‘So, will I finally get to meet your mother when we get back to England?’ Jaya asked, stroking one of her hands with the other, drawing attention to her new manicure. ‘Mothers love me, you know, I’m great with moms.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, I doubt there’ll be time, especially if you want to go shopping on Oxford Street – the sales will be on, remember,’ Quinn said.

Jaya paused, her eyes drifting off into space. He’d thrown her by mentioning the sales, but she gave her head a brisk shake, exorcising the distraction.

‘Isn’t she curious about me?’ she asked, tilting her head and smoothing a hand through her hair. ‘I’d want to meet the girl monopolising my son’s time and attention.’ When Quinn didn’t respond, Jaya pouted, ‘Don’t you want her to meet me? All those times you scurry up to London at a moment’s notice, and you never take me with you.’

Quinn hadn’t mentioned Jaya to his mother. He’d told her he was going to India with a group of friends. Quinn buried his head in the wine list and the wine waiter appeared at just the right moment.

‘Oh, much better,’ said Jaya, raising her eyebrows at Quinn and looking the waiter up and down to convey how happy she was with his height. She leant in and touched Quinn’s wrist. ‘You will give them plenty of notice, won’t you?’ He looked up to see she was staring intently at him. ‘If there is any particular moment we’d like him to come back and capture. It’s just too perfect a setting not to have it recorded.’

She narrowed her eyes as though trying to convey some secret code. Quinn’s dark eyebrows furrowed in confusion, then he went ahead and ordered an eye-wateringly expensive bottle of Meursault. The import prices here were criminal, but it was their last meal out. As Quinn closed the wine list, he glanced down and saw Jaya stroking her clove and orange scented hands and it hit him.

No.

Why would she think that? Surely she couldn’t think that? They’d been dating a matter of months, why the hell would she think that? Maybe he was wrong. He had to be wrong. Of course he was wrong. As he looked back into her smiling eyes, he knew it – he wasn’t wrong. She thought he was about to propose.