‘Jeanie, you’re such a legend!’ Patsy whooped as Luis moved in towards her, his teeth carefully biting half of the cherry, his lips brushing against Jeanie’s. My God, he smelled amazing. It took every ounce of Jeanie’s restraint not to clamp her hands around his face so that he had to stay there, mouth pressed to hers even longer.

‘Wooo! Get a room!’ Kate sniggered, applauding as Luis broke free with a grin, having bitten suggestively through the cherry.

‘Delicious,’ he declared, licking his lips to the women’s cheers.

The next slice of time was even more shadowy in Jeanie’s memory. Patsy and Kate must have disappeared off to bed at some point – she couldn’t remember this happening – but then she and Luis were left alone. Jeanie had never seduced a man before, not even Harry. She had always felt too prim and respectable for that sort of thing, and Harry’s striped Marks and Spencer pyjamas were not exactly the signal for sparks of passion.

But that night, she felt different. She felt womanly; attractive and self-confident, with her new hairdo and her bright clothes and all the make-up she’d put on at the start of the evening. This was the new daring Jeanie, who said yes to everything, rather than I probably shouldn’t. And it was this Jeanie who took Luis by the hand and said, ‘Would you like to come up to my room for a nightcap?’

Looking back, she wasn’t sure that Luis’s English was good enough for him to even know what a nightcap was, but he certainly understood the subtext. ‘If you are sure?’ he queried doubtfully, ever the gentleman, before she’d said, ‘Oh, I’m sure’ and rose, swayingly, to her feet.

Oh, Jeanie. Jeanie, Jeanie, Jeanie. She barely remembered getting up to her room – had she lunged at him in the lift, tried to kiss him? – but somehow or other they had arrived on the seventh floor and she’d fumbled her door open, so that they were in her bedroom. The bed had been made up, as usual, by the chambermaids, and the curtains pulled shut against the night. ‘So here we are,’ Jeanie said, trying to act seductive as she sank down onto the bed. Again she patted the space beside her. ‘Luis?’

He sat down and she took his hand. ‘You are a very handsome man,’ she slurred. ‘Much more handsome than Harry.’ Damn it, she shouldn’t have mentioned Harry. Why was she even thinking about Harry, when this was her big, wild moment?

‘And you are also very beautiful,’ he replied, smiling into her eyes. ‘Although perhaps I should go now. It is late and . . .’