A sound wakes me up. I open my eyes, and Dom is sitting freshly showered and fully dressed by the bedside. His hair is still damp, and I am suddenly reminded of the first time I saw him. It feels like our first encounter happened a lifetime ago. Another era. He has become so much a part of my life.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.

I push hair out of my face and blink a few times. My eyes feel heavy and my mouth feels wooly. At least the headache is gone, though. ‘I’ll survive,’ I mutter.

‘Look, I have to go out, but stay as long as you like. Make yourself some breakfast. How about I take you out to lunch when I get back?’

‘Uh, no, I can’t stay. I’ve got to go to my mum’s and then I’m meeting my best friend for lunch.’

‘Right.’ He takes his phone out of his pocket ‘What’s your mum’s number?’

I stare at him, surprised. ‘Why?’

He looks up from his phone. ‘I’m a paranoid motherfucker. I always need next of kin information.’

Because I’m so startled by his arrogant assumption that I should give him my mother’s number after two nights of … hot sex—I guess that’s what it was, there had been no lovemaking between us—I end up giving it to him. Besides, I’m not even properly awake. So this is officially an ambush of sorts.

‘Now, your best friend’s name and number?’

My eyes widen, but I cave in and give him Anna’s number, too.

‘Right, I’ll get my driver to pick you up and take you wherever you want to go. He’ll be waiting for you in the foyer.’

I shake my head. I just woke up and I’m being steamrolled into agreeing to all kinds of things. ‘Please don’t do that. I’ll just call a taxi.’

‘No you won’t. Brian will take you,’ he says, his jaw hardening.

I cover my eyes. It really is too early to fight with anyone, let alone a juggernaut like him. ‘OK, fine.’

‘I’ll pick you up from your place at eight tonight. Wear your red dress.’

I uncover my eyes. ‘Ah … we’re going out tonight?’

‘It’s Saturday. What else would we do?’

His phone must have buzzed in his pocket. He takes it, looks at it, and raises his eyebrow enquiringly at me. I shrug to indicate that he’s welcome to take the call. He presses the button and listens to a woman’s laughing voice saying something. I immediately turn my eyes away from him and pretend to be very interested in a ray of sunshine that’s pouring in through the curtains, which he must have partially opened.

My stomach’s churning with a mixture of hurt, shame and fury. What a sick bastard. As if he had to bloody take the call in front of me while I’m lying naked in his bed still smelling of sex with him. I don’t let any of my feelings show on my face, though. He wants us to be enemies who fuck? Sure, I can do that. In the end, he’ll be the one who’s sorry. A voice in my head says, ‘In your dreams he’ll be the sorry one.’

‘Cut it out, Layla,’ he says into the phone and cuts the connection.

‘What are you looking at?’ he asks me.

‘The dust motes,’ I say softly, relief pouring through my veins. All is forgiven. He was talking to his sister. I feel gooey inside.

He turns his head to look at the particles suspended in the rays of sunlight. ‘Why?’

‘Because …’ I pause. Oh my God, I am so happy for no reason whatsoever. ‘The dust motes are magic. They’re around us all the time, but you can only see them in a burst of sunlight.’

‘OK.’

‘Don’t you get it? They’re the universe’s way of telling us that there’s more to life than we can see, hear or touch. You know, like dogs can hear things we can’t, bats can feel sounds, and other animals can see ultraviolet light.’

He stares at me. ‘And you’re a tax collector?’

I shrug.

‘I’m going, but before I go …’ He pulls at the sheet that I’m holding fast to my chest.

I clutch the sheet harder and laugh nervously. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Taking something to remind me of you.’

The sheet slips down my body.

‘Open up,’ he says, looking down at the triangle between my legs.

I spread my thighs and he inserts his finger into me. Unbelievable, but I’m already so wet that it just glides into me. He takes his finger out and sniffs it. ‘That’ll do me,’ he says.

He kisses me on the mouth and then he’s gone.

After the door shuts, I lie unmoving in the quiet of the empty apartment for a few seconds. Then I jump out of bed and run into the bathroom to see what I look like. I freeze with shock to see the state I’m in. Jesus! I’ve honestly never seen myself look more unattractive.

I shower, get back into my clothes and go downstairs. A man in a black jacket gets up from one of the sofas by the plate-glass windows.

‘Miss Savage?’

‘You’re Brian?’

He smiles and nods. ‘Where can I take you?’

I give him my address and he takes me home in a beautiful dark blue Bentley. As I get out of the back seat, the parking attendant who admired Dom’s Maserati passes me.

‘Does this one belong to the same guy?’ he asks.

‘Mmm,’ I say, and, smiling like a cat who got the cream, run into my building.

My flat seems poor and cramped after his luxurious apartment. I quickly eat a bowl of cereal then take the Tube to my parents’ home. My mother looks at me strangely.

‘Are you all right, dear?’

‘Yeah, why?’

‘You just seem a bit pink. As if you’re coming down with something.’

I cough. ‘I’m fine, Mum.’

‘Come through. I’ll make us a cuppa.’

We have tea together, and I try my best to pay attention to my mother’s chatter, but it’s very hard going, and after a while I tell her I have to go meet Anna.

Anna and I meet in Starbucks. She peers at me closely. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ she asks.

‘Nothing’s wrong with me,’ I say with a sigh.

‘You look like you’re catching the flu or something,’ she insists.

‘OK. I slept with a man.’

‘What the fuck?’ she screams, so loudly the people at the next table give us a disapproving stare.

‘Speak up, won’t you? I don’t think the people in the next street heard you,’ I whisper fiercely.

‘Tell me everything,’ she orders, and takes a massive bite of her egg sandwich.

‘There’s not much to tell. He’s just a guy. It’s just a sex thing.’

‘When do you do a sex thing?’ she asks with her mouth full.

I grin at her. ‘When he looks like a Greek god.’

‘Who is this guy?’

‘Someone we’re meant to be investigating.’

Her mouth drops open and I see partially chewed egg and bread and something green. She swallows hurriedly and says, ‘Jesus, Ella. Is this like the invasion of the body snatchers? You’re sleeping with a tax dodger? You HATE tax cheats.’

I bite my lip. ‘I don’t know, Anna, I’m so confused. Everything I believed in for so long now seems like a badly thought out illusion. I can’t explain it. All I know is I just have to be with him. He has something that pulls me to him.’

‘Wow!’

‘I know. Can you believe it? Me saying something like that?’

She shakes her head. ‘So, it’s serious?’

‘No. There’s no chance of that happening. He doesn’t want anything more than sex from me.’

‘What?’ Her brow is furrowed.

‘Yeah. He has walls like an impenetrable nuclear bunker. I think he’s had some terrible tragedy happen to him. The first time we met, I walked in on him when he wasn’t expecting me to, and he looked totally tormented. I have never seen anybody suffering in that way.’

‘Not another fucking loser, like that psycho Michael.’

‘He’s not a loser. He’s just had some kind of tragedy that he hasn’t got over.’

‘Oh no. You’re going to fall for this guy, aren’t you?’

‘I won’t.’

‘You won’t? You’re already more than halfway there.’