‘Do you need a pen?’ Charlotte asked her, holding out her own, a silver Mont Blanc, engraved with her initials.

Marina took it, her hand trembling slightly.

Charlotte stood up and stepped back, ostensibly giving her a final moment’s consideration, not wanting to crowd her. But as she quietly paced away towards the windows – her hand trailing on the bookcase, gaze tripping lightly over the photographs there – she felt her own tension pitch, for a signature on that contract did more than change Marina’s life; it would change hers too. With the offer secured and the Mendoza fortune firmly protected within Steed Bank’s vaults, she could leave here tonight and return to London, to Stephen and to the life she had carefully, quietly curated until this week.

She would never see Nathan Marling again. He had left without a backward glance and so must she; it had been a last tumble into bed for old times’ sake, a chance to say a final goodbye, that was all. Their lives had moved on and she didn’t belong here, she didn’t belong with him, no matter what her heart said. His life was in Madrid, hers in London. One signature and she could go home . . .

She felt her heart hold its beat as she heard the first scratch of the nib make contact with the paper and she closed her eyes, waiting for the axe to fall.

Marina handed her the helmet but Charlotte just looked at it. ‘I’m not getting on that thing until you tell me where we’re going. What is this all about?’

‘The truth.’

‘The truth about what?’

‘Just trust me.’

‘Marina—’

‘I am not signing unless I am clear what is going on and you said I cannot have time tonight to consider it.’ She shrugged. ‘Therefore you must come with me now.’

Charlotte sighed, exasperated and frustrated. It had been a long and devastating day and she had needed this evening’s meeting to be a coup de grâce on this whole Madrid episode, not a drawn-out torture. ‘This is crazy.’

Marina put her own helmet on, fastening it under the chin as she pinned her with a wry look. ‘You think this is the crazy part? It’s all nuts to me,’ she quipped.

Charlotte pulled the helmet on and straddled the back of the moped.

‘Have you ever been on one of these before?’ Marina asked over her shoulder.

Charlotte looked down at the dented, scratched black moped with a Greenpeace sticker on it. ‘Not sober.’

The older woman chuckled. ‘It is easy. Just hold on.’

‘How far are we going?’ she asked, loosely lacing her arms around Marina’s waist as the bike roared into life and Marina kicked out the stand.

‘Only a few hours or so.’

‘A few hours?’ Charlotte spluttered. It was hard to tell whether it was Marina laughing or the vibrations of the engine that she could feel, but regardless, they glided out of the narrow side street and back onto the main drag. They passed the Ronaldo mural and the football fans’ cafe, the laundromat where Charlotte had inadvertently found her, the warring couple now long gone.