‘The deal is embargoed until tonight, but I hope this indicates our absolute faith in you and what we believe you are going to achieve in your new sport.’

There was a protracted pause, Kit’s eyes roaming over Julian’s face as if looking for signs of a trick. But Julian simply waited. Kit gave a sudden bright smile, reaching across the table and grasping Julian’s hand in an earnest shake. ‘. . . I’m stoked. Seriously stoked.’

Matty looked at Clover with bright eyes, relieved that for once, peace had broken out. Clover smiled too, but she was less taken in by Julian’s extravagance. Matty had relayed exactly this scoop to her last night – and if Julian was readily spilling his secrets, was Matty spilling theirs? It was in Julian’s best commercial interests to make sure they polished his star to a shine. What was Julian getting from her friend? And how?

Julian picked up his glass to make a toast – another one. ‘To bright horizons.’

‘Bright horizons,’ Clover murmured, watching as Julian’s gaze came to settle upon Matty again. New friends, bright horizons: he was having one hell of a week.

Clover watched the maître d’ hand back Julian his card. She wanted to weep with happiness. It was after midnight and a seemingly endless day. The wine had gone to her head, the waiters pouring too regularly for her to keep up, and although the tension of the evening had dissipated after Julian’s announcement, she still couldn’t get to her bed fast enough.

Matty’s nerves had dissolved too and if Kit had been oblivious to the flirtation between his sponsor and her researcher before, he wasn’t now. Several times Clover had caught him openly frowning at them both when one gave the other an outright compliment or they lapsed into a seemingly private joke.

Once, just for a moment, before he caught himself, Kit had looked over at her in astonishment. Julian had just told Matty she had the eyes of La Joconde and – mouth open, his eyes burning with scorching ribaldry – Kit had automatically looked over at Clover as an ally, one of his team to banter with. Her own incredulity had matched his so that her return smile had been automatic and for a single, blinding moment, they had been united in shared disdain. In that one moment, he wasn’t the guy who’d cut in front of Cory, forcing him into the water as the wave crashed down, but the hero she’d seen on the podiums and posters: dazzling, irrepressible, the world at his feet.