Will had told her that the men in New York were the handsomest in the world, by which she had assumed that they would all be gay – but, apparently, these ones were straight, or giving a damn good impression of it. They seemed to know all about fashion, which was usually a no-no, and not one of them had the high street wardrobe and lack of personal grooming that made the likes of Dan Parker stand out as the only heterosexual in Hoxton. They were beautifully but not ostentatiously dressed, and some of them even allowed their eyebrows to grow the way nature intended, which, in this world, was little short of revolutionary. They complimented Isabelle on her success, they predicted great things for her, and none of them seemed to want anything other than the pleasure of her company. None of them wanted to tell her that they, too, were putting together their first collection and would, like, really value her opinion not to mention the contents of her address book. They never suggested that her success meant that her designs were second rate and that real talent never got recognised by the commercial mainstream. They didn’t even seem to want to be seen with her just because she was black. In short, it all made a very refreshing change from being in London. It was as good as a holiday. All this attention was going to Isabelle’s head, and she struggled to find witty, original things to say – so when one of the models from the instore event dragged her off to the ladies’ room and insisted that they would both benefit greatly from just the tiniest bump of Ketamine, Isabelle was quick to follow. When in Rome . . .

It did the trick. Before she knew it she was back on the dance floor, moving better than she usually did, and being fabulously witty, not that anybody could possibly have heard what she was saying, but they laughed anyway. There was a particularly attentive young man called Marco, wearing a black pleated shirt undone almost to the navel, who danced like a professional and seemed to fit with her extremely well – they made a good couple – the music got louder and faster and higher and harder, and they danced and danced and danced, even when her unsteady feet hit the pavement – sorry, the sidewalk, she giggled – she was still dancing, dancing in the lift all the way up to the twenty-fourth floor, dancing her way out of her clothes and into the shower and on to the bed, where they were still dancing, sort of, but horizontally.

‘Good news, good news, good news, good news, good news,’ said Will, bursting into her room the next morning with a sheaf of faxes and printouts. ‘Oh, sorry Princess. I didn’t realise you had company. I’ll leave if you . . . Oh! Marco! Hi, how’s it going?’