‘Remember how it felt, Tara? When we were in Tokyo?’

‘You can’t come here. It’s wrong. It’s inappropriate. I want you to leave now.’

And finally his cocky smile disappeared. ‘Would you prefer me to come to your home?’ he said, and for the first time I really understood that it was not going to be as easy as pressing block caller.

There were three framed photographs on my desk and he picked them up, one by one, and studied them. I didn’t like him touching them, and I didn’t like him looking at them, but there was nothing I could do to stop him. He made me feel helpless and I understood that he liked making me feel totally helpless. He likes that more than he likes anything, I thought, as I watched him looking at my world.

The first photograph was of Christian alone, and younger, just a year or so out of the music press and still in the same cheap leather jacket. His hair was far longer than it was now and his smile different somehow. He seemed unburdened, young, not married yet, no child yet. The Christian who I fell in love with. And the second photograph was of Marlon, around three, hugging Buddy the puppy around the neck, our boy with a big ecstatic grin on his face, and the tiny Lab grinning gamely. And finally James Caine picked up the photograph of my family, of the four of us, including Buddy, enjoying a summer day out at Henley, the sun-dappled Thames in the background. A photograph of our life.

‘Your family,’ he said. ‘I’ve enjoyed looking at you.’

‘Looking at us?’

‘Online.’ He replaced the photograph. ‘You can find out about anyone these days.’

There was something wrong with my breathing.

‘I do understand,’ he quietly went on. ‘I’ve seen all the pictures on Instagram of your husband and son and that adorable dog.’ His face split with a grin. ‘I’m not some stalker, Tara. That’s what you have to understand. I’m not some mad bunny boiler!’

I looked through the glass partition. The little party had broken up now. Michael was manning the front desk and Mary and Skyla must have drifted off to the cafe.

‘I know we have to be discreet,’ Caine said.

I almost laughed in his face.

‘You think coming to my office is discreet? You think sending photographs of me in your hotel bed is discreet? You thinking sniffing around—’

I saw the first flash of his temper.

‘I’m not sniffing around anything, Tara. You think I want sex? Is that why you think I’m here? Look, if that’s all I wanted, there are women everywhere. Great women. Willing women. But I want an emotional connection. I want intelligent conversation. I want intimacy. I want friendship. I want a companion. I just want to talk and text on a regular basis. I want to chat.’

‘To chat?’

‘We had something that night in Tokyo, Tara. You know we did. And I don’t want it to end so soon.’