Liam hadn’t bought it. Quite literally. They had both left the meeting in shock, Clover unable to believe Liam wouldn’t back her and Liam stunned that she’d go ahead without him. For months afterwards they had each believed the other would backtrack but now here she was, on a train winding through the Austrian countryside, gathering speed towards her target.

Her tummy fizzed again. Pitching the idea and actually delivering on it were two different things. Day in, day out for the next six weeks, she, Matty and Johnny were going to be living with the man they had come to loathe – and who loathed them. But if this project was going to work – and the remortgage on her flat meant it had to – she would need to find some neutral ground; show him they were, if not friends, at least not outright enemies either. She had a job to do. There was no place for personal emotion here.

To her surprise, despite Foley’s pivotal but off-stage role in Pipe Dreams, she had quickly realized she didn’t know much about him, beyond the tabloid headlines. Her focus till now had only been on what he’d done and not who he was.

That had all changed. For six months, she and Matty had researched everything there was to know about the man. She had sat through thousands of hours of surf competition footage, watching the heats, the post-comp interviews. She had watched him grow from a pre-teen prodigy to a young gun scooping up trophies like they were sweets. He had gone pro at fourteen and won his first world title at sixteen, but even as a very young man he had been guarded and seemingly old for his years. He was always professional, terse and brief. Difficult to interview.

‘You okay?’

Matty was looking over at her from the chair opposite. Her gaze fluttered lightly towards Clover’s legs and Clover realized she had been frantically jigging her leg against her seat.

‘Yeah, fine.’ Clover uncrossed her legs and placed her hands under her thighs instead. She looked out of the window. The distant mountains were gradually drawing closer, their white-capped peaks already beginning to pitch into high relief, revealing steep gullies and glistening glaciers.

‘Have you updated our new friends on the delay?’ Matty asked her. They had spent two hours on the tarmac at Heathrow, having missed their slot thanks to an errant crew member.

‘Of course.’ Clover nodded. ‘I told them not to hang back for us and that we’d make our own way to the chalet.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Nothing. They didn’t reply.’

Matty’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh. Nice. Great start.’

They all looked at one another apprehensively. Matty was biting her lip. Johnny looked sick.

‘Don’t look so nervous. It’ll be fine,’ Clover said, trying to rally them.