So she was out in the street. How long before they put a stop on her salary as well? Another six months? Three months? One? She was in freefall, without a parachute.

Rivelli had lost – the trial, his reputation, perhaps his fortune. Janet would demand, and get, millions in settlement. The legal fees would be astronomical, and the taxman would get the rest. Rivelli was sinking fast, and he was throwing everything overboard in a desperate struggle to keep afloat. Over the side went the properties, the companies, the speedboats and cars – everything would have to go to pay for his misdemeanours and keep him out of jail. Goodbye, penthouse flat in Kensington. Au revoir, Le Mûrier. Arrivederci, Victoria.

And now Janet was sitting pretty in that huge house in Surrey with more money than she would ever know what to do with, while Victoria could count herself lucky to get a room in a shared flat in zone four. She would grow old and ugly in a squalid tower block overlooking a railway line, dressing herself in worn-out designer dresses, getting the bus up to town to sit in pubs and sweet-talk drinks and meals out of short-sighted elderly men . . .

This would not do. She was not some clapped-out old tart in a post-war novel – she was Victoria Crabtree, taste maker, opinion former, fashion muse, talented painter (said Leanne) and once considered a promising journalist. She was young enough to start again. And not, this time, as the plaything of some man who would dump her at the first sight of trouble. This time she would make it on her own terms, men be damned. And while she was waiting to launch her art career, she would return to journalism, pick up where she left off, brush up her contacts and place a few features; she’d soon be back in the swing of it, reporting from the shows, interviewing the stars and the up-and-coming talent, doing the rounds of the launches and lunches as she did before Massimo sidetracked her . . .

What a fool she’d been! What a blind, wasteful fool! All that talent, all that hard work thrown away for what? For an illusion. A dream, and a bad dream at that. Massimo Rivelli, and all that bunch of sad married businessmen with their stale breath and flatulence and piles that hung around Adele’s sordid knocking shop like ghosts at the feast – she didn’t need them any more. The scales had fallen from her eyes. Being evicted was the best thing that could have possibly happened to her. A wake-up call. And now it was time to start living – on her own terms.

But first things first. She phoned Leanne Miller, and asked her if she could stay in her spare room for a while. Leanne was absolutely delighted to have her.