‘That’s nice,’ she said, not wanting to reveal her mounting excitement. He really did seem to have something new. ‘Would you like to read it?’ She felt as if she was encouraging a small child.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to ask me some more questions instead?’ he asked teasingly.

Was the man mad? He was offering to read a short story, thus putting an end to the agony that was this interview and make literary history in one simple action!

‘Well, let’s ask the audience again, shall we?’ she said, confident that they’d back her up.

The ‘yes’ from the audience was deafening, but Dermot kept his gaze on Laura. She sneaked a look at him but she couldn’t guess how he was feeling.

‘Then that would be lovely,’ she said, as if accepting a second cup of tea.

‘OK then. Here goes.’

‘It’s wrong to play a game when the other person doesn’t know the rules, but somehow we find ourselves doing it all the time.’

His voice was so beautiful, and so sexy, at first Laura just enjoyed listening to the melodic sound of each eloquently expressed phrase without really taking in what he was actually saying, but gradually the story took shape in her mind and she listened more attentively.

‘At what point in the game do you confess? In the middle? Or at the end, when success feels like defeat? And hurting someone is inevitable?’

As he read on about commitment and letting someone down gently, Laura’s mouth went dry, blood coloured her cheeks scarlet and she thought she might faint. Was he talking about her? Had he written a short story about her, and their relationship, if it could be called a relationship?

The rest of the story passed through her ears without fully connecting with her brain. It was a defence mechanism, she decided, when she realised she couldn’t capture his words any more than she could catch thistledown. The odd word floated through slowly enough for her to grasp it. ‘Betrayal . . . passion’, and, cruelly, ‘hero-worship’.

The more he read the more she felt a chill clutch at her heart. He’d written about her, about them, about unrequited love and letting someone down gently. And he had read it out loud, to a room full of people. Why couldn’t he have just sent her an email? At least she could have read it in private.