Robert, as much his father’s son as John, took it, held it. Then, his Italian mother’s genes rushing to the fore, he threw his arms around his brother and was still hugging him when the restaurant rang up to tell them that the photographer had arrived.

Max couldn’t take his eyes off Louise as she talked to the photographer, made sure that she got exactly what she wanted. Totally professional. Once she turned and saw him watching her, flicked a strand of hair behind her ear, smiled right back.

It was the look of a supremely confident woman and as she turned to her father, settled his tie, laughed at something he said to her, he felt as if he’d lost her.

Not physically. She’d made her feelings public. But she’d stepped back inside the charmed circle, to a place where he couldn’t follow.

After the photographer had gone and their respective parents put the word to the deed by staying to have lunch together, Louise and Max were left alone in the office.

‘I ought to go,’ she said.

She felt churned up, oddly vulnerable, her nerve endings exposed by so much raw emotion. It wasn’t just John and Robert Valentine making their peace after so long, or even her own accord with her father; she now realised that while she’d laid her heart on the line, Max had said nothing. She needed to think about that. What it meant.

‘I’ve got a pile of stuff waiting at the office and time is running out.’

‘Nothing that won’t keep for an hour.’ Taking her hesitation for agreement, he said, ‘We could both do with a little fresh air after this morning’s melodrama. As the boss I’m taking an executive decision to go for a walk in the park.’

‘You’re not my boss, Max,’ Louise said, matching his flippancy as she took her long scarlet coat from the stand. ‘You’re a charity case.’

‘I think we need to talk about that,’ he said, not rising to this provocation. ‘The kiss covered until the fourteenth and you’ve done a great job. Now we have to discuss the future. What kind of retainer it’s going to take to keep you as Bella Lucia’s PR consultant.’

She glanced up at him as he took her coat, held it out for her. Nothing in his face gave her a clue whether that was all he wanted from her.

‘I’m very expensive.’

‘I’m sure, between us, we can hammer out some kind of financial package.’

‘No discounts for family,’ she said, her heart slipping into her boots as she let him ease her into her coat. ‘The “kiss” deal was a one-time offer.’ Like life, she thought, but when he didn’t answer this echo of her father’s words rang hollow in her ears.

‘You should have brought some bread for the ducks,’ she said as fifteen minutes later they skirted the lake in St James’s Park. When, despite his apparent desire to talk, the silence had stretched to breaking-point.

‘The greedy little beggars are too fat to fly as it is and, besides, I want your undivided attention.’

‘We couldn’t talk somewhere warm?’ she asked.

‘I want to ask you something. It’s important. I don’t want any ringing telephones, any distractions.’

She frowned. ‘What? What is it?’

‘I want to know what really happened between you and the Honourable James Cadogan.’

‘James?’ It was clear that Max had something on his mind, but that was the last thing she’d expected. ‘He’s ancient history,’ she said, but uneasily.

‘And yet the man’s name crops up whenever you’re mentioned. The Courier mentioned him today. And your father seemed to think I was catching you on the rebound, too. Taking advantage of your broken heart.’

‘Oh, please.’ If that was his problem, well, no problem…‘The Courier was simply rehashing the last piece of gossip they had on file, and as for Dad, well, reading it just reminded him what a failure as a daughter I am. Robert’s daughter married a king, while I messed up my relationship with a simple “honourable”, a man who, I might add, my father thought would make the perfect son-in-law.’

‘I don’t think he was alone in that. I remember thinking at the time that if I heard his name connected to one more string of glowing adjectives I’d punch a hole in the wall.’

She managed a smile. ‘I used to feel the same way when you were dating Sophie Blakiston. Whatever happened to her?’

‘I didn’t turn up once too often and she married an earl.’

‘You don’t learn, do you?’

‘I didn’t have much of an example in my old man.’

‘No, it’s not that. It isn’t other women that tempt you away. You just love Bella Lucia more.’

‘Now you’re just trying to change the subject.’

Maybe, but he hadn’t denied it.

‘Of course I am,’ she replied. ‘No one likes to talk about their mistakes.’

‘And what about James Cadogan? Was he a mistake?’

Louise, wanting him to let it go, said, ‘Yes.’ Then realising that this wasn’t any better, ‘No.’ Then just shook her head.

‘So why did you two break up?’ Max persisted. ‘Whatever happened then changed you. After Cadogan there’s no one. It’s like your personal life entered an ice age.’

‘Stop trying to make it out to be such a big deal, Max. It came to a natural end. That’s all.’

‘No more than a light-hearted flirtation? That’s odd, because, according to my mother, your mother was already drawing up the guest list for the wedding, choosing stationery for the invitations, talking designers for the dress-’

‘Pure fantasy,’ she said, but was unable to meet his steady gaze, couldn’t bear the silence that told her plainer than words that Max was not convinced. She stopped, turned to face him. ‘All right! It wasn’t just fantasy. It was much more than that. Satisfied!’

He took her arm, continued walking. Waited.

‘I was nearly thirty. Way past time for a girl to be married and producing babies, according to my mother, and, as she was quick to tell me, no one better was ever likely to come along. Not exactly the fairy tale, but no girl past the age of sixteen believes in those.’

Not if her Prince Charming of choice had a barbed-wire fence around him hung with warning notices saying ‘do not touch’.

‘So you were settling for the best you could get?’

‘That’s not fair to James. He was any girl’s ideal husband. My mother was out of her mind with happiness; even my father approved.’

‘The man must have been a saint,’ he said, a touch acerbically. Then, ‘Or was it because in the fullness of time he’d have made Daddy’s little girl Lady Cadogan?’

