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“Forget it.” I fold my arms with a smirk. “You may have a posh girl background, but I don’t want to see your polished silverware and fancy napkins. I want to see the real deal.”

She groans. “I’ve got a pile of dirty laundry at the bottom of my bed, and dirty mugs and palettes galore all over the place.”

“Nothing wrong with a bit of dirty laundry, Soul Girl. I think BT here might want to take a pair of panties home as a souvenir.”

Bryce’s cheeks pink up before my very eyes. Yep, he’d love a pair of her panties. He’d probably jerk off over them for years to come.

“Time for that cab,” I say. “Address, please. If you don’t want us there when we’ve arrived, turf us out by all means, but I’ll take my canvas on my way.”

Alice smiles at that. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your bloody painting.”

She gives me her address details. I should have guessed she’d be a Hampstead girl. A haven for creative elites.

Thirty minutes in a cab has the lovebirds loosening up, just a touch. I’m between them in the back seat on purpose, so they have to lean forward to speak to each other. I want a full view of every interaction, weighing them up. Alice has a habit of brushing her hair behind her ear whenever she laughs at one of BT’s jokes, and he has really cute dimples from a side angle. Really fucking cute.

I give them little prompters and a lot of airtime. I hear stories from the past, like how they once borrowed her father’s golf clubs to see how far they could smash some apples down the orchard, and ended up smashing one of the estate greenhouses to smithereens.

“We should have owned up to it. Joe nearly lost his job over that debacle!” Bryce says.

Alice shakes her head.

“No way! If we had, Dad would have lost his shit and confiscated my paints for a decade!”

It’s clear as day that this daddy dynamic has been in place for a long, long time. Poor fuckers. They can try to laugh it off all they want, but they’re kidding themselves. Daddy Parker is Lord God and ruler of all in their universe. That pretence of his alone brings out the mischief in me. I’d love to beat the egotistical cunt in a poker game, and I’ve only met him for thirty seconds.

Soul Girl snaps back to the present when the cab pulls up in Hampstead. Surprise, surprise, she owns a whole house on this flash street. Or more likely, Daddy does. It’s an artsy tall terrace with an antique front door, and the steps outside have stains of paint on them, at odds with the neighbours. One of them is neon green. Faded, but still garish.

“Like I said, it’s a clutter fest,” she says as she swings the door open, and she isn’t joking.

I’m a messy prick, but she has paints and palettes and splashes of colour everywhere. A jumble of shoes in a makeshift shoe rack. As many pieces of random art on the walls as she could possibly squeeze in.

She has artsy magazines in scattered piles. Empty mugs all over the sideboard. A walnut dining table with a grandiose candlestick holder in the centre, and more garish paint stains around the edges. Bright, bold cushions. One of those boho style twined rugs that I absolutely detest, and a ceiling painted purple, for fuck’s sake.

She’s painted her kitchen diner ceiling purple as well. For real. With sunset terracotta walls and deep green foliage dotted around. Mainly drooping. The girl probably grew up with a dedicated maid on duty 24/7. She’s too spoilt for domesticity.

Despite my initial WTF, the purple ceiling looks quite cool actually. I don’t think I’ll be using it for decor inspiration, but it suits the ambience of the place.

I know one thing for sure. Daddy Parker certainly doesn’t visit this place very often. If I was a betting man, which I am, I’d lay my hand on the odds that nobody does. We’ve infiltrated a very private space.

“Tea? Coffee?” she asks, fishing around in a cupboard for some clean mugs.

“A beer?” I say. “Whisky? Champagne?”

She takes out a bottle of prosecco from the fridge.

“Will this do? We’ll have to split it between mugs, though. Sorry, I didn’t put the dishwasher on.”

A place like this should be making neat-freak Bryce’s skin crawl, but he’s beaming like he’s in a five-star resort in the Maldives.

“This is magical,” he says. “Extraordinary!”

“Cluttered chaos,” she laughs. “I mean it, guys. We can go, if you’d rather. There’s a nice little pub on the corner.”

I peer around one of the doors, and it leads to another hallway. Yet more pictures on the wall. Surprise.

“Where’s your studio?” I ask her. “I’m guessing you don’t use the kitchen table to create the masterpieces.”

“One of the bedrooms,” she says. “I had it converted. Bright lights and no carpet.”