‘Yeah, it’s good.’

A thought had been swimming about in my brain over the last couple of days and it now came to the surface. ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘Oh?’

‘The studio is all kitted out with heat, light, power, et cetera, and it’s just sitting there unused. Why don’t you take that over as an office? Then you could separate your work life and home life.’

‘I couldn’t do that. I’d be effectively renting two places off you then and somehow I doubt you’re going to take money for that either.’

‘Don’t be silly. I’d rather it was used. It’s a bit of a white elephant just sat there as it is.’

He shifted in the seat again, brushing my thigh with his own as he did so. I kept my focus on the garden.

‘Are you really sure?’

‘I am. The only thing I would ask was, if you’re going to have clients come in, whether we could sort out some sort of screening material, whether that’s plants or willow fencing or some other thing that I saw on Gardener’s World, just so that it wouldn’t be quite so easy for them to look over towards the house, or the rest of the garden. I know that sounds ridiculous, probably.’

‘Of course it doesn’t. It’s your home. It’s natural that you, or anyone, would want to protect their privacy. But don’t worry, I wouldn’t hold any meetings there, but I can still put some screening up if you’d prefer.’

‘No, that’s OK. Although perhaps we could plant around it a bit, soften the edges. That sort of thing?’

He grinned. ‘Great minds think alike. Anything in particular you had in mind?’

‘You’re the designer.’ I laughed.

‘That doesn’t mean you don’t have good ideas. As you said, you were already thinking about the lavender.’

‘True. OK, I quite like some of those tropical looking plants, you know, with the big leaves? But it might be nice to have some colour dotted around down there too. Does that make sense?’

‘It does. I’m sure we can achieve that pretty easily.’

‘But only if I pay for the plants. That’s the deal,’ I said, giving him my hardest Paddington stare.

‘You drive a hard bargain.’

‘Don’t you forget it.’

He clinked his glass against mine and rested back against the sofa, filling the space, with almost the entire length of his body now resting against the side of mine, but there was no tension in it. He was completely relaxed and something about that seemed to permeate its way into me, unfurling the knots of earlier and making my own limbs feel loose and rested. Of course, that could just be the champagne. Whatever it was it felt good, and for once I tried not to overthink and just absorb and sink into the moment.

9

The next morning, I woke up fully clothed under my duvet with no recollection of how I got there. Rolling over, I looked at the clock. It was nearly half past ten and I should have been at my desk an hour ago. I sat up quickly and immediately regretted the movement, a hand going to my forehead as the inevitable hangover from last night’s champagne made itself known. Jack Coulsdon-Hart was a bad influence.