‘Now you’re just being nasty. James was a lovely man. Any father would have been delighted with him as a son-in-law. Any woman would have been lucky-’

‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’

She shook her head, shivered.

An ice age…

Max stopped, removed the scarf he was wearing, wrapped it around her neck, but didn’t let go of the ends, holding her within the circle of his arms and instantly she felt warmer.

No ice there…

‘So what went wrong?’ he asked.

‘Me,’ she said. ‘I told you.’

He frowned.

‘What? You don’t believe that? You don’t believe Little Miss Perfect capable of dumping the best prospect for matrimonial bliss ever likely to come her way?’

‘You’re mistaking me for someone else, Lou. I never thought you were Little Miss Perfect.’ His eyes creased in one of those rare smiles that made his eyes seem impossibly blue. A smile that assured her he knew her far better than that. ‘Daddy’s Little Princess is another matter.’

She laughed. He was the one person who’d always been able to make her laugh. Before life, hormones, got in the way. How she’d missed that.

‘Was I that bad?’

‘Appalling,’ he said, but with a smile. ‘All frills, curls, and ponies. Once Jack and I lured you away on adventures, you weren’t too bad. For a girl.’

‘Thank you. I know you meant that as a compliment.’

‘I knew you’d understand.’ Then, releasing the scarf, he led the way to a bench that overlooked the lake and, with his arm around her waist, drew her close to keep her warm.

‘So, Princess, tell me about Prince Charming.’

‘I hoped you’d forgotten.’

‘That bad?’

No more secrets…

‘James did nothing wrong.’ She sighed. ‘He took all the flak from both families when it fell apart, but it was my fault, Max. All my fault.’

‘Tell me,’ he said.

She glanced at him. He raised his brows, an invitation to spill it all out. Get it off her chest.

‘Trust me, Lou.’

‘You won’t sell my secrets to the Courier diary correspondent?’ she said, in an attempt to make a joke of it.

‘Trust me,’ he repeated. No smile. No sexy little twitch of his eyebrows. He was in deadly earnest, now. Asking her to bare her soul to him. Expose her heart. Leave herself without anywhere to hide.

To put her heart where her mouth had been half an hour earlier and demonstrate that she trusted him not to hurt her.

Maybe to prove that she wouldn’t hurt him. That was an unexpected thought. She’d never seen Max as vulnerable in that way. His family had hurt him, but he’d never appeared deeply touched by any of his own romances…

No more secrets…

‘It wasn’t that I didn’t try,’ she said, looking across the lake, afraid to see the panic in his eyes as he realised what she was telling him. ‘I wanted it to work. James really was perfect. Not just because there was a title in the offing, that the family owned half the county. He was really nice. Good. Kind. And he loved me.’

She turned to Max then, because she had to see his reaction. Had to know…

‘We were going to announce our engagement on my birthday. Major party. Crates of champagne on order. My mother was ecstatic; my father was strutting around as if he owned the entire world.’

‘So?’

‘I tried, Max. I did all the right things, said all the right things and I thought it was going to work but in the end he said…James said…’

She felt trapped, laid bare in a way that simple nakedness could never expose her, but Max took her hand, held it, gave her his strength.

No more secrets, but it was so hard…

‘He said that he loved me, wanted me to be his wife. He said he knew that I didn’t feel those things as strongly as him, but that he’d accepted that. That he accepted that in a relationship there was always one person who loved more-’

‘He must have had it bad,’ he said, but not without sympathy.

‘But not, apparently, fatally. He said that he could accept all that, but he was beginning to suspect that there was someone else.’

He turned to her. ‘He thought you were cheating on him?’ he said, with a deadly calm.

‘No! No. He said…He said that when he was holding me it felt as if I was looking over his shoulder, scanning the horizon, waiting for someone just out of sight to ride to my rescue. He wanted me to talk about it. Reassure him, I suppose.’

‘But you couldn’t?’

‘No. He was wrong, Max.’ She stared at their hands, locked together. ‘He was wrong to accept less than my whole heart under any circumstances, but I was wrong, too. I should never have let it go so far. I hurt him and I deeply regret that. A partnership should be an equal passion, don’t you think?’

‘I would hope for that.’

‘Would you accept less?’ she asked.

‘If there was no other choice, if only one person will do, then there must be the temptation to accept what’s on offer, hope for more in time,’ he said, frowning. ‘But it’s not a deal I could live with. Not the kind of foundation for the kind of marriage I’d consider. The kind that will last a lifetime.’

‘That was the point. He didn’t have to work at loving me while I…’

While she had been settling for second best.

When she realised that Max was waiting for her to finish the sentence, she shook her head. ‘Whatever I was doing, he deserved better than I was giving him.’

‘Tell me about the other man. The one out of sight.’

She looked away, but he caught her chin, forced her to face him. And she didn’t have to say the words. He knew.

‘That’s why there’s been no one else?’ he persisted.

‘What would have been the point?’

‘What indeed?’ He got up, pulled her to her feet, tucked her arm firmly beneath his and continued walking.

That was it? She’d just performed open heart surgery on herself and he shrugged it off as nothing. She glanced at him. He wasn’t looking at her, but straight ahead, and all she had was his chiselled profile against the cold blue of the sky.

‘So, this affair we’re having is your way of getting me out of your hair, is it?’ he asked.

‘That’s a rather cold way of putting it.’

‘But I’m right? I get you and your talent until the fourteenth. After that, you’re going to move on?’

‘That was the plan,’ she admitted, miserably.

‘And is it working?’