The staff restaurant was up on the fourteenth floor. Liv had hold of my hand, and steered me towards the bar, past the handful of employees still gulping down a quick breakfast before the work of the day began.

‘A bottle of white, please, Anton,’ she said, leaning on the counter. I hovered behind her. She was still holding my hand, and she squeezed it then, brief but firm. Reassuring.

‘Wine?’ Anton looked doubtfully at his watch. ‘It’s barely nine in the morning. I really don’t think…’

‘Wine, Anton,’ repeated Liv. She nodded behind her, to where I was standing. Anton followed her gesture with his eyes. When they hit me, they widened considerably. God, it was getting ridiculous.

He still looked doubtful. There were probably laws against selling alcohol before a particular time. I didn’t have a clue. I rarely drank.

Finally, he nodded. ‘Just this once.’

Liv steered me over to a table by the window. It could’ve been a great view, if it weren’t for all the blank, staring windows of the flat, modern buildings opposite. It felt like everyone and everything were staring at me that morning. It was almost surreal.

Anton brought the wine over to our table, where he placed it gently, almost reverently, before shuffling away backwards to the bar. I watched him go, perplexed. I turned back to Liv, who was already sloshing wine into my glass. When it was full to nearly overflowing, she poured a meagre half glass for herself. Well, she was expected back in the office at some point. I wasn’t.

‘Tell me, Liv.’ I ran my finger around the top of my glass, catching the splash marks with my fingertip. Even as I said it, I half didn’t want to know. Whatever it was that’d happened, it was clearly god-awful. I felt almost sick with nerves. Better to get it over with.

‘Drink first.’

I took a sip of wine. It was harsh and sharp on my tongue, and I suddenly realised I hadn’t had as much as a glass of water yet, that morning. I didn’t think I could face wine, and went to put it down.

‘Drink.’ Liv was fumbling in her Mary Poppins bag, and didn’t even look up.

I took another sip.

‘All of it.’

‘Really?’ I looked up at her. ‘The whole glass?’

‘The whole glass.’

Her tone brooked no argument. I lifted it reluctantly to my lips, tipped my head back slightly, and gulped down half its contents, droplets spilling down my chin in my desperation to end the tart, overpowering assault on my mouth. By the time I’d managed to finish it, Liv had put her handbag down, and was clutching a newspaper.

She passed it across the table to me.

‘Page two,’ she said.

Her face betrayed no emotion, and I took the paper from her without a word. I opened it at the second page, feeling slightly sick from the wine, and immediately felt sicker than I’d ever felt in my life.

Footballers in sleazy sex romp

I recoiled instinctively, and pushed the paper away from me. My breathing got faster, harder, and I began to tremble.

‘You may as well read it,’ Liv said. ‘Get it over with.’

Reluctantly, I picked it up. My hands were shaking so much I could barely keep it still enough to read. Added to which, I had so many thoughts whirling in my mind, it was as if I were in a fog. It was hard to focus enough to take it in.

I went to put it down again, but Liv stayed me with her hand. ‘Read it.’

I looked up at her, then back down at the paper.

‘You have to know what’s gone on, Grace,’ she said. ‘Or you won’t be able to protect yourself.’

I nodded slowly. She was right. I had to know. I didn’t want to in the least, but I had to find out what everyone else already knew.

I took a deep breath, and began to read.

Three

fag British public (boarding) school institution (now allegedly out-dated), whereby a junior boy is in service to a senior boy. A fag’s chores could include anything, from making tea and taking messages, to more demeaning tasks, such as polishing shoes, depending upon the fag master and his whims. An honourable fag master would also look out for his fag; by protecting him from bullies, etc. Fagging did not usually have sexual connotations.

I saw her again on the news, that lunchtime. My morning hadn’t started well, but she seemed to be having a worse day even than me.

‘Poor kid,’ I murmured to myself, watching her come out the front entrance of Ffyvells. She was just as beautiful, even with her make-up smudged and that tight, wan look. It was no surprise she was with a Premiership player, even if he was only in one of the lower teams. She could’ve had one of the stars just as easily.

She was so delicate; slim and fine-boned, with huge, shocked eyes that peered out from between locks of her hair. It looked as if she’d deliberately pushed it forward, to afford herself some protection. Long tendrils of it twisted across her face, and the sun caught it as she gazed around her, turning it to copper and gold. She looked hunted. Beautiful but defeated. It was a marked contrast from the defiant Amazon I’d confronted in Max’s office, who’d just dared me to look at her after Max had yelled at her like that.

I’d been furious with him, even though she’d clearly pissed him off somehow. He’d had four calls while I was in with him and, looking back, they were obviously something to do with her. After the third, he’d seen her through his window, and shouted for her like she was his fag at school. I’d hated it then, and I hated it now.

He’d never had to fag. He’d had acne, when we’d started school together, and none of the older boys had wanted him. I hadn’t been so lucky, and when I’d taken on a fag of my own, I’d known how to treat him.

Max had ridden roughshod over his, and hearing him yell like that had thrown me back twenty years. I could almost feel the roughness of the starched white collars and the frock coats; taste the vile muck that passed for dinner; smell the musty, echoing classrooms. He hadn’t changed. He still treated his underlings as fags.

I’d tried to smile at her, there in his office, let her know secretly that I was on her side. She’d been too proud to take my pity. She’d just glared. She didn’t need my solidarity. That girl - perfect as she was - I could have forgotten. She was a match for Max. She could fight her own wars. This broken version was a different matter.

As the cameras played on her, she stood on the front steps of Ffyvells, gazing around at the bustle of Lombard Street as if she were seeing it for the first time. She seemed dazed…like she was wondering what the hell was going on. She seemed to have no clue why the reporters were there, how famous she was…or how beautiful.

She’d also been drinking. Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but I owned clubs. It was second nature to me to spot when someone was vulnerable, and she might as well have had it stamped across her forehead. As far as I was concerned, it was a cry for help.

I almost turned away from the screen at the thought. No more. I’d had enough. She had a friend with her, anyway; beautiful too in a black-haired, emo way and oh-so-fierce, leading her by the elbow and pushing her through a wash of reporters to a waiting taxi. And even now, despite everything, she was holding her head proud and erect. With her burnished locks, her startling blue eyes, and her haughty air, she was perfect camera-fodder. The mascara down her cheeks was a story in itself. Fucking journos. Parasites, to a man.

Or woman, I reminded myself, casting my eye towards the door of my bedroom.

It was ajar. Charlotte was still asleep in there, sprawled naked across the silk sheets, an open invitation to some men. Not to me. It was the whole vulnerability thing again, and it was the reason I’d finally agreed to train her in the first place. She’d have ended up hurt, if not dead, if she’d carried on the way she’d started. At least I’d saved her from that. Not that it hasn’t completely backfired on me, I thought ruefully, chopping fruit, one eye still on the news.