Because the apartment we are renting is owned by a formidable woman named Esmerelda, who carries her rosary beads like a weapon. With hips that fill a doorway and lines so deep between her brows, she is not someone to be trifled with. She stood in the tiny makeshift kitchen that consists of little more than a sink and hotplate when we first arrived, reeling off a long list of rules (all in French, none of which I understood but Antoine said were mainly about no parties and no cats), all the while looking me up and down. Her gaze rested on the third finger of my left hand, before she disappeared with a curt “bon,” followed by a door slammed shut.

Antoine has told me I can stay for as long as I want, or at least until I finish my book. He isn’t charging me a penny in rent and sleeps on the sofa, while I get the (rather lumpy) bed. All I have to give in return is my agreement to go along with the lie he has told—that we are, in fact, engaged to be married. He says we can have a massive row whenever I feel the time has come for me to leave. That he will accept full responsibility for cheating on me with a woman called Sophia. He is obsessed with Sophia Loren, and often steals my block of mascara to paint flicks on his upper lids, then marches up and down the full length of the apartment (which takes twenty steps at most), muttering indecipherable Italian, which I suspect is nothing more than swear words and nonsense.

I’m not used to such a way of life. With no responsibility, no demands on my time. Free to come and go as I please. To fill my days with long, lazy walks along the seafront. Staring at the mixture of boats—some old, some new, some battered and worn, others pristine and clinical.

Only I’m not very good at doing nothing. Clearly I won’t end up a trophy wife, sipping champagne on one of those yachts with a sugar daddy for a husband (Antoine, on the other hand, would slot into that lifestyle without so much as a moment’s hesitation). So I’ve found myself a job, waitressing in the bar of one of the overpriced hotels along the coast. All I have to do is clear away empty glasses, smile at all the wealthy Americans and Englishmen who are holidaying here before heading back to the banks of New York and London. Of course, the work will dry up now the summer is fading fast, but Antoine assures me it won’t be a problem as there’s always someone here with money to spend.

Part of me is afraid to ask how he knows this. Part of me is afraid to ask about where he goes the nights he doesn’t come home. Because I love him, but in a completely innocent way. Like siblings who bicker and fight but then laugh so much it makes my belly hurt.