‘This will do very well for now,’ said Isabelle. ‘I feel like I’m in a movie.’

‘You are, Princess.’ He came up behind her, put his arms round her waist and rested his chin on her shoulder. ‘Didn’t I promise you the world?’

‘You sure did.’ She wriggled back against him, glad of the warmth and human contact, and only experienced a slight pang of regret that the sexual spark had fizzled out so very quickly. Will was for the Rauls of this world, not for her. Just as well, she thought. It would only be distracting.

‘Will this do for starters?’

Isabelle looked down on Manhattan, the bustle of the streets, the dark branches of the trees bordering Central Park, here and there a flush of green.

‘I’ll take it.’

It had taken a good deal of fucking and drinking before Victoria felt that she had Joel exactly where she wanted him. Her first impressions were right – he was a cocky little sod, and seemed convinced that he was doing her a favour by allowing her to have sex with him. Still, he knew what he was doing, and as long as Massimo was withholding the pepper grinder she might as well keep the cobwebs at bay with a sexually voracious fitness professional who looked as if he had been carved out of marble. Very gratifying for the body, if somewhat less so for the self esteem, which took a bit of a battering every time Victoria lowered herself to boys like Joel. Oh, and he was a boy – treating her penthouse apartment like the kind of ghastly shared flat that he was doubtless more used to, taking the wine and the cabs and the meals for granted, expecting her to pick up after him and to tell him how good he was at everything. It gave her some satisfaction to know that he must have treated Christine exactly the same, or rather, given the greater disparity in their ages, even worse.