I hoped my feelings didn’t show. If they did, he didn’t notice. He seemed to be struggling for the right words.

‘I have a situation, I deal with it,’ he said, finally. ‘I don’t discuss it unless I have to.’

‘Okay.’ I tried to keep the hurt out of my voice. So he was shutting down on me.

‘I’m sorry.’ He stroked my cheek lightly. ‘I want to tell you. It’s just…difficult.’

‘Okay,’ I said again, and then a thought hit me. ‘So, let’s play a game.’

He gave me a long stare. ‘All right,’ he said, finally. ‘Let me guess. Truth?’

‘Or Dare. Yes.’

The ghost of a smile played around his mouth. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Truth or dare?’

‘Truth,’ I said, feeling my throat tighten involuntarily. I hadn’t thought this through. What would he ask me, and would I be able to answer it honestly? Suddenly, I understood why he’d been so reticent. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed him.

‘Truth,’ he said. ‘Okay – do you still fantasise about being taken by a group of men?’

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks at his words. Christ, why had I even suggested this? ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think you cured me of that one, indefinitely.’

He nodded, regarding me carefully as if looking to see if I were really telling the truth.

‘I don’t,’ I said, still blushing furiously. ‘Honestly.’

‘I fear the lady doth protest too much,’ he said, with a reproving smile.

‘It’s the truth.’

‘Okay,’ he refilled his empty champagne glass and held out the bottle to top up mine. ‘My turn then, I suppose. Truth.’

‘Tell me something about you. Something you don’t tell anyone.’

He paused for a moment and leant back on one arm, sipping his champagne. ‘Okay. The reason I was…quiet…on the bus was because I…’

‘Have claustrophobia,’ I butted in. ‘Won’t do. Too obvious.’

He looked faintly embarrassed. ‘Most astute, Miss Anderton. I had no idea I was so easy to read. What do you suggest then?’

‘Okay,’ I thought for a moment, and then it came to me. ‘Why do you spell your name with only one F? I mean, every mention of your family online is spelt Fforbes with two Fs.’

‘My dear,’ he said, raising his eyebrows. ‘I appear to have acquired my own personal stalker.’

‘Answer the question,’ I said, flushing yet again. I had to admit – it did sound a bit psycho, put like that.

‘I told you before,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It’s easier – no one ever gets the spelling right.’

He was trying to act casual, but I could tell the question had ruffled him.

‘Still won’t do,’ I said, taking a sip of my champagne. ‘This is supposed to be Truth or Dare, and you’re lying. If you don’t come out with it, you’ll have to do a forfeit. Do you want to have to run naked all the way around the perimeter?’

He frowned, but I ignored it, and carried on blithely. ‘Of course, if you’re reputation isn’t in enough tatters…if you want to be known as the Hyde Park Flasher…’

His eyes widened in mock horror and he shrugged again, before rolling over onto his stomach. ‘All right,’ he said, eventually. ‘If you really want to know. I’m surprised Max hasn’t told you already, to be honest. Anything to put you off me.’ He took another sip of champagne, before continuing. ‘My father is a total bastard. Truly horrible. Never wanted children. Certainly didn’t want me, and let me know it whenever he could. By the time he sent me away to school – and that time couldn’t come quickly enough for either of us – I’d developed a stammer.’

I didn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. Christ, I hadn’t been expecting anything like this. Suddenly, I felt ashamed of myself for probing so hard. I put out a hand to comfort him…to stop him from having to continue, but he carried on anyway, talking, it seemed, more to himself than to me.

‘All through school it was the same; F…forbes the f…f…fag. I say, F…f…forbes, can you polish my boots? I say, F…forbes, can you f…f…fetch my books? By the time I left, I’d learnt to control it – more or less – but I dropped the extra F the first moment I could.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, in little more than a whisper. ‘I…had no idea.’

‘And why would you?’ he said, turning onto his side and returning my gaze. ‘It’s under control now. Being in control…it helps.’

I nodded, a thought distilling in my mind. ‘Is that why you like…controlling women?’

He frowned again, but this time it was a frown of concentration. When he answered, he spoke slowly. ‘I…don’t think so. I’ve never thought about it. It’s just…all I’ve known.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘How can it be?’

‘My upbringing was…rather unusual, shall we say?’ He gazed out across the park. ‘My father was just about as dominant as they come. My mother was totally ineffectual against him, and I bore the brunt of it. He had a whole entourage, many of whom practically lived at the Castle. Ronnie was one of them. He used them as his slaves – sexually, I mean – and had the wildest orgies you can imagine. My mother didn’t participate. She knew exactly what was going on, but turned a blind eye.

‘By the time I went up to Cambridge, he’d bought the Dominion and turned the basement into the most elite sex club in the UK. We were expected to attend that, as well as the parties, when we came home.’

‘We?’ I was trying to imagine this poor, lonely boy with a stammer, trying to fit into a world of sex and depravity and, for a moment, it made me feel better to think of him with an accomplice of sorts. But then… ‘You mean Ronnie and you?’

He shook his head. ‘Ronnie was later. She was my father’s employee then, helping him run the club. She had a son and I think everyone suspected he was my father’s. He certainly looked after her.’

‘So who…?’ I let the rest of the sentence trail off into the air, unspoken.

The heat of the sun was beginning to diminish and the air was less stifling, as he continued to gaze across the park, the evening shadows growing longer. He seemed half-lost in his own world. At my question, he turned to look at me, as if surprised to find me there. ‘Well, Aimee, of course,’ he said. ‘I’d forgotten you didn’t know.’

‘Aimee?’ My pulse quickened at the name, though whether it was through nerves or jealousy, I couldn’t distinguish.

‘Yes.’ He sat up. ‘Aimee’s parents were friends of my own. When they died in a car crash, my parents took her in. My mother had always wanted a daughter. She doted on her. And my father, well, even he was fond of her, in his own way.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘That must’ve hurt.’

‘Oh, I resented her, at first.’ He held out one of the plates of canapés. ‘Of course I did. But not for long. No one could resist Aimee for long. She was so beautiful…such fun…so light hearted. I only saw her during the holidays, but she made those so much more bearable. By the time I came down from Cambridge, I was hopelessly in love with her.’

At these words, it was as if someone had squeezed my heart in their fist. I felt wrung out and limp. How could I ever compete with her – this ghost of a girl he’d been hopelessly in love with – even if she were dead?

‘What happened, then?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice from wobbling.

‘Happened?’ He looked at me in surprise. ‘Don’t you keep up-to-date with current affairs, young lady? It’s been plastered all over the papers, yet again, ever since the whole Charlotte fiasco began.’

I shook my head. ‘I…I’ve been trying to avoid the media ever since…you know…Leo.’ In fact, I realised now, the only time I’d seen the papers, since that first article Liv had shown me in the restaurant at Ffyvells, it’d been the front page story about Kitty, and the one about myself. I hadn’t been able to bear the thought of reading any more about Leo’s sexploits.

‘Hiding from the truth won’t change it,’ he said, leaning back on his elbow nonchalantly. ‘I should know – I tried.’

‘What do you mean?’ I persisted. ‘What happened to Aimee?’