‘I’m going now,’ she said.

‘You can’t leave me,’ he complained. ‘Who will I talk to?’

‘Well, it hasn’t been me so far!’ she exclaimed and picked up her bag.

‘Oi! Miss Fix-it, where are you off to?’ He sounded quite panicky.

‘My salsa class.’

‘Oh, your dirty dancing. Sometime you’ll have to bring me too,’ he teased. ‘Go on, abandon me to the salary-men, then.’

Passing Dan ‘I’ll try anything once’ Heigel from the Sunday Independent, who was making his version of a Brown Cow by putting lumps of ice-cream into his champagne, Ashling departed.

No sooner was she gone than Jack was flanked by Kelvin, holding two glasses of champagne, both of them his.

‘Look at Lisa. Is she wearing knickers or isn’t she?’ Kelvin asked, studying Lisa’s pert bottom through her white dress. ‘I can’t see any lines but

Jack wouldn’t join in.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Kelvin said.

‘I doubt it.’

‘You’re thinking she could be wearing a thong. She might be, of course,’ Kelvin reluctantly acknowledged, ‘but I’d like to think otherwise.’

Lisa was systematically working her way through the room looking for the best-looking man in it, but already she’d gone up a couple of blind alleys.

First she’d met a mysterious, almost silent man wearing blue, roundy shades. He looked very cool and had a gorgeous, knowing mouth, a wicked smile, lovely hair and great clothes. Then he took off his glasses and Lisa recoiled. Suddenly he was horrific. His eyes were tiny, too close together, and kind of stunned and bewildered-looking. They belonged to a different face altogether, to someone with learning difficulties.

Backing away she bumped into Fionn O’Malley, a self-styled eligible bachelor. He fancied himself as one of Ireland’s sexiest men on account of his pointy Jack Nicholson eyebrows.

‘Hello there.’ Evilly, he smiled at Lisa and raised his eyebrows with demonic intent. ‘You’re looking particularly luscious this evening.’ This compliment was accompanied with further raising and lowering of his eyebrows in a manner contrived to make Lisa feel uncomfortable with sexual stirring.

Bored, she turned her back.

And then she saw him. The model who was on billboards across Ireland. He was text-book gorgeous: pouty, lantern-jawed, dewy-skinned, his shiny, blue-black hair falling in a lick over his tanned forehead. A face so perfect he was a millimetre away from being boring.

Bingo! She’d found her man.

Shorter than she ideally preferred them, but it couldn’t be helped.

The great thing about models was that, in her experience, they were dreadful tarts. Because their job entailed almost non-stop travelling, they permanently had that ‘on holiday’ approach to sex. While this meant he’d probably be easy to pick up, the downside was that he could only ever be a Milky Way man, mere one-night-stand material.

That was OK, Lisa decided, eyeing the long flank of his thigh and muscular hollow at the side of his bottom. Just sex was fine.

It had been quite a while since she’d propositioned someone. And there was only one way to do it. There was no point pussy-footing around, being coy, hoping he’d be the one to notice you. Oh no – you’d got to march up to the man you wanted and dazzle him with your confidence. It was like being around dogs – you couldn’t show your fear.

Taking a deep breath and reminding herself that she was fabulous, she widened her shiny mouth into a blinding smile and launched herself into his path. ‘Hello, I’m Lisa Edwards, editor of Colleen magazine.’

He shook her hand. ‘Wayne Baker, the face of Truffle.’ Said with utmost seriousness. Oh dear, irony deficiency! Never mind, she didn’t have to like the bloke. In fact it was probably better if she didn’t. This was about sex and very often liking someone got in the way.

She summoned every reserve of confidence, because the next line had to be delivered with conviction. Never let him think he had any choice in the matter. He couldn’t reject her. It simply wasn’t an option.

Fixing him with her eyes, she cooed, ‘Make mine a large one.’

‘What would you like?’ He inclined his head at the bar.

‘I’m not talking about a drink,’ she said, with heavy meaning.

Muscle by muscle, an expression of comprehension settled on his face. ‘Oh.’ He swallowed. ‘I see. Wha–?’

‘Dinner. First.’

‘OK,’ he said obediently. ‘Now?’

‘Now.’

She allowed herself a little exhalation of relief. He’d fallen for it. She’d thought he might, but you never knew…

As they left, she sought out Jack with her eyes. He was looking at her, his expression closed. ‘See ya,’ she mouthed at him, and he responded with a stiff little nod.

Good.

In the restaurant at the Clarence, Lisa and Wayne had a competition to eat the least. Warily watching each other, they skated food around their plates. For one exciting, breathless moment it looked like Wayne was going to put a piece of monkfish into his mouth, and if he did, Lisa would permit herself a corner of artichoke. But at the last moment he changed his mind and Lisa reluctantly lowered her fork back to her plate also.

Wayne Baker was from Hastings and was young – although probably not as young as he claimed. He said he was twenty, but Lisa reckoned it was more likely to be twenty-two or twenty-three. He took his career as a model very, very seriously.

‘It’s hardly rocket science, is it, sweetie?’ Lisa teased.

He looked hurt. ‘As it happens, I don’t intend to do it for ever.’

‘Let me guess,’ Lisa said. ‘Eventually you want to take up acting.’

Surprise stamped itself on to his almost risibly perfect face. ‘How did you know?’

Lisa swallowed a sigh. Though it pained her to peddle clichés, he wasn’t the brightest and it blunted the edge of his stunning attractiveness. She had nothing against people with little or no education – after all, she’d barely been able to write her name in the ground with a stick when she’d left school. But there was no reason for a person not to know who Meg Matthews was married to.

‘Where do you live, handsome?’ Lisa asked. Somehow she made ‘handsome’ sound derogatory, as if he was a piece of meat. Funny, Wayne thought vaguely. That was usually the way he spoke to girls.