I gave a nervous giggle and eyed the door. What happened in Belgium? I wanted to shriek. It was abundantly, sharply clear now that I was way out of my depth. It was wrong to lie to a family who’d lost their mother. It was wrong to parade as something that I wasn’t, despite how desperate I was. I placed a foot on the floor and lifted my hips off the chair, preparing myself to sprint the hell out of there.

‘Hello?’ a man’s voice called. I looked up and saw a figure in the French doors, silhouetted by celestial afternoon sunlight that was swelling in the garden. A tall, lean man in a smart navy polo shirt and chinos, dark, tousled hair flecked with silver, and a hint of beard. A slightly more upmarket, skinnier Colin Farrell, with rimless glasses and overlapping front teeth. He marched across the room towards me and extended a hand. A gold wedding band flashed in the light. ‘Tom Faraday,’ he said, grinning. ‘You must be Sophie. A pleasure to meet you.’

‘A pleasure to meet you too,’ I said.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Is that a Geordie accent?’

I hesitated. ‘Yes?’

He glanced at Maren. ‘Spend a lot of time in the north, did you?’

‘I … looked after a child from the north,’ my mouth said, while my brain tried to keep up. ‘She was homesick and so I adopted her accent to make her … less homesick.’ Phew. My excuse seemed to make sense. But I would have to curb my accent. Now that I thought about it, Sophie hadn’t sounded particularly northern.

A warm smile. ‘Well, that’s very kind of you. How long have you been nannying?’

‘Ten years,’ I blurted out. Lies, lies, lies, said my brain.

I was sure Maren would launch into questions about the specifics of this – who did I nanny, and where – but she merely smiled and said, ‘And if you had to describe your nannying style, what would you say?’

I tried to make up another lie, but a squeak came out.

I stood up. ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But is there a loo I could use?’

‘Certainly,’ Tom said, spinning around to his left. ‘Straight ahead, past the fridge. Oh, on second thoughts, best not as it’s still blocked. Kids and their toys … Use the one upstairs. Second door on the left.’

‘Thanks.’

I headed quickly upstairs and locked the toilet door behind me, then sat down with my head between my knees and groaned. What was I doing? What. Was. I. Doing?