He stepped back into comparative safety, but remained near the gap.

‘What the hell do you mean, “don’t do it”?’ he snapped. ‘I wasn’t going to do anything. I wanted some air.’

‘But it’s dangerous. You could fall by accident.’

‘I know what I’m doing. Go away and let me be.’

‘No,’ she said defiantly. ‘I have as much right to take the air as you. Is it nice out there?’

‘What?’

Moving so fast that she took him by surprise, she slipped past him and out onto the ledge. At once the wind attacked her so that she had to reach out and found him grasping her.

‘You stupid woman!’ he shouted. ‘I’m not the only one who can have an accident. Do you want to die?’

‘Do you?’

‘Come inside.’

He yanked her back in, stopping short in surprise when he saw her face.

‘Didn’t I see you downstairs?’

‘Yes, I was in the Zeus Room,’ she said, naming the casino. ‘I like watching people. That place is very cleverly named.’

‘You know what Zeus means, then?’ he asked, drawing her away to where they could sit down.

‘He was the King of the Greek gods,’ she said, ‘looking down on the world from his home on the top of Mount Olympus, master of all he surveyed. That must be how the gamblers feel when they start playing, but the poor idiots soon learn differently. Did you lose much?’

He shrugged. ‘A million. I stopped counting after a while. What are you doing in a casino, anyway? You can’t be more than fifteen.’

‘I’m seventeen and I’m…one of the bridal party.’

‘That’s right,’ he said, seeming not to notice the way she’d checked herself at the last moment. ‘I saw her embracing you for the camera. Are you a bridesmaid?’

She regarded him cynically. ‘Do I look like a bridesmaid?’ she demanded, indicating her attire, which was clearly expensive but not glamorous.

‘Well-’

‘I don’t really belong in front of the cameras, not with that lot.’