‘Why not?’ Jake slipped off his jacket and then didn’t quite know what to do with it. Everything here was so beautifully placed that he didn’t want to spoil it and he didn’t know what Neve had done with hers. As a stopgap he arranged it as aesthetically as he could over one of the white leather chairs. This was the sort of place he’d envisaged himself living in around ten years hence, when he’d achieved the sort of salary that would be able to support it. And now he was here. This was going to be his home for the foreseeable future.

‘This really is a fabulous place,’ he said to Neve as she poured the champagne.

‘Yah,’ she agreed. ‘Daddy’s an architect. He bought this place as a little project.’

Neve had told him this before. Daddy’s ‘little project’ was a four-storey derelict pub just off the Fulham Road. He’d converted the ramshackle building—with no expense spared—into three spacious, open-plan, hideously tasteful and hideously expensive apartments. They all had oak floors, rough exposed brickwork and all the pipework in visible galvanized-steel ducts. The ceilings must have been twenty-feet high and the entire back wall of the place had been knocked out and replaced by glass panes, giving an unhindered view of the stark, Japanese-style garden beyond—the epitome of trendy conversions. Neve, by virtue of being Daddy’s only daughter, had been given one as a twenty-first birthday present. Jake seemed to recall getting a camera from his parents—very useful in its own way, but not quite as memorable.

‘Bring the food, sweetie,’ Neve said. ‘We’ll eat downstairs.’

Obediently, Jake collected the tray piled with foil dishes, plates and chopsticks. ‘Downstairs’ was reached by an open oak staircase and featured a dining-room table that would probably seat more than a dozen people. To the right-hand side of the huge floorspace was a snug, more intimate area with a cast-iron log-burning stove in front of which were two perfectly placed, classic tan leather chairs adorned with oriental, beaded cushions.

Neve took the tray from Jake and put it on the table. She flicked a Zippo lighter over a pleasing group of gothic candlesticks before she handed a plate to him and they sat down opposite each other.

‘Cheers.’ Neve lifted her glass to clink against his.

‘Cheers.’ They let their fingers touch, caressing each other. ‘You are okay about this?’ Jake said.

‘Thrilled,’ Neve said.