I rolled my eyes. I was feeling much better by that stage. I always find cleaning very comforting.

‘Oh, very well, it’s not as if we’re supposed to be married,’ I conceded. ‘You’ll just have to look as if you’re keen enough on me to be considering a cushion some time soon.’

‘I think I can manage looking keen,’ said Phin, and something in his voice made me glance at him sharply. Amusement and something else glimmered in the depths of those blue eyes. Something that made my breath hitch and my heart thud uneasily in my throat. Something that sent me skittering right back to square one.

I moistened my lips, and cast around wildly for something to say. ‘Shouldn’t you go and change?’ To my horror, my voice sounded high and tight.

‘What for?’ said Phin easily. ‘They want to see me at home, don’t they?’

‘Well, yes, but you might want to look as if you’ve made a bit of an effort. You haven’t even got any shoes on. You look as if you’ve just rolled out of bed,’ I said, and then winced inwardly, wishing I hadn’t mentioned bed.

‘That’s what we want them to think,’ said Phin. ‘And, now you come to mention it, I think you’re the one who needs to do something about your appearance.’

‘What do you mean?’ Diverted, I peered anxiously into the mirror above the mantelpiece. Anne and I had spent hours the evening before, going through the clothes heaped on my bed and trying to pick just the right look. It had to be sexy enough for me to be in with a remote chance of being Phin’s girlfriend, but at the same time I wanted it to fit with Gibson & Grieve’s new family-friendly image.

‘And you mustn’t wear black or white next to your face,’ Anne had said bossily. ‘It’s very draining in photographs. You want to look casual, but sophisticated, elegant, but colourful, sexy, but sensible.’

In the end we had decided on a pair of black wool trousers with a silky shirt I had worn to various Christmas parties the previous December. It was a lovely cherry-red, and I had painted my nails with Anne’s favourite colour, Berry Bright, to match. I had even clipped my hair up loosely, the way I wore it at the weekend. I thought I looked OK.

‘What’s wrong with how I look?’ I asked.

‘You look much too neat and tidy,’ said Phin, putting his hands on either side of my waist. ‘Come here.’

‘What are you doing?’ I asked nervously as he drew me towards him.

‘I’m going to make you look as you’ve just rolled out of bed, too. As if we rolled out of bed together.’

Lifting one hand, he pulled the clip from my hair so that it slithered forward. ‘You shouldn’t hide it away,’ he said, twining his fingers through it. ‘It’s beautiful stuff. I thought it was just brown at first, but every time I look at it I see a different colour. Sometimes it looks gold, sometimes chestnut, sometimes honey. I swear I’ve even seen red in there…it makes me think of an autumn wood.’

I was speechless-and not just because of his closeness, which was making me feel hazy. No one had ever said anything like that to me before. I didn’t want to look into his eyes to see if he was joking or not. I was afraid that if I did I would lose what little grip I still had on my senses.

‘Very poetic,’ I managed.

‘But it’ll look even more beautiful tousled up,’ said Phin-and, ignoring my protests, he mussed up my hair before turning his attention to my shirt. ‘And, yes…I think we’ll have to do something about this, too. There are just too many buttons done up here, and they’re all done up the right way! That won’t do at all.’

Very slowly, very deliberately, he undid the first two buttons and looked down at me, his eyes dark and blue.

‘No, you still look horribly cool,’ he said, which must have been a lie because my heart was thundering in my chest and I was burning where those blunt, surprisingly deft fingers had grazed my skin. I opened my mouth, but the words jammed in my throat, piling into an inarticulate sound that fell somewhere between a squeak and a gasp. He was barely touching me, but every cell in my body was screaming with awareness and I couldn’t have moved if I had tried.

‘I may have to work a bit harder on this one…’ he went on and, bending his head, he blew gently just below my ear. The feel of it shuddered straight down my spine and clutched convulsively at its base. In spite of myself, I shivered.

‘Mmm, yes, this may just work,’ said Phin, pleased, and then he was trailing kisses down my neck, warm and soft and tantalising.

I really, really didn’t want to respond, but I couldn’t help myself. It was awful. It was as if some other woman had taken over my body, tipping her head back and sucking in her breath with another shudder of excitement.

My heart was thudding in my throat, and I could hear the blood rushing giddily in my ears.

‘You see where I’m going with this,’ murmured Phin, who was managing to undo another couple of buttons at the same time. ‘I mean, we did discuss how important it was to make it look as if we found each other irresistible, didn’t we?’

‘I think that’s probably enough buttons, though,’ I croaked as he started on the other side of my neck. His hair was tickling my jaw and I could smell his shampoo. The wonderfully clean, male scent of his skin combined with the wicked onslaught of his lips was making my head spin, and I felt giddy and boneless.

Perhaps that was why I didn’t resist as Phin steered me over to the great leather sofa. There was no way my legs were going to hold me up much longer, and as we sank down onto the cushions I felt as if I were sinking into a swirl of abandon.

‘OK, no more buttons,’ he whispered, and I could feel his lips curving against my throat. ‘But…I…don’t…think…you…look…quite…convincing…enough…yet.’

Between each word he pressed a kiss along my jaw until he reached my mouth at last, and then his lips were on mine, and he was kissing me with an expertise that literally took my breath away. Since I’m being frank, I’ll admit that it was a revelation. I’d never been kissed so surely, so thoroughly, so completely and utterly deliciously. So irresistibly.

I certainly couldn’t resist it. I wound my arms around him, pulling him closer, and kissed him back.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know who he was or what I was doing, but I thought…Well, I don’t know what I thought, OK? The truth is, I wasn’t thinking at all. I was just feeling, the slither of the satiny shirt against my skin, the hardness and heat of his hands on me as he pushed the slippery material aside.

