‘Hey, Ella,’ he says. His tone is surprised and cautious.

‘Hello, Jake. I … uh … Can I talk to you … um … alone?’

‘Of course,’ he says immediately, and his tone tells me what I suspected. He knows exactly what’s wrong with Dom.

‘Thank you, Jake.’

‘No problem. We’re in the country tonight. Want to come over for dinner? I can send a car.’

‘No, no. No need for that, I’ll borrow a friend’s car. And I won’t disturb you at dinnertime. I’ll come just before that.’

‘All right, see you about six thirty.’

‘That’ll be great. Thank you.’

‘You know how to get to mine, right?’

‘Yes. I’ll see you then.’

‘See you later.’

‘Jake?’

‘Yeah?’

‘I really appreciate this.’

I hear him draw in a sharp breath. ‘That’s OK, Ella. I’m always happy to help.’

I park Anna’s company car next to Lily’s Mercedes-Benz and walk up to the front door. Smoothing down my hair, I ring on the doorbell. Lily opens the door with a smile.

‘Hello,’ she greets.

‘Hey,’ I say awkwardly.

She opens the door wider. ‘Come on in,’ she invites.

I step into her home. Lily is one of those women who have it all. Happiness, beauty, love, wealth.

She’s wearing a long, halter-neck dress that comes to her ankles. It’s one of those dresses that you know cost an arm and a leg. Once, a dress like that would have sent me to my computer to see if her husband’s tax records matched that level of expenditure, but those days are gone. It feels as if the notion that I was a tax officer at Her Majesty’s Revenue Customs was another life, or just a dream of mine.

I smile at her. ‘Congratulations. I heard you’re pregnant.’

She rubs her belly and smiles contentedly. ‘Yes, thank you, Ella. And how have you been keeping?’

‘Good,’ I say.

‘Jake’s expecting you. He’s in his den. Do you want to come through and have a drink before you see him?’

‘No. No, thank you,’ I refuse politely.

Liliana runs in from one of the reception rooms, screaming, ‘Aunty Ella, Aunty Ella.’

She is wearing a pink skirt and a T-shirt that states in bold letters ‘My Mother Thinks She’s The Boss’. I go down on my haunches. ‘My, my, look how much you’ve grown since I last saw you.’

‘That was yesterday,’ she says scornfully.

‘Dear me. Yes, that was yesterday.’

‘My poo was blue today,’ she declares suddenly.

‘Oh,’ I exclaim.

‘Lil,’ her mother reprimands, ‘what did I tell you about telling the whole world about the color of your poo?’

‘Aunty Ella is not the whole world,’ Liliana argues with impeccable logic. She turns her adorable face toward me. ‘My poo was made of icing.’

I straighten and look at Lily.

‘She went to a birthday party yesterday and ate too much blue icing from a Thomas the Tank Engine cake,’ Lily explains

Even though I was distraught, it made me giggle. How utterly sweet.

‘Where’s Uncle Dom?’ Liliana demands.

The laughter dies in my throat. ‘I … I have no idea.’ Voicing the thought saddens me greatly. Far more than I would have expected.

‘Lil, Aunty Ella has come to see Daddy. Say bye-bye now.’ She looks at me with an encouraging smile. ‘Go on, Ella. It’s just at the end of the corridor.’

‘See you later, Liliana,’ I call as I start walking down it.

‘Can I go and sit with Daddy and Aunty Ella?’ I hear Liliana ask her mother plaintively.

‘No, you can’t.’

‘Why not?’ the minx demands.

I don’t hear Lily’s answer because I’m already too far away, or they’ve moved into one of the other rooms. It hits me then: I’m not part of this family, and it looks like I never will be. I stand for a moment outside the door at the end of the corridor. Taking a deep breath, I knock.

It is opened almost immediately.

‘Come in,’ Jake invites cordially.

He is wearing a black T-shirt and gray jeans, and I must admit, just being in his presence makes me nervous. He is as big and intimidating as Dom, but there are absolutely no buttons to push. No weakness. No secret sadness to exploit. He is one of those smoothly impenetrable and guarded people. It was always clear to me that he is the boss of his family. He guards them as ferociously as a mother lion guards her newborn babies.

Woe betide anyone who tries to hurt them.

‘Thanks,’ I say quietly, and step into a large, wood-paneled room. It has soft rugs, a heavy wooden desk at one end of the room, and a nest of expensive leather couches at the other end. There is an air of old world opulence about it all. Here, one can feel safe and cultured. The outside world never intrudes. Here, Jake is King. From here, he controls his empire.

He gestures toward the sofas.

I move over to them. My legs feel like jelly and my skin is tingling with nervous energy. Stop it, I tell myself. You have nothing to fear. I am on the same side as Jake. I don’t want to hurt Dom. I love him. It is perfectly obvious that he is in terrible pain, and I just want to help him.

‘I was just about to have a drink. Would you like to join me?’ he says.

I start to shake my head and then decide that I actually do need something strong to calm me. ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’

‘I’m having a whiskey,’ he says, and I nod.

He moves toward a drinks trolley. With his back to me he pours two fingers of whiskey into two glasses and comes toward me. As he crosses the room, he passes the last rays of evening light coming from the window. They hit the side of his face and I am struck by how handsome all the Eden brothers are.

I take the glass and bring it to my lips. The whiskey is strong and hits my empty stomach like liquid fire.

Jake doesn’t say anything, simply watches me with a deliberately bland expression. I know that his first and most natural instinct is to protect his brother. These gypsies stick together. For them, blood will always be thicker than water. He will help me, but only if it means it will also benefit his brother.

Fuck it. I decide to take the bull by the horns.

‘Last night Dom had a nightmare. When I woke him up he thought I was dead. And then he… he … said he couldn’t continue our relationship anymore and walked out of my flat. I haven’t spoken to or seen him since. Can you tell me anything that would help me understand what’s going on, Jake? I … I’m … really … um … in love with your brother.’

An expression of pity crosses his face. He takes a gulp of whiskey and turns his face away from mine. Seconds pass in silence. He appears to be looking into a distant past. At something that saddens him very much.

He turns to me. ‘When Dom was seventeen years old, he fell in love with a girl. She was sixteen. A laughing, wild, rebellious gypsy girl. Her name was Vivien. He thought they were soul mates because they were both so crazy and so alike. They could finish each other’s sentences. He wanted to marry her straightaway, but I forced him to wait until he was eighteen.

‘“You have your whole life ahead of you. What’s the hurry?” I told him. The truth was, I disapproved of her. She was bad for him. Too wild. She took too many risks. She egged him on, dared him to new and dangerous adventures. The kind of things that could land him in prison. Together, they reminded me of Bonnie and Clyde. I hoped, I prayed it would not last.

‘But I was wrong. The love he had for her didn’t die. It just became stronger. They became inseparable. After his eighteenth birthday, very reluctantly, I started to make plans. Everything was ready. In one month they would have been married, but then she did something no one had ever dreamed she would. I don’t know how she did it, but she stowed away on a smugglers’ boat that Dom was on.

‘It was night and the sea was rough. Something happened on that boat. She fell overboard and was swept away.’