‘You can only attend so many funerals before you start doing the maths,’ he said eventually. ‘Besides, by the time I got clean I’d left quite the trail of destruction.’ He counted down his crimes. ‘I’d been disinherited, divorced, I was unemployable… It’s a sorry old laundry list, Rachel. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll stop there.’ He gave that smile again, the smile of a man who’d spent a lifetime revelling in the effect he had on women. ‘The fact is, you’re far too good at drawing out my most grisly secrets.’

‘Just to be clear, I charge eighty pounds a session,’ I said, holding his gaze and flipping my palm outwards. This was another kind of muscle memory for me. It was probably the most dangerous addiction of all, but its ability to numb the pain, even briefly, was second to none. Arthur leaned forward, his fingertips momentarily spiralling across the circle of bare flesh I’d offered up to him.

‘You’re selling yourself short,’ he said softly.

There was truth to that statement, and we both knew it. Neither of us spoke, both of us waiting for the silence to break.

‘There you are!’ said Amber, the sharpness of her tone puncturing the quiet. She’d crept into the room, was watching us. How long had she been there? I slid my body backwards across the sofa, instantly guilty.

‘Well, hello!’ said Arthur, with none of my unease. ‘We were just about to come and hunt down supper. This one needed a moment to clear her head after the emotional marathon she ran earlier.’

Amber didn’t speak immediately, too busy scanning the picture that we painted together. I cringed under the weight of her gaze, the disappointment she must surely be feeling in me. I was here to be healed by her, not to trash her generosity of spirit by indulging my very worst impulses.

‘It’s on the table,’ she said, clipped. Then she crossed to the sofa, unexpectedly wrapping my head against her belly. ‘If you were struggling, you only had to come and find me, you silly girl,’ she cooed, her fingers tangling themselves up in my hair. ‘I’m the one you should come to when it hurts too much. I thought you knew that by now.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I muttered, my words lost in the cocoon of fabric and flesh that she’d pushed me into, my face suddenly wet with tears. My nostrils filled with the smell of her – not with that familiar, sophisticated spritz of rose that she always wore, but with something more primal, more dangerous. A musk that was entirely Amber’s own.