‘I don’t know,’ he said, as if he was seriously calculating the number. ‘Dozens? It’s certainly not three figures.’

‘You rotten, rotten bastard.’

He sighed. ‘It’s so easy. Some sexually frustrated wife a long way from home who doesn’t get fucked as regularly as she used to. Some bored old bird, not as young as she used to be, not as firm as ten years ago, looking for a bit of love action with no comeback. Someone just like you, Tara.’

My heart was attempting to burst out of my chest.

‘But listen – you’re special to me, Tara, and I want you to come to my room at the Langham because we need to talk this over face to face.’

‘Stay away from me,’ I whispered. ‘Stay away from my life.’

‘Look, I’m sorry I said those things. You’re the first, OK? Is that what you want to hear? Then I’ll say it. This has never happened to me before.’ He was laughing at me now. ‘I only said it to hurt you because I’m very upset that you’ve been avoiding me. Acting as if nothing happened between us.’

His voice was cold now, as if he might truly hate me. ‘And you can’t ignore me. Because I will not allow it. Because I will not permit you to use me for one night and then toss me aside. I’m not a piece of meat, Tara. I’m not a sex toy you can stick in a bottom drawer when you have had enough – or when you get scared that your darling hubby is going to find out the truth. I’m in your life now and I am not going away. One way or another. If you wanted to just fuck me and throw me aside, then we should have used better condoms.’

I wanted to beg him to tell me that it was not true. But I could not speak. And somehow, deep in my blood and bones, I knew it was all true. I believed him.

Finally, at long last, James Caine was telling the truth.

‘Tara? I think you’re breaking up?’

He was right. I was breaking up. I was hot, I was dizzy, I could no longer think or breathe. The sweat was sliding down my bare back and under my white party dress. I bent over, as if I had been punched in the stomach and as I straightened up a wave of sickness swept over me and all at once my legs could no longer support me.

And then there was only the blackness.

When I woke I was lying on the stairs, surrounded by what felt like everyone I had ever known. Christian and Marlon. My parents. The two Daves. Ginger and Spike. Hank Sinatra. The music had stopped.

‘Christian?’ I said, and he came towards me with Marlon in his arms, and looked at me with such concern that it tore my heart out because I knew he would not look at me that way when he knew what had happened in Tokyo. Then Marlon was crying with fear and Christian took him away, my mother fluttering off with them, and suddenly Ginger was crouching by my side, smoothing down my strapless white dress where it had ridden high above my thighs.