He’d left it late to tell me about the change of plans. I’d stood in the bar looking around for him for a while, scanning the place in case he was one of those people who didn’t look anything like his picture. But then a waiter had come up and asked if I wanted a table, so I’d said yes (because I’m a strong independent woman and I don’t mind sitting alone at a table in a crowded bar drinking a glass of red wine that costs £15). But then the glass of wine – which I’d been eking out for as long as I could – ran out, and he still hadn’t turned up. And just as I was paying the bill and thinking that literally everyone in the entire place knew that I’d been stood up (because who goes to a bar dressed in a peacock-blue body-con dress with expensive hair and ridiculous really-hard-to-walk-in shoes for a casual solo drink?) my phone buzzed. And it was Theo, full of apologies, asking me to jump in an Uber and telling me he’d sort it out when I got there.

As first dates go, this is pretty bloody spectacular. I’m his plus-one at a masquerade ball, and despite the rain and the wind and the feeling that I might actually freeze to death if he doesn’t turn up soon, I’m so excited I could burst. And I can’t wait to get my hands on him, if I’m honest. He’s gorgeous, charming, has an amazing job in investment banking, and a pretty good line in chat. I think I might have struck lucky the first time. It has to happen to some people, doesn’t it? I mean statistically speaking, for all those people kissing frogs there has to be a one-in-a-million chance that I’ll be the one who ends up with the prince?

I wrap the long coat Sophie has lent me around my chest, trying to keep the rain out. Emma’s been really sweet, and done my hair up in a gorgeous mass of curls and so many kirby grips I won’t have a clue how to get it down tomorrow morning, but that’s the last thing on my mind. I don’t even care (well, all right, a tiny bit, but I’m going to let that go) that I’m pretty sure I heard her creeping out of Alex’s room yesterday morning. It might’ve been my imagination, anyway.

Oh come on, come on . . . It’s five past seven, and Theo said he’d be here at five to. I’m standing in the rain, watching as glowing couples and groups of chatting people make their way across the little bridge and onto the boat. The railings are strung with fairy lights, which are swaying in the wind, and for a second it’s as if I’m looking at myself from the outside, and it feels like I’m at the start of a movie.