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photo in that outfit. From any angle.’
    ‘It feels like torture,’ I respond dryly, feeling my feet going numb.
    Gia laughs. ‘Beauty hurts.’
    She’s about to say something else when a doorbell peals so loudly, I almost jump. I’m reminded of the small matter of locating Ryan Daley, which completely slipped my mind during the insane amount of time it took us to find me something to wear. Irina’s heart gives a sudden lurch.
    ‘You promised you’d help me find him, find Ryan,’ I remind Gia.
    She shakes her head warningly, already heading towards the door. ‘Not now,’ she says over her shoulder. ‘That will be Felipe, and Felipe is not accustomed to being ignored.’ Her tone is derisive.
    I trail awkwardly after her in the crippling, shiny heels she picked out for me to wear. When she flings open the door to my suite, I see a handsome, sun-bronzed, strong-featured young man standing there. Mid to late twenties, with black, slicked-back hair. He’s shorter than I am in my absurd footwear, and broad-shouldered, muscular, powerful-looking. He’s wearing a single-breasted charcoal grey suit over a black turtleneck, a camel-coloured overcoat and expensive-looking, spit-and-polish black lace-up brogues. He’s carrying a pair of cream and tan, perforated leather driving gloves in one hand. As he follows Gia into the stately sitting room of the suite, I see open admiration in his dark eyes. For me .
    Even though I consider myself impervious to all forms of flattery, I find myself blushing suddenly under his appreciative and unblinking scrutiny. Even Ryan never looked at me the way this guy’s doing now. Like I’m good enough to … devour. I don’t know whether to feel pleased, or revolted.
    ‘ ¡Querida! ’ the young man murmurs in a low, musical voice like an auditory caress. ‘ Cómo ardo al pensar en su belleza, a pesar de su maldad infernal. ’
    Gia shoots Felipe a scandalised look.
    I feel Irina’s face suddenly flush with a strange, hectic blood, her heartbeat kick into higher gear. It’s Spanish . I actually recognise it.
    But I don’t recall any past facility with Spanish at all. So where is this coming from?
    Literally, the guy had said —
    Darling! How your beauty sets me on fire, despite your infernal evil.
    I don’t know how it’s possible, but when I reach out for the words I need, the words I want to use, they’re somehow there.
    ‘ Qué simpatico … como siempre, querido Felipe ,’ I reply tersely. ‘But let’s speak English, for Gia’s sake, ¿le parece bien? ’
    There are accents on all the wrong places, accents where there shouldn’t be any, but from the looks on both their faces, I’ve just made perfect sense in a language I shouldn’t even know .
    ‘You’re speaking English for my sake?’ Gia says disbelievingly.
    The confident smile on Felipe’s handsome face falters for a moment, before it’s smoothly re-established. ‘Your Spanish, Senorita Zhivanevskaya,’ he says, his perfect white teeth showing, ‘he has improved very much.’
    ‘Yes, “he” has,’ Gia mutters. ‘Out of sight. So tell me again, Irina, why you insisted on hiring that creepy translator for the Costa Rican swimsuit shoot last month?’
    From the look on Gia’s face, it’s clear that the only languages Irina’s supposed to have are Russian and bitchy conversational English.
    ‘Sit,’ I tell Felipe, still pretending I didn’t hear Gia’s question. I gesture at the two pairs of elegant winged armchairs facing each other either side of a monumental glass and steel coffee table bearing porcelain cups and saucers and a sleek, silver, lidded jug.
    Gia and I take our places across from Felipe and, for a moment, I do not hear the icily correct small talk that the two of them are exchanging. Lela Neill hadn’t spoken Spanish. Neither had Lucy, or Susannah. Or Ezra before them. But with a name like Zappacosta, I’m guessing that Carmen might be able to. And now I can, too? Even though I