We sat in companionable silence, drinking tea and watching the outline of Italy melt away until an unseen mobile phone pinged loudly. Juliette flipped her legs off the railing and onto the floor, arching, cat-like, to pull a tiny flip phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. She read the message and sucked her bottom lip into her mouth, chewing on it thoughtfully.

‘Everything OK?’ I asked.

She stood and slid the glass door open wordlessly, leaving me alone on the terrace, but the look on her face was enough to answer my question. I placed our teacups back on their saucers, neatly folded the napkins and followed her inside. I had an excellent radar for disaster and could tell to within a one percent margin of error when the proverbial shit was about to hit the proverbial fan. Given the set of Juliette’s jaw and the two hard lines carved between her eyebrows, I was fairly certain someone somewhere was about to hurl an entire sack full of faeces at my new boss.

‘I’m going to take a nap,’ she announced, still staring at her miniature phone and practically vibrating with rage. Whatever was in that text was not good news and whatever she was about to do, it was not sleep.

‘Anything I can do to help?’ I asked.

Juliette looked up at me with dark, flat eyes, all her easy smiles and warm looks gone.

‘Yes,’ she said, marching over to the suite doors and holding one open. ‘You can leave.’

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘OH MY GOD YOU’RE IN ITALY?’

I held my phone as far away from my ear as I could, which wasn’t actually very far since I was hiding in the back of my wardrobe, wincing as Jess screeched down the line.

‘Tell me everything. Do not leave out a single detail. I thought the job was in London?’

‘The interview was in London,’ I explained, stretching out one leg and then the other. It really was an absurdly roomy wardrobe. ‘But it turned out the job itself is in Italy.’

‘Who are you working for?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘Tell me immediately.’

NDA aside, it wouldn’t be fair to ask Jess, a woman who could tell you the shoe size of every member of Little Mix, past and present, to keep a secret of this magnitude.

‘I can’t,’ I replied. ‘You saw the contract, I can’t say a word. All I can tell you is I’m assisting a celebrity while they perform at a charity event. And I’m on a yacht.’

Jess screamed at the top of her voice. ‘Oh my god, you’re with Juliette.’

‘What? How did you know?’ I pulled a spare blanket over my head in case there were hidden microphones as well as hidden cameras in the cabin. ‘I mean, no, I’m not. I have confirmed nothing and cannot be held responsible in a court of law.’