He turned away, ball pulsing in his jaw as he steadied his breathing and she watched as he stretched his fingers straight, visibly forcing them out of a fist. He took a deep breath and leant down to the ignition, starting up the engine again. ‘Just stay away from me, Lotts, and let me do my job.’

Did he know he’d said it? The sound of her pet name in his voice . . . she went cold, goosebumps rippling on her skin, the past keeping pace with them again. She saw the slip register on his features, surprise and then anger flitting over them.

‘I’ll finish up as soon as I can and then we will never have to see each other again. Until then, we will have to tolerate the situation, which I am doing my level best to do; as far as I’m concerned, you’re not even in this car right now.’

It was another moment before she could speak. ‘. . . Right. Got it,’ she said in a half-whisper.

He straightened the car up and drove her the rest of the way in silence, dropping her off at the gleaming plane that was refuelled and waiting for her on the airstrip. She got out without a word and he drove off without looking back. Within five minutes, she was up in the sky, tears she couldn’t stop streaming down her cheeks, as she looked out of the window in fragile stillness, her gaze casting down over a field of grazing donkeys, over striped parcels of olive groves, over a red dot that was moving silently and ever further away through the Andalusian landscape.

Chapter Eighteen

London

‘Oh my God, I have literally been having kittens,’ Mouse cried as she ran through the door into the suite three hours later. ‘What happened? You said you’d be here at seven?’

‘And I was,’ Charlotte panted, throwing down her bag and giving her sister a quick hug. She looked sensational in her acid-yellow pleated dress with pale-pink lace inserts, her long brown hair worn back in some sort of intricate but edgy braid. ‘There was a security alert at Whitechapel and half of Embankment’s got roadworks. I’ve just spent ninety minutes sitting in a cab, stuck in bloody traffic. Where’s Ma?’

‘Downstairs with your dearly beloved and the outlaws, trying to pretend everything’s tickety-boo.’ She poured a glass of Dom Perignon and handed it to her. ‘Here, bolt that.’

Charlotte did as she was told, feeling the worst of her agitation begin to dim. Mouse, for all her histrionics and dramas, was the one person who could read her, reach her.

‘So how’s this?’ Mouse held up a dress on a hanger – black silk chiffon with a pink rosebud print, it had a crossover bust, translucent skinny sleeves and long flowing skirt.

Charlotte smiled, feeling her shoulders drop another inch. It was good to be back. ‘Nailed it! Sis, you are a star.’

‘Yes, well, someone had to take charge. Clearly you’d have just . . . worn that,’ she replied, taking in Charlotte’s creased khaki linen shorts and white shirt. ‘Matty thought it’d suit you. She said she’d been holding it back for you anyway.’