It was 19 May 2012. We’d just beaten the Waratahs in a pretty dull Super Rugby game at Newlands, and I went to Gino’s, an Italian restaurant in Stellenbosch, with my girlfriend at the time, some of the Waratahs’ boys and the cousin of a woman named Rachel Smith.
We’d been there a while when Rachel arrived with her brother and sister. She didn’t think I was anything special: in fact, she thought I was quite rude because when they arrived I was sitting in a corner and didn’t get up or say hi to them.
Then she sat down on the other side of the table, so I didn’t really speak to her too much all evening. But there was something about her that really got to me.