She walked through, her flip-flops slapping on the stone-flagged floor. An extravagant statement of space for space’s sake, everything was textured and layered: the rough-plastered walls, the exposed brickwork, her nose detecting the fragile scent of essential oils before her eyes found the extravagant sprays of white tuberose arranged in splayed planters in alternate arches, strategic lighting illuminating them in moody golden pools. In contrast to the untouched, old-world traditional feel of the main house, with its mounted bulls’ heads and dark portraiture, this wing felt impressive by its very unshowiness, an exercise in architectural restraint, an Axel Vervoordt dreamscape.

A uniformed woman carrying a bundle of towels suddenly emerged from one of the doors on the right, stopping as she caught sight of Charlotte and the yoga mat tucked under her arm. ‘The gym is the fourth door on the left, Señora Fairfax,’ she said, making no sign of noticing her blotchy face.

‘Thank you,’ Charlotte nodded, walking away quickly. She glanced in as she passed, at the room the woman had just left – Marina was lying on a massage table, her bare shoulders visible above the sheet, her dark hair swept up in a topknot. Her eyes were closed, gentle music playing quietly, and Charlotte wondered how she was coping with all of this. Did she know this was all an illusion? A seduction? For a woman used to working two jobs – a woman who, a little more than twenty-four hours ago, had walked back in slippers from the laundromat with wet clothes she couldn’t afford to dry – this was a severe dislocation from normal life: chauffeur-driven cars, a private jet, five-star bedroom and now a private spa treatment. It would read well for now, and for the next few months, as she got used to the idea that this was rightfully hers and that she was family, not merely a visitor. She was one of the famed Mendozas too.

But six months from now, or a year, when the novelty began to pall and the days began to stretch endlessly, when she no longer had to do anything . . . that was when the trouble would begin. Charlotte knew it even though she did not, and she felt sorry for her; this wasn’t the fairytale ending Marina assumed it to be.

Charlotte stepped into the gym, stopping momentarily to absorb the state-of-the- art equipment. There was a Pilates Reformer machine, which she knew from experience was also a torture device, aerial yoga slings and even an anti-gravity treadmill. But the visitor’s eye was inexorably drawn to the lines of this impressive space, not the equipment within it, those same arches outside in the hall here glazed with giant crittall windows that gave onto the grounds. The glass was tinted a smoky colour, keeping the room cool and subdued, and she rolled out her mat in front of one of them, determined to harness her frantic thoughts and calm her racing mind.

She needed to focus, eliminate the noise. She lay flat, her palms facing the ceiling. She closed her eyes and tried to find her centre, to imagine her breath as a white light rolling through her – starting in her feet and working up, all the way through. But when she got to her torso, her heart, the light stopped as though blocked.