Now, Ben poured some more of the expensive gel into his palm and lathered it up against her shoulders, until they were covered in smooth, silky bubbles. He was looking at her face all the while.

‘You are everything I’ve ever wanted,’ he said.

Tears came into Natalia’s eyes. ‘You are more than I ever could have dreamed possible,’ she replied.

They kissed for a long time in the steamy, scented water, until Natalia pulled away. She had a mischievous look about her.

‘So what shall we do with these?’ She picked up one of the intriguing-looking hosing devices.

By the time they had finished, half the water in the bath was on the floor and they were both flushed, panting and utterly spent. The words ‘post-coital bliss’ would have done their state of being an injustice.

Ben got out of the bath and held out a large, fluffy towel for Natalia to wrap herself up in.

‘Hmmm, you look after me so well,’ she said, kissing him again as he gently rubbed her down. ‘But what is the time? I do not want to be late for your friends.’

‘They’re your friends as much as mine,’ said Ben, kissing her again. ‘Probably more so now, considering.’

They had arranged to meet Poppy, Damian, Bella and Andy at the Cow, a lovely, cosy pub just around the corner from their hotel, for pre-Christmas drinks and lunch before they all went back home to their respective families. Ben was taking Natalia to meet the folks in Wales, and was looking forward enormously to showing off his Hitchcock blonde. Besotted as he was, it hadn’t occurred to him that his mother might not take too kindly to this older woman with a definitely suspect past getting her claws into her beautiful, beloved boy; but thereby hangs another tale.

Within half an hour, Natalia had got herself ready. After her brief flirtation with hippy-chic on Bottle Beach, she had reverted to the look with which she was most comfortable: über glamour. Not many women, Ben thought, could carry off white suede cigarette pants. She had teamed them with sky-high Louboutin ankle boots, an ice-blue cashmere polo-necked sweater and a chignon that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Grace Kelly.

Ben himself was successfully rocking the clean-cut preppy look in immaculately faded jeans under a navy-blue knee-length cashmere coat with a cashmere scarf draped around his neck.

‘Oh, my God!’ said Natalia as she turned around from perfecting her maquillage. ‘You look just like Robert Redford in that movie –’ She drew from her vast internal movie Rolodex – ‘Barefoot in the Park.’

‘Not such a hideous comparison.’ Ben smiled. ‘I’m happy with old Bob Redford. How do you feel about Grace Kelly?’

‘Grace Kelly?’ Natalia smiled at him in the mirror. ‘Yes, I think I am happy with that too.’

Bella and Andy were walking hand-in-hand down Portobello Road, both smiling from frozen ear to frozen ear. Bella was wearing a short white coat over a short caramel-coloured skirt over chocolate brown woolly tights underneath darker brown suede boots. Her long dark hair was flecked with snowflakes and her cheeks were flushed pink, glowing in the cold. The appealing coffee-and-cream effect was not lost on the Santa-hat-wearing stall-holders, who shouted out to her: ‘Happy Christmas, beautiful!’ and, ‘You’re a lucky man, sir,’ to Andy.