‘Ria – may I introduce Matt please?’ Millie says as she offers me a tray of hors d’oeuvres. Matt is in the same polo shirt as Millie and very much in the same mould although older – immaculately groomed and with a fixed smile.

‘I’m the rep for Snow Snow within the resort,’ he says, shaking my hand. ‘We have five chalets here, as you may know, twenty throughout the Alps, but we like to pride ourselves on individual service. Is the chalet to your liking?’

‘Yes – it’s lovely,’ I say. ‘It’s even better in the flesh than in the pictures.’ I feel myself redden. I’m not sure why.

‘We’re particularly proud of this one – our most luxurious, even if it is one of the smaller ones,’ Matt says. ‘So how was your day today – did you get out on the slopes?’

‘I did for a while – it was very nice. And I enjoyed the hot tub too.’

His eyes almost imperceptibly flick up and down my body and I wonder if he is imagining me naked. Hugo comes over and puts his arm around my shoulders, but I shrug him off, pretending I’m reaching for a canapé.

‘Matt, this is Hugo,’ I say, deliberately not introducing him as my husband. Hugo shakes Matt’s hand and then starts boring on about the runs he and Simon did today, the specifications of his skis, the importance of various bits of kit and loads of other stuff that Matt no doubt has no desire to hear about.

I tune out for a while and when I turn my attention back to the conversation a few seconds (or minutes? Who knows?) later, the conversation has turned to how long Matt has worked in the resort and his plans for the future.

Eventually we sit down to dinner. I make sure I sit next to Matt – not because I particularly fancy him, but at least flirting with him will provide me with a distraction.

Dinner is amazing, again, and the wine is fabulous. I drink more than I should. Hugo won’t like me getting drunk, especially in front of a potential investor like Simon, but, well, whatever. I feel like drinking tonight and so I will. Getting drunk is the only way I’m going to get through the week, plus it’ll give me a good excuse to stay in bed tomorrow morning and not go to my boring ski lesson with boring Cass and listen to her bore on about her boring baby. Hugo is being pathetically sycophantic, laughing at Simon’s crap jokes in between glaring angrily at me when he thinks no one is looking.