Yes, that IS what Meghan calls Harry

clearly c already in love. She told me it was serious and they had started discussing d the future.

‘She said they’d said to each other: “W “We’re going to change the world.” I knew then there was no other way th than for them to get married. I was c certain it was going to happen.

‘All this time I kept their relations ship secret as she had asked m me. They wanted that space and ti t i me to t hemselves before it b became public knowledge.

‘It was hard to keep the secret but I would never have betrayed her. I’ I’ve been running my business si side-by-side with my husband for 2 20 years and we’ve been married fo for 30, but I didn’t even tell him.’

Within just a few months, it was clear that Harry was going to propose.

‘One day we were having lunch on the Strand in London and it was obvious it was w getting very serious with Harry Harry. I repeated my previous warning to her, asking if she knew what she was w letting herself in for. I said: “This “Th is serious. This is the end of your yo normal life, the end of your pr privacy – everything.” ‘But she just held up her hand and s said: “Stop. I don’t want to h hear any negativity. This is a happy time for us.” She is so focused on what she wants wa and she wasn’t going to listen to anything that wo would cast a shadow, so I ju just said, “OK. I’m happy fo for you, Meghan”.’ I If Meghan was worried ab about anything, Gina says, it was whether she was spen spending enough time with Harr Harry. Not least because she had only on short breaks between her intensive int filming schedule. ‘To see Harry, she needed to swap sche schedules with her co-stars. She was worried w about wanting to be here [in London] and how she was going to manage that.’

Gina gen generously puts Meghan’s anxiety ov over her relationship with Harry as the reason for a growing change in her behaviour – gone was the happy-go-lucky American attitude, replaced with a new and more serious demeanour.

Meghan and Gina flew to Ottawa to attend another One Young World event at the end of September 2016, by which time the couple had been dating for three months. ‘ There was a big change in her then,’ says Gina, choosing her words carefully. ‘She did give me a bit of a difficult time.’

At the event, when Meghan was asked by a young reporter for ‘a few words’, she snapped: ‘Talk to my agent.’

‘The journalist was taken aback and I was a little shocked because she had never done that before. She was always warm and accommodating to everyone previously, which I think is her real nature. From that moment on, it seemed to become much harder for her to do anything outside the official brief.’

Meghan pulled out of the event halfway through, because she was needed back on the set of Suits.

Gina adds: ‘Meghan told me later on the phone that she had been sitting in the first-class lounge and was asked to move seats to make way for a group of male Columbian dignitaries. She was clearly upset and she told me that she got up gracefully, picked up her bag and moved away but I suspect she was seriously irritated. It was as if this would be the last time anyone would ever ask her to move again.’

That was one of the last times that Gina would see her. ‘She wrote a lovely email in October, a week before the news about her and Harry became public, saying that she was giving up her career and we had to terminate our contract.

‘I was disappointed, I’ll admit. I realised it meant losing her as a friend as well as a client. Professionally, we were just about to sign a big deal with a leading skincare brand and there was talk of a book, but of course I understood why her commercial engagements had to come to an end. There was no way she could continue her corporate work while maintaining the relationship with Prince Harry.’

The last time she heard from her friend was not from Meghan herself. When Gina emailed Meghan, asking permission to use a photograph of her from the youth summit, her lawyers responded.

‘Perhaps it says something about her new life,’ reflects Gina.

‘She must get thousands of emails. But it would have been nice if she’d just dropped me a line to say her l awyers were handling i t, rather than have them reply to me directly. It’s a shame.’

It’s easy to see that Gina remains sad at the abrupt end to their friendship, although she’s too professional to say so. When it comes to Meghan’s future, she has only positive things to say. ‘ She’ll be great – it’s a positive thing for the whole nation. I do wonder how she’ll cope, being in the public eye so constantly, with no private life at all.

‘But I think she’s right: Meghan and Harry will change the world.’

‘She did give me a bit of a difficult time’