‘I definitely don’t think a man like that is a riot in the sack, put it that way. I’ll bet he’s never had to even try to get a woman into bed,’ Sharon mused.

She stabbed at the sharing plate between them.

‘The best ones are like my Luke. He didn’t become hot until he was twenty-nine and grew into his lanky frame and started to see a proper barber. Before that he was so unlucky in love that he didn’t have sex until he was twenty-five. Not even third base. He was a proper Chris Martin type. Don’t tell him I told you that.’

‘Luke lost his virginity at twenty-five?’ Penny said, amazed. ‘How old was he when you met him?’

‘Thirty-one. But because he’d never been hot, he worked really hard at sex and it was all about me. You know how with some men it’s like, the script is three minutes kissing, one minute rubbing over your trousers, two minutes oral and then he sticks it in until he comes, because that’s the objective? That he comes?’

‘Depressingly, the answer to that question is yes.’

‘Not with Luke. He’d be down there all afternoon if I asked him to. Just wants me to have a good time. And from the second or third time we were together I realized I was coming harder with him than anyone before because it never felt like a rush. He wasn’t getting my pleasure out of the way so that he could get his own. It was as if just having me naked was the pleasure for him. I suppose because for fifteen years he didn’t really have that.’

‘Awwww! All he wanted was a naked woman in his bed and then he got you! I can’t believe I didn’t know all this!’

‘Ah,’ whispered Sharon. ‘I don’t like to brag.’

‘Yes you do,’ teased Penny.

‘Yeah,’ laughed Sharon. ‘I do.’

Penny kept stealing glances back in the direction of Francesco as they chatted, so much so that she’d angled her chair in a way that meant she didn’t have her back to him. She was sure he was looking at her, too.