‘You know what I mean. Willie’s coming to London. He’s going to expect to see us together.’

‘He is,’ Lex agreed grimly. ‘Especially now you’ve invited him to dinner.’

‘I had to! It would have looked really odd if neither of us said anything, when we’ve been staying with him and drinking all his whisky.’

‘I suppose so.’ Lex’s mouth was pulled down at the corners, his brows drawn together in an irritable line. ‘But now we’re going to have to stay a couple until this bloody contract is signed, and who knows how long it will be before we can do that. Once the lawyers get their hands on it, it could be months!’

‘Months?’ Romy was dismayed.

‘Weeks, anyway.’

‘Whatever happened to “tomorrow it’ll be over”?’ She sighed.

It was the first time either of them had referred to the night before. When Romy stirred that morning, Lex had already showered and shaved. His face was set, his eyes shuttered, and she could see that it was over, just as they had agreed.

Romy told herself that she was glad that he was sticking to their agreement. Closure, wasn’t that what she had called it? Easy to say before his mouth was hot and wicked against her, before the heat and the wildness drove them into a different place where there was nothing but touching and feeling and the heart-stopping joy of now.

If Lex had woken her with a kiss, if he had touched her at all and suggested that they made love one more time… Romy wanted to think that she would have been strong enough and sensible enough to resist, but she wasn’t sure.

‘It is over,’ said Lex, without taking his eyes from the road. ‘Last night was about us. This is about business. We’ve started on a pretence and now we’re going to have to keep it going. It would have been fine if Willie had stayed at Duncardie like he was supposed to, but too many people in London will be able to tell him we’re nothing to do with each other.’

‘We told him we were keeping it a secret,’ Romy pointed out.

‘No relationship is that secret. Even Willie is going to wonder why no one at all has any inkling that we’ve even met, let alone are engaged. I’m not prepared to take that risk,’ said Lex. ‘If Willie even suspects that we’ve been pretending, it would be even worse than if we’d told him the truth about my lack of family man credentials in the first place.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Romy sighed again. ‘I wish now I’d been straight with him right at the start.’

‘It’s too late for wishing,’ Lex said. ‘We’re stuck with this pretence now, and we’ll have to see it through to the bitter end. It’s not as if I’m a monster. I may not be prepared to share my life with a kid, but that doesn’t mean I send little boys up chimneys. Gibson & Grieve have plenty of family-friendly policies, as you pointed out. It’s a good deal for Grant’s Supersavers as well as for us.’

Part of Romy marvelled that they were able to talk so dispassionately about the situation. It was bizarre to be having such a practical conversation when last night… But there was no point in thinking about last night, she caught herself up quickly. Much better to be talking about how they were going to handle the pretence than to sit here in silence, her body still thrumming, remembering, and reminding herself of all the reasons why it was sensible that they never made love again.

I don’t want to fall in love with you again, Lex had said. Until then, Romy hadn’t appreciated just how much she had hurt him. She couldn’t do that to him again.

And she couldn’t hurt herself. The need to protect herself was too deeply engrained for Romy to be able to contemplate loving Lex the way he deserved to be loved. To risk needing him. She would be too exposed when it ended, as end it would.

How could it last when they were so different, when they wanted such different things? Lex couldn’t have made it clearer. He wasn’t prepared to share his life with a child.

Romy glanced over her shoulder at Freya, who had fallen asleep before they got to the road. The sight of her daughter steadied her. Even if Lex changed his mind, even if she were brave enough to take the risk for herself, she still wouldn’t do it. If Freya spent too much time with Lex, she would learn to love him. That was what children did. And then, when he left, when he couldn’t bear the mess and the noise any longer, her heart would break. Romy knew what it felt like to be abandoned. She wouldn’t let that happen to her daughter.

She turned back to face the front, and glanced at Lex. ‘OK, we’re stuck with it,’ she said briskly. This is about business, he had said. Business it would be. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘I think you-and Freya-should move into my flat.’

‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea,’ said Romy.

‘Why not?’

‘People at work will realise. Someone’s bound to see us.’

‘That’s the whole point,’ he said irritably. ‘We want them to realise. Then when Willie turns up, nobody is going to act surprised if we’re together. And you and Freya are there when he comes to this dinner you’ve invited him to.’

Romy stuck out her bottom lip. ‘But that’s weeks away! Why can’t I stay in my flat, and just come and cook dinner that night?’

‘Because nobody is going to believe that we’re a real couple if you’re flogging back to your flat. When are we supposed to have this mad, passionate affair if you’re spending two hours every day on the Northern Line?’

‘Nobody needs to know where I’m going,’ she said stubbornly, and Lex threw her a disbelieving glance.

‘Want a bet?’

Romy folded her arms crossly. She could see it made sense, but living with Lex for weeks on end, trying not to think about touching him, trying not to remember… How was she going to bear it?

‘Are you sure you’ve thought this through?’ she said. ‘You think there’s a lot of Freya’s stuff in the back, but that’s what we needed for a night away. Imagine what we’ll need if we’re staying for weeks.’

‘I’m not expecting to enjoy the experience,’ said Lex, ‘but if it means the deal with Grant’s Supersavers goes through, then I’ll put up with it.’

‘And what about me?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What do I get out of it?’

‘You get a fantastic reference, and the experience of working on a successful project,’ said Lex. ‘That’s worth a lot when you’re looking for a good job.’

Romy knew that it was true. She badly needed both. She had had a lovely time drifting around the world, but she was ill equipped when it came to supporting her daughter. Phin’s offer of a temporary job with Gibson & Grieve had been a godsend, but finding a well-paid permanent job would be more of a challenge.

