"I accept the compliment," says Marianne, smiling as she steps past him into the restaurant. "Just to be clear."

Once inside, she shrugs out of her jacket. She'd deliberated over the top before she'd put it on, aware that it's leaving a lot of skin bare, but she also likes the way that it makes her shoulders and her collarbones look, and she thinks (hopes) that Pal might like it too.