Was there the slightest stress on the ‘natural’, or was she becoming paranoid?

Buttoning her lip, she fought down all and every quip that sprang to her mind and neither of them said another word until she pulled up at the entrance to his hotel, where a top hatted commissionaire opened the door.

‘Seven forty-five, Metcalfe,’ Sheikh Zahir said as he stepped out.

‘Yes, sir.’

Top Hat waved her into the parking bay reserved for the privileged few. ‘You can wait there.’

Her brain was saying, Me? Really?

Maybe it was shock, or maybe her lip was so firmly buttoned up that the words couldn’t escape. Instead, having managed a polite nod, she pulled over as if she’d expected nothing less.

It wasn’t, after all, personal, she reminded herself. The honour was being bestowed on her passenger. On the car, even. On her Capitol uniform. It had absolutely nothing to do with her.

She called Sadie to reassure her that everything was still going according to plan and updated her on the traffic situation. Then she climbed out, walked around the car, duster in hand, checking for the slightest smear on the immaculate dark red paintwork, the gleaming chrome.

A couple of other chauffeurs nodded, passed the time of day, admiring her car, querying its handling, apparently accepting that, despite the missing chromosome, if someone had entrusted her with such a beast, she was one of them.

Maybe, she thought, she was the only one who was stopping that from being a fact. Living down to her image-single mother, relying on her parents for a roof over her head, help with childcare-rather than living up to her aspirations.

Maybe she’d become so used to hearing what she couldn’t do, how limited her options were, that she’d begun to believe it.

Even the dream of owning her own taxi-where, as a teenager, she’d dreamed of owning a fleet of them, all pink, all with women drivers-had been reduced to little more than a family joke.