‘Massimo, I’m telling you that I’m carrying your child.’

At last, he turned. His face told her nothing.

‘Yes, I understand. It is a surprise.’

‘I hope it’s a nice surprise.’

He smiled – those teeth again.

‘Yes . . . Of course.’ He picked up the phone. ‘You must allow me to arrange a car for you.’

‘It’s all right, you know,’ she laughed. ‘I can still get around. I’m not even showing yet.’

‘How long?’

‘Nearly four months.’

‘Fashion Week?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have not told anyone.’

‘No.’ She had told Adele, and that was as good as taking out a full-page ad in The Times. ‘Of course not.’

‘Please, I must think. I will . . . Yes. I must . . .’

She stood; the desk was between them. ‘Massimo, I hope that you trust me, after all our years together.’

He smiled, cracked his knuckles. ‘Of course. If not you, then who can I trust?’ He looked straight into her eyes; his expression was unreadable. She wanted to kiss him, to kneel, to throw her arms round his legs and beg him to take her back, to take care of her.

‘Call me, Massimo. Just call me.’

She walked out to the lift, hearing the office door closing softly behind her.

The flat in Bethnal Green never felt like home, so it wouldn’t be hard to say goodbye. The studio – well, the studio was full of ghosts. London was full of ghosts. It wasn’t home any more. Home was where she’d grown up with a mother and a father and a brother, and all that was over and done with and in the past.

The future was Los Angeles and Mike Christian.

Mike, who picked Isabelle up at the Fashion Week show, who squired her around town and got her into the papers every day, and who promised to carry on where they left off when she got to LA for the Oscar nominations. They would be the new Power Couple – the singer and the designer, music and fashion, established and cutting-edge, irresistible. Okay, he had a bad relationship record, and, as Will was quick to point out, he’d shagged his way through most of Hollywood. But that was just jealousy talking. Will didn’t want her to go to LA without him.

Isabelle was going out for a week of meet-and-greet before the nominations – and, more importantly, for a week in the media spotlight as Mike Christian’s girlfriend, a new star in the firmament, young, gifted and black. When the time came to get one of her dresses up the red carpet outside the Kodak Theatre, she did not want anyone to say ‘Isabelle Who?’