Poor but respectable. She’d told the same lies so often that she’d almost come to believe them.

Their first course arrived — Mediterranean prawns and a great bowl of yellow mayonnaise. Bella gave a little moan of greed.

Later, when she was halfway through her duck, she suddenly looked up and saw that Rupert was staring at her, his food untouched.

‘Bella.’

‘Yes.’

‘Will you have dinner with me tomorrow?’

‘Of course,’ she said. She didn’t even stop to consider it. The one thing that could have spoilt her evening was the sense of being a failure, that he’d get to know her a little and then decide she was a bore.

Later, they went back to her flat for a drink and Bella drew back the curtains in the drawing-room to show Rupert the view. Half London glittered in front of them.

‘Isn’t it gorgeous?’ said Bella ecstatically.

‘Not a patch on you, and you’ve got the most beautiful hair in the world.’ He picked up a strand. ‘Just like Rapunzel.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘The princess in the tower who let down her hair and the handsome prince climbed up and rescued her. You must have read it as a child?’

Bella looked bleak. ‘My mother didn’t approve of fairy stories.’

Rupert frowned and pulled her into his arms. ‘The more I hear of your childhood the less I like it,’ he said.

Then he kissed her very hard. After a minute he pulled her down on to the sofa and began fiddling with her zip.

‘No,’ she said, stiffening.

‘Why not?’ he muttered into her hair. ‘Christ, Bella, I want you so much.’

Bella took a deep breath and burst into tears. One of her greatest acting accomplishments was that she could cry at will. She had only to think of the poor unclaimed dogs at Battersea Dogs’ Home, waiting and waiting for a master that never came, and tears would course down her cheeks.