Just tasting…his mouth, his skin.

Just hearing the wild rush of my pulse, the uneven way he said my name, my own ragged breathing.

Just touching-fumbling at his T-shirt, tugging it up so that I could run my hands feverishly over his smoothly muscled back, marvelling at the way it flexed beneath my fingers. I let them drift up the warmth of his flanks and felt him shiver in response.

What can I say? I was lost, astonished at my own abandon, and yet helpless to pull myself back.

Or perhaps I’m not being entirely honest. I was aware at one level of my sensible self frantically waving her arms and ordering me back to safety, but Phin’s body felt so good, so lean and hard as it pressed me into the sofa, and his mouth was so wickedly enticing, that I ignored her and let my fingers drift to the fastening of his jeans instead.

Afterwards, I could hardly believe it, but the truth is that there was a moment when I did know that I’d regret it later, and I still chose the lure of Phin’s hands taking me to places I’d barely suspected before. I succumbed to the excitement rocketing through me, and if Imelda and the photographer hadn’t arrived just then who knows where we would have ended up?

Except I do know, of course.

What I don’t know is whether that would have been a good thing or a bad thing. I’m pretty sure I would have enjoyed it, though.

As it was, the piercing ring of the doorbell tore through the hazy pleasure and brought me right back to earth with a sickening crash.

I jerked bolt upright. ‘Oh, my God, it’s them!’

Frantically I tried to button up my shirt and shove it back into my trousers at the same time as pushing my hair behind my ears. ‘What were we doing?’

Phin was infuriatingly unperturbed. He was barely breathing unsteadily. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been doing my bit for our pretence-and with all due modesty, I think I’ve excelled,’ he said, and grinned as his eyes rested on my face. I dreaded to think what I looked like. ‘Now you really do look the part.’

The bell rang again, more stridently this time. ‘Ready?’ asked Phin, and without waiting for me to answer strolled to open the door.

I could hear him exchanging chit-chat with Imelda and the photographer in the narrow hallway as I desperately tried to compose myself. I was horrified when I looked in the mirror to see that my hair was all over the place, my eyes huge and my lips swollen. I hardly recognised myself. I looked wild. I looked wanton.

I looked sexy.

I looked the part, just like Phin had said.

The next moment Phin was ushering Imelda into the room. She stopped when she saw me. ‘Hello,’ she said, obviously surprised.

‘Hello,’ I said weakly, and then remembered-far too late, I know-that I was the one who had set up this interview. I cleared my throat and stepped forward to shake her hand. ‘We’ve spoken on the phone,’ I said. ‘I’m Summer Curtis-Phin’s PA.’

‘Ah.’ Imelda looked amused, and when I followed her gaze I saw that she was looking at my shirt, which I had managed to button up all wrong in my haste.

Flushing, I made to fix the top button, and then realised that I was just going to get into an awful muddle unless I undid them all and started again. As Phin had no doubt intended.

‘Not just my PA,’ said Phin, coming to put his arm round my waist and pulling me into his side.

‘So I see,’ said Imelda dryly.

Her elegant brows lifted in surprise. I didn’t blame her. She must have known as well as I did that I wasn’t exactly Phin’s usual type, and I lost confidence abruptly. We’d never be able to carry this off. Not in front of someone as sharp as Imelda.

‘Shall I make coffee?’ I asked quickly, desperate to get out of the room. My heart was still crashing clumsily around in my chest, and I was having a lot of trouble breathing. I felt trembly and jittery, and I kept going hot and cold as if I had a fever.

Perhaps I did have a fever? I latched onto the thought as I filled the kettle with shaking hands. That would explain the giddiness, the way I had melted into Phin with barely a moment’s hesitation. My cheeks burned at the memory.

Not just my cheeks, to be honest.

When I came back in with a tray, having taken the opportunity to refasten my shirt and tuck myself in properly, Phin was leaning back on the sofa, looking completely relaxed. He pulled me down onto the sofa beside him. ‘Thanks, babe,’ he said, and rested a hand possessively on my thigh.

Babe? Ugh. I was torn between disgust and an agonising awareness of his hand touching my leg. It felt as if it were burning a hole through my trousers, and I was sure that when I took them off I would find an imprint of his palm scorched onto my skin.

‘So, Phin,’ said Imelda, when we had got the whole business of passing around the milk and sugar out of the way. ‘It sounds as if you’re making a lot of changes in your life right now. Does your new role at Gibson & Grieve mean you’re ready to stop travelling?’

‘I won’t stop completely,’ he said. ‘I’ve still got various programme commitments, and besides, I’m endlessly curious about the world. There are still so many wonderful places to see, and so many exciting things to do. I’m never going to turn my back on all that completely. Having said that, my father’s stroke did make me reassess my priorities. Gibson & Grieve is part of my life, and it feels good to be involved in the day to day running of it. It’s time for me to do my part, instead of leaving it all to my brother.

‘And then, of course, there’s Summer.’ He lifted my hand and pressed a kiss it. His lips were warm and sure, and a shiver travelled down my spine. I did my best to disguise it by shifting on the sofa, but I saw Imelda look at me. ‘She’s changed everything for me.’

‘You’re thinking of settling down?’ She made a moue of exaggerated disappointment. ‘That’s another of the most eligible bachelors off the available list!’

‘I’m afraid so,’ said Phin, entwining his fingers with mine. ‘I was always afraid of the idea of settling down, but since I’ve met Summer it doesn’t seem so much like giving up my freedom as finding what I’ve been looking for all these years.’