She let the compliment slide, far preferring the combat of the insult. ‘Unimaginative, huh?’ She walked towards him, letting her dress fall. ‘I’ll show you how imaginative I can be—’

The sound of footsteps passing made her look up. Mayra popped her head in. ‘Please feel free to use the house, walk the grounds and explore the estate: there is the golf course on the western boundary, horses if you like to ride, tennis, and of course the spa: there is a masseuse on call should you wish for a treatment. Señor Mendoza entreats you to feel at home here.’

‘Thank you, Mayra,’ she nodded. ‘That’s very kind, but Mateo is sending the plane for me later. I have to return to London by this evening.’

‘But you are returning in the morning, I understand?’

‘Yes.’

The housekeeper nodded and slipped away, as further down the hall a door clicked shut.

She sat for a moment, wishing she could have a drink, something to take the edge off the morning’s revelation, but she got up instead. A shower would refresh her; travelling always left her feeling grubby. She walked into the en-suite, unbuttoning her blouse just as a door opposite opened – it had been all but obscured by a couple of fluffy robes hanging on it.

Nathan stared at her, a towel thrown over his shoulder. ‘What the . . . ?’

There was a moment of stunned surprise, followed by appalled understanding, and she watched as the unguarded look in his eyes was quickly veiled with cold hardness again. A Jack and Jill bathroom – how exactly was this supposed to work? Allotted times? A special knock?

Nathan stepped back. ‘After you.’

‘Thanks.’ She didn’t bother to politely protest and he didn’t bother to wait for it. And as she watched him retreat, she remembered her father correcting her when she was a little girl of a ‘common mistake’ – that it wasn’t hate that was the opposite of love. But apathy.

Chapter Fifteen

Charlotte walked down the hallway, her pale-blue lululemon yoga kit feeling anachronistically urban and millennial in the old dark house. She had no idea where the gym was but, as much as anything, this was a good excuse to explore. There was nothing else to do for the moment: Marina had texted from wherever she was in the estate to say her grandmother was resting and that she was staying in over lunch to keep check on her (Charlotte read that to mean they were both overwhelmed and hiding out in their rooms).

As for Nathan, she had spied him from the bathroom window as she stepped out of the shower, out on a run, her eyes alerted more by the plumes of dust kicked up by his feet on a dirt track than his distant figure pounding through the shades of the far-off oaks.

She had watched him until he had turned out of sight, heading deeper into the trees and towards some hills. He had always been a runner (although not – she thought – ever that fast), and at Cambridge he had deplored the lack of gradient and any sort of pitch against which to throw himself. But then he had always been something of an ascetic, clean-living and clear-eyed, associating the worth of reward with the degree of struggle first required. Perhaps that was why he had been so drawn to her in the beginning? She’d been his challenge, his struggle. They certainly had never made sense on paper. Everything about them was opposite – their backgrounds, their views, their taste in music and favourite foods – and yet face to face, it was as though their hearts were tethered as one, tied together like balloons on a string, pulling them along so that they could barely keep their feet on the ground, both of them running on tiptoes – until in the end she had broken free, torn herself from him, because he couldn’t help her in the way she needed; he couldn’t understand the one thing that determined everything in her world.