Turning the pages, I scanned the instructions in the other sections and at the bottom of each was the name and number of someone else to contact for further information, three hairdressers, a stylist, personal chef, Pilates instructor, vocal coach, dietician, driver, four different kinds of doctor, an aesthetician, a nurse practitioner, a holistic practitioner, a tarot card reader, and a witch.

Every single phone number had been crossed out.

‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation,’ I told myself, closing the ring binder and ignoring my racing pulse. ‘Maybe she’s downsizing and realized an on-call witch doesn’t spark that much joy.’

Staring out the window at the sea, I took a deep breath in. I’d been so busy losing my mind over The Songbird’s incredible amenities, I’d forgotten the facts. I was one of those amenities.

Lenny wasn’t wrong. Juliette wasn’t like most people, she was a megastar. Even someone as useless with music as I was knew most of her songs off by heart, because they were always playing somewhere. But beyond that I really didn’t know anything about her. Was there a brief Hollywood marriage that ended badly, or was that someone else? A scandal with a prince? I knew it wasn’t Juliette who had hit the car with the umbrella, but there was definitely something I was forgetting. Jess, a living pop culture encyclopaedia, would know but I couldn’t ask her, not unless I wanted Sarah to sue me senseless.

Looking at the long, long list of instructions it seemed very obvious to me that Juliette didn’t need an executive assistant, she needed a glorified babysitter, and seeing as I’d been sacked from that particular job when I was fourteen after my two-year-old cousin rolled off the settee and into the dog, things did not bode well.

‘If only I’d watched more Below Deck,’ I whispered. ‘Then I’d know what to do when things go tits up on a boat.’

As much as it pained me to admit it even to myself, I was going to need help. I was going to need Lenny. But before I could pick up the phone, I felt a strange shaking sensation, as though I’d been pushed onto an ice rink even though I was still in my chair, safe and steady but not quite stable. I glanced out of the window and saw the boats on either side of us pulling away from The Songbird, only it wasn’t the other boats that were moving, it was us.

We’d undocked.

My luxury cabin slowly transformed into a gilded cage as an unwelcome sense of dread settled around my shoulders. There was no way out now.