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      ‘That was a great evening.’

      She smiled warily. ‘Yes, it was.’

      ‘They’re lovely people.’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘You’re lucky to have such good friends close by. Mine are scattered all over the world.’

      And whose choice was that? she could have said, but she didn’t, she bit her tongue and headed for the kitchen. ‘Tea or wine?’ she asked, and he shrugged.

      ‘Whatever. I’ve had wine and beer already today. If you’re drinking I’ll join you, but I’m quite happy with tea.’

      ‘Tea it is, then,’ she said, glad she’d had the excuse of driving to refuse the wine, because while she was still expressing milk for Kizzy she didn’t want to drink.

      And it would be lovely to reach a point where she didn’t have to take that into account at every moment of her life!

      With a little sigh she put the kettle on, reached for the mugs and bumped into Harry.

      ‘Sorry,’ he said, throwing her an apologetic smile. ‘I was getting the mugs for you.’

      But the damage was done. After a day of watching him running around on the beach and at the Barrons’ three parts naked, water sluicing off his powerful body and beading like tiny gems in the dark hair that covered his legs and arrowed down his abdomen, just the brush of his body against her was enough to start a wildfire that no amount of common sense was going to be able to put out. She’d nearly blown a fuse when his leg had brushed against hers in the hot tub, but she’d been safe there, with Georgie and Nick to chaperone and keep order. Here, there was no one to hold them back, nothing to stop them. Except her fleeting common sense.

      Emily turned back to the tea, her fingers trembling, and dropped a teaspoon on the floor.

      They bent together, bumped again and he laughed and apologised and moved away, giving her room to breathe at last and her heart time to slow.

      ‘So—fancy having a look at the garden tomorrow?’ he said after a long moment that sizzled with tension.

      ‘Sure. If you have the kids.’

      ‘I thought we could do it together—talk it through. It’s not as if it’s far away. The kids can come, too. After all, it’s the weekend. The painters won’t be there.’

      ‘No. OK. What did they say about the kitchen, by the way?’ she asked, desperately trying not to think about that arrowing hair on his washboard abdomen.

      ‘Oh, he’d been going to suggest it,’ he said, taking his mug from her. ‘Thought it was a good idea for a short-term fix. He’s going to do it.’

      ‘Colour?’

      Harry shrugged and grinned. ‘I have no idea. Maybe sort of duck-egg, I think he was suggesting, but I can’t say I’ve taken an interest in kitchens, really. My flat’s got a stainless-steel and lacquer-red high-gloss laminate kitchen that’s a mass of fingermarks and a living nightmare to work in—not my choice, I have to add. It was the developer who put it in. The only bit of it I like is the walnut worktop, because it goes with the floor. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. This kitchen can’t look worse than it does at the moment, so duck-egg or cream or whatever, it has to be an improvement.’

      They went through to the sitting room and she picked up the TV remote. ‘Want to watch something, or shall I put music on?’

      ‘Music would be nice,’ he said, and she went into her study and came back with a couple of CDs that she used for background while she was working—compilation albums of soft, easy-listening tracks, female singers mostly, but she’d never noticed just how intrinsically romantic all the songs were until that moment.

      Damn. She should have chosen something different—something classical. She buried her nose in her mug and tried not to look at him. For a few minutes they sat in silence, then the third track came on, less romantic, and with an inward sigh of relief she shifted slightly so she could see him better and said, ‘Tell me about yourself. What have you been doing since I last saw you? Apart from the obvious, of course.’

      He gave a quiet huff of laughter. ‘Nothing much. Flying about all over the world. It doesn’t leave time for much, really.’

      ‘You’d just left uni when your grandmother died, hadn’t you? You must have been twenty-one, I suppose.’

      He nodded. ‘Nearly twenty-two. And you were nineteen, and home from uni for the summer.’

      And they’d watched the sun rise, and then that night…

      The memory was written on his face, and she looked away. ‘So what did you do then? After you left?’

      He shrugged. ‘Bummed around. Took the gap year I’d never had, saw some of the world, worked in a radio station in Brisbane, got a job on a newspaper in Rio, linked up with a television crew in Nepal, and that was it, really. I started doing odd bits for them, earning a living but nothing great, working as a news researcher when I came home. Did a bit of local television news, then got the break into overseas reporting when I was about twenty-five. I’ve been doing it for six years now.’

      ‘And

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