on my bed.

I had felt a weird twinge then. There was no one in my shared flat waiting for me to come home, no one to debrief the trip with, and I had let self-pity wash over me. I’d slept most of the day so I’d struggled to sleep at night. Liv had suggested a coffee so I’d crawled out of my flat to meet her at lunchtime, keen to see a friendly face again. And to talk about work tomorrow because I was really nervous at having to see Jake again and act like we’d been nothing to one another in New York. Hayley could never find out about us but it was going to be so hard to move past the feelings I’d been starting to have for him.

Liv had a sip of her coffee then propped her elbows up on the table to look at me. ‘It’s about our least favourite person – Davis Mulberry.’

‘What about him?’ I asked, pushing through my sluggish mind in a panic. I didn’t want to ever see or hear about Davis Mulberry again but if he had been gossiping about me and Jake… ‘What happened?’ I demanded of Liv.

‘After we left the end-of-conference party, all hell broke loose, apparently. Tessa phoned me before I came to meet you to tell me about it. We missed a scandal. Typical that I had to leave for my flight and you… Actually, why did you leave the party early? Were you with Jake?’ She wriggled her eyebrows suggestively.

‘No!’ I snapped.

Her face fell.

I couldn’t bear to tell her about me and Jake ending just yet so I waved my hand. ‘Sorry. Jet lag is killing me. What did Davis do and say?’ I asked, really hoping he hadn’t mentioned us. Hayley hadn’t said anything, though and surely, she would have if she had found out?