And even if she hadn’t needed something impressive on her CV, there was Tim and the rest of the acquisitions team to think about. They had made her welcome, taught her all they knew. They needed the deal with Grant’s Supersavers to go through, too. She couldn’t let them down either.

‘All right,’ she said, turning her bracelets as she tried to think it through. ‘Freya and I move in with you. We let people think we’re living together. Fine. How long before our mothers get wind of it?’

‘Oh, God,’ said Lex. He hadn’t thought about his mother. Or Romy’s mother. The mothers together. ‘Oh, God,’ he said again.

‘We can’t tell them the truth.’

He actually blanched. ‘God, no!’

‘So that means they’re going to have to believe that we’re in love,’ Romy went on remorselessly.

‘Oh, no…’ He could see exactly where she was going with this.

‘And that will mean that there’ll be hell to pay when it turns out that we’re not getting married after all.’

Lex gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white as he imagined the scene in appalling detail. ‘We’ll just have to say that it didn’t work out,’ he said. ‘We’ll say it was a mutual decision.’

‘I could say that I wanted to take Freya to be near her father,’ Romy offered. ‘I’ve been thinking that’s what I should do anyway.’

There was a tiny pause. ‘That would work,’ Lex agreed tonelessly.

‘But your mother will be furious with me.’

‘I’ll tell her I don’t care,’ he said. ‘I’ll say that I couldn’t cope with living with a baby. She’ll believe that.’

It was Romy’s turn to pause. ‘There you are then.’

Lex shot her a swift penetrating look, then fixed his eyes on the road once more. Neither of them said anything about the night before.

‘Problem solved,’ he said.

‘Where would you like to sleep?’

It had been a long day. The drive to Inverness, the flight back to London, and then, deciding to get all the upheaval over with in one fell swoop, the limousine that picked them up from the airport had detoured via Romy’s flat so that she could pack up everything she would need for the next few weeks.

Now they stood in Lex’s penthouse flat, surrounded by a sea of bags and toys and bumper packs of nappies. Freya’s things looked even more incongruous here than they had done at Duncardie. Holding Freya in her arms, Romy looked around her, impressed and chilled in equal measure.

The living area was a huge open space with a whole wall of glass looking out over the Thames. There was a grand piano in one corner, a sleek leather sofa, a black-granite-topped table with striking chairs. No clutter, no mess, no softness or colour. Hard edges wherever she looked. It was hard to imagine anywhere less suitable for a crawling baby.

‘What’s the choice?’ she asked.

‘There are two spare rooms,’ said Lex. ‘So you can sleep with Freya, sleep on your own.’ He hesitated. ‘Or sleep with me.’

Romy stilled. ‘I thought it was over.’

‘It was. It is.’ He moved restlessly. ‘It should be.’

All the way home he had been wrestling with memories of the night before. Closure? Hah! How could there be closure when Romy was sitting beside him, when the feel of her, the taste of her, was imprinted on his body and on his mind?

‘I just thought…if we’re going to be living together…’ He dragged his fingers through his hair, not really knowing what he was trying to say. At least, he knew what, but not how to say it. ‘It was good, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Romy set Freya on the floor, where she immediately set about unpacking toys from one of the bags, throwing them all over Lex’s pristine carpet. ‘It was too good,’ she said.

Hugging her arms together, she stepped over the bags and wandered over to the huge window. ‘It would be so easy to spend the next few weeks together, Lex. It would be good again-it would be wonderful, probably-but how would we stop then?’

‘Maybe we wouldn’t want to.’

‘Look at all this stuff!’ Romy swung round and gestured at the sea of bags and baby gear. ‘We’ve only been here five minutes and already your flat looks like a bomb has hit it. How are you going to cope with this level of mess for weeks on end?’

Her eyes rested on her daughter, who had discovered a much-loved floppy rabbit and was sucking its already battered ear. ‘Freya isn’t always as happy as this,’ she told Lex. ‘Sometimes she wakes in the nights, and the screaming will sound like a drill in your head. There’ll be dirty nappies and sticky fingers all over your furniture… You’ll hate it!’

She tried to smile. ‘Remember how you said you would tell your mother that you couldn’t cope with living with a baby? I don’t think you’ll have any difficulty sounding convincing about that.’

‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Lex rubbed a hand over his face in a gesture of weary resignation. ‘I know you’re right, in fact.’

‘We may be different, but we’re the same in one way,’ said Romy. ‘We’re both afraid of getting too involved. Me because I’m afraid of being hurt, and you because you’re afraid of the mess that comes along with any kind of relationship. You could say that we’re made for each other,’ she added with a crooked smile.

‘Neither of us is prepared to commit to a relationship that we’re not sure will last, but, apart from that, what have we got in common?’ Romy went on, still hugging her arms together as she paced restlessly around the immaculate room.

‘This apartment is so you, Lex. It’s cool and it’s calm and it’s perfectly ordered. I can see why you like it like this, but it’s no place for Freya, and if it’s no place for her, it’s no place for me. So we’ll be leaving as soon as Willie has signed that contract. And the more nights we have like last one, the harder it will be to say goodbye.’

She was terribly afraid of falling in love with him. She was afraid of needing him. Surely Lex could see that?

‘You’re right,’ said Lex again. He straightened his shoulders. ‘It would be a big mistake. Madness. What was I thinking?’

He looked across the room into Romy’s dark eyes and knew exactly what he had been thinking. He had been thinking about the satiny warmth of her skin. About the heat and the piercing sweetness and the aching sense of peace when he lay with his face buried in her throat.