Adele was tied to no one, dependent on no one. She took lovers as and when she felt like it, usually managing to convert them into friends rather than dumping them outright, and assembled around herself a salon of wealthy, powerful and influential men who gathered at her regular Tuesday-night soirées, there to discuss business, do discreet deals, and meet Adele’s ever-revolving circle of attractive female friends. It was chez Adele that Victoria had met Massimo Rivelli, and it was on Adele’s advice that she had snared him. But she had broken Adele’s First Law – she’d fallen in love with Massimo, and made herself vulnerable. Now, said Adele, she would never get the house, the allowance, the security that she craved. She had shown weakness in herself, and pity for her lover. She had shown her hand, and she could never win.

Adele advised a clean break while Victoria was still young enough to find a new lover, one who would treat her better, and more honestly, than Massimo. But, try as she might, Victoria couldn’t do it. More than once she’d prepared herself to drop the bombshell, to deliver the ultimatum – but Massimo had a way of wrongfooting her, and before she knew it she was more hopelessly in love than ever. She took her revenge with petty infidelities, knowing full well that such things never touched him. Massimo had his wife, of course – and Victoria was too much a woman of the world not to guess that he had other girlfriends stashed away. She was pretty certain that she was Mistress Number One, but she was surely not alone.

She went to the bathroom, turned on the hot tap and emptied half a bottle of moisturising bubbles under the flowing water. If she soaked for a while, and had something to eat, she might feel up to the five o’clock class – at least it would get her out of the house. While it was running, she fixed coffee and a chicken sandwich and checked her emails. There was one from Massimo, confirming dates of their next holiday – to Sardinia this time, closer than ever to Italy (at least they spoke the same language) – to stay at the house of a friend, with a view to selling Le Mûrier – the south of France was ‘too popular’, he said – and buying property on the island, perhaps near Porto Cervo, the new home for the truly wealthy. Well, she would miss Provence, the vulgarity of Saint-Tropez, the peace of Le Mûrier, the shops and bars and restaurants that she had come to love – but, if it brought her nearer to the epicentre of Massimo’s life, so much the better. She Googled a few images of the marina at Porto Cervo, imagined herself in one of those white houses on the hillside, looking down into the sapphire waters, sipping wine and making love through long, hot, lemon-scented afternoons. Did lemons grow on Sardinia? If not, what did? Olives? Grapes? Oranges? In any case, it looked beautiful. The perfect backdrop against which Massimo would kiss her on the back of the neck – his favourite place, after the more obvious ones – and whisper in her ear ‘Darling . . . I’ve got something to ask you . . . Will you be my . . .’