Jogging down the stairs, she crossed over to the other side of the quad to which they had walked with Mayra earlier. Apparently the gym was in one of the two wings flanking it, but which? This wasn’t a hotel, it wasn’t like there were signs.

Her phone rang as she popped her head in one doorway to her right and saw it was a drawing room: red velvet chairs, half-panelled walls, a wide fireplace and a worn tiled floor. No, not there.

‘Hello?’ she said quietly, switching left instead and finding a door that opened onto a covered veranda, the open garden beyond it, lawns rolling away into the distance and dotted with the shadows of almond trees. Nope.

‘What the hell is going on, Charlotte?’ Stephen asked, his voice strained; she could tell he was trying not to shout. ‘You’re not picking up your phone, you’re not returning calls.’

She stopped walking in panic. Stephen! In all the upset of dealing with Nathan last night, she had forgotten to call and update him with her new arrangements. It had slipped her mind completely as she’d worked her way through another bottle of rosé, trying to forget the hardness in his voice and how readily he was trying to turn his back on her. ‘Oh God, I know, I’m so sorry, it’s been so frantic—’

‘Enough with the frantic! I don’t give a damn how busy your work is. We have got a hundred people arriving in a few hours to celebrate with us, and you are nowhere to be found. Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? I’ve been going out of my mind. You were supposed to be back yesterday! No one could get hold of you – not your mother, not even Mouse.’

‘I know. I – I meant to call.’ She had turned her phone off for the flight.

‘So? What happened?’

She closed her eyes. Nathan had happened. Her past had stepped into her present and sucker-punched her off her feet. She had left her phone in her bag and walked straight to the glasses cabinet, piled into a bottle of Mirabeau and tried to block out all the memories of Nathan, her father . . . ‘I promise, I’m leaving shortly. I just had to fly down here with the clients to settle them in but I’m—’

‘Fly down where? Are you telling me you’re not even in Madrid? Where the hell are you?’

‘. . . Andalusia.’

‘Anda—? Fucking hell, Charlotte!’ He never swore.

‘But it’s okay. I’m leaving again at five. We’re landing at quarter to six local time at City and I’ll have a car take me straight to the hotel. I’ll be there by seven.’

‘. . . Seven? This is bloody ridiculous.’ She could hear that he was speaking through clenched teeth, struggling to regain self-control.

‘Stephen, I’ll make it up to you, I promise.’

He scoffed. ‘Make it up to me? Christ, don’t do me any favours! I had assumed you were glad to be marrying me. That you were happy about it.’