It’s odd, how we haven’t talked in any depth about breaking up. Maybe not so odd for us – our inability to communicate contributed considerably to our split. But it strikes me, now I’ve put my foot down, how surprisingly easy it was. How despite the hound dog face, Jordan has accepted as a fait accompli that we are done. All that angst, for all those months, and here we are.

‘Have a good night, Grace.’

‘Thanks.’

And out I go.

22

At the party, Faith arrives in a sexy gold slip, channelling her inner J Lo. Poppy, in a tiny beige dress and a feather headband, resembles Pocahontas. I’m unassuming by comparison in my trusted black dress but it’s much more me than all those frills and cleavage.

We’re inside and seated at a table for four when Harry texts to say he can’t get out of another engagement to join us. I’m still mortified at my behaviour – I hope I haven’t scared him off. Whether he noticed or not, I laid my feelings for him bare and they weren’t reciprocated. I’ll get over it. Though he’s my first professional agent, I can’t imagine anyone better than Harry. I can’t bear the thought of losing him altogether.

We’ve been here but half an hour when the second-to-last person I want to spend time with, behind Jordan, surfaces: Alex Sutcliffe. Looking dapper, and like the sheep in wolf’s clothing that he is, Alex saunters over with a blonde waif dangling off his arm. Introducing her – Matilda seems as sweet as she is beautiful – he jabbers on about how they can’t stay long as she’s due on a catwalk in Milan tomorrow. When they slink off into the crowd, Faith tells me she turned him down flat the night I left them in the pub. Alex was apparently quite plain with her that, although he has a long-term girlfriend, he’d be happy to go home and screw.

‘Cheating bastard,’ Faith says. ‘She’s stunning.’

‘Girl code,’ Poppy says.

‘I mean, be single and screw who you like,’ Faith goes on. ‘Why lie to someone you’re pretending to care about?’

For a split second, I wonder if Jordan ever cheated on me. I understand the temptation. I’d grown fond of Harry before I was officially single – the circumstances were extenuating, and I didn’t cheat and I hope I never would, but I didn’t exactly put the brakes on my budding attraction. It’s important to watch your thoughts, before they become actions, I remind myself. But it’s action that defines character.

‘Are we so surprised that Alex is an arse?’ I suggest.