‘Remember that one, Max,’ she said. ‘That one’s important.’

‘A smell?’

Uh-oh, she’d been doing so well until then. In control. Now, without warning, she was plunged into the scent of warm skin, sharp, clean sweat, newly washed hair.

‘Shampoo,’ she said, quickly.

‘And if I was a shampoo, which would it be?’

‘Mine.’ Her turn to smile. Well, she’d written the questionnaire, she’d known which question was coming next.

‘And finally, a car?’

‘Anything expensive, fast and reliable.’

‘Reliable?’

Never lets you down, she thought. No wonder he’d picked up on that one. What on earth had she been thinking?

‘Scratch “reliable”,’ she said. ‘Make that durable.’ Then, because he gave her a sharp look that suggested he hadn’t missed the subtle difference, ‘It goes with the Swiss clock.’

CHAPTER TEN

‘MAX…’

Max had stopped stroking her feet and Louise realised that her words had hit home. Maybe there was hope for him and, curling herself up onto her knees, she reached out to him and, playfully ruffling her fingers through his hair, she said, ‘Why don’t we move on to part two?’

‘Part two?’ He looked at her. ‘Is there any point? You’ve made it very clear that you think I’m just a work-obsessed-’

She put her fingers over his mouth. ‘I told you, Max, the skill is in interpretation. You have to look at all the results. It’s just as dangerous to concentrate on the words that sting, as it is to grab for the words that confirm what you want to hear. Only then can you act to change things.’

He regarded her with the suspicion of a smile. ‘You think?’

‘I think,’ she assured him. ‘Trust me, Max. I’m the expert and it’s not over until it’s over.’

He shook his head. ‘Maybe another time…’

‘No.’ She didn’t want him to think he’d failed. She wanted him to understand what she wanted, needed. That she needed him…

‘Part two,’ she said, firmly.

‘I don’t…’

‘But I do.’ And since she knew what came next, she prompted, ‘Which three words would you use to describe your feelings of anticipation about using the Max Valentine product?’ she prompted.

‘I’m a product?’

‘For the purposes of market research. Work with me on this.’

He shrugged, took a breath and, looking straight ahead, as if dreading her answers, he obediently repeated, ‘What three words would you use to describe your feelings of anticipation about using the Max Valentine product?’

‘Urgency,’ she offered. ‘Excitement. Impatience…’

He glanced at her, the beginning of a smile tugging at his lips. ‘Impatience?’

Suiting the deed to the word, Louise locked her arms around his neck and swung herself over to sit astride his lap.

‘Which three words,’ she said as she began to unbutton his shirt, ‘would you use to describe your feelings during the use of this product?’

‘Which three words…’ he began. She leaned into him, stopping the words with her mouth, and when she’d got his full attention and he was kissing her back she moved on to trail her lips over his throat, across his chest. Then, as she began to unfasten his belt…

‘Desire. Passion. Heat…’

It was much later when, her eyes closed, her voice dreamy, soft with fulfilment, she said, ‘Which three words would you use to describe how you feel after using this product…?’

‘Shattered,’ Max said, before she could answer her own question. ‘Sated.’ He kissed her. ‘Complete.’

‘Good answers,’ she murmured.

‘You give good questions,’ Max said, touching her face, stroking back her hair. ‘I loved your version of part two.’ Then, ‘Can we try mine now?’

She opened her eyes. ‘You had a different version?’

‘My part two consisted of me going down on one knee and asking you to marry me. When I failed part one-’

‘This isn’t an exam,’ she said, quickly, cutting him off. She was still sure that it was too soon. He hadn’t failed, but she was certain that he needed time to think about this. Or maybe she was the one fooling herself. Maybe she was the one who needed time…‘There are no right or wrong answers.’

‘I know. It’s all in the interpretation, but it’s pretty clear that you think I’m work obsessed. That I put the restaurant before everything else.’

‘I don’t care about everything else. My problem is that you put the restaurant before me. You always have.’

On the point of denying it, he nodded. ‘You’re right. I should have called you last night.’

‘No. You should have been there. Last night was important to me. Important for us. I think that scared you.’

‘No!’ Then, ‘Maybe, just a bit, but there was a crisis. I didn’t spend time considering options, I just did what needed to be done. You know how it gets.’

She knew. And, despite everything, she did understand. But she wasn’t letting him off the hook on this one. He needed to understand her point of view.

‘That was the manager’s job. You shouldn’t have even been there, Max. Your role is to look at the bigger picture now. You have to trust your staff to deal with the day to day problems.’ She shook her head. ‘Failing that, you take time to make a call. Look, I know how it is. I’ve waited tables at functions when staff haven’t turned in for a PR do but my mother taught me to use a phone when I was very small. To call home when I was going to be late. To call someone when you can’t make a date.’

‘I’m from a broken home,’ he said.

‘That’s it, Max.’ They’d got to the heart of the problem. Finally. ‘You want the whole-heart relationship, but you’re afraid of the commitment. Afraid of being hurt.’

‘You’re right.’ He closed his eyes. ‘You think I never put you before work, but let me tell you that I’ve spent all day thinking about us. Thinking about me. How I am. I won’t ever do that to you again. I promise.’

‘Promises and pie crusts,’ she said. ‘Made to be broken.’

‘Not this time. You have my word.’ Then, ‘You do believe me?’

‘I believe that you mean it now. Tomorrow…The day after…’

‘No. You have to believe. It’s more than that. I can’t lose you.’ He reached for her, wrapped his arms around her. ‘Not now I’ve found you. I want us to be together always. I want you to be my wife, Louise.’

A lump rose to her throat, so that she couldn’t speak. It was like all the Christmases, birthdays, Valentine’s Days, rolled into one. Every dream coming true.

And still she hesitated.

She knew that at that moment Max would have promised her anything. Deep down inside her, though, there was still that small nagging doubt. That he meant everything he said, she was certain. Whether he still understood what that meant, she wasn’t totally certain. Wasn’t convinced that it was a risk she should take.

But then she’d learned from experience that safety wasn’t enough, either. James had been a safe bet, ‘a banker’, the kind of husband any woman would be fortunate to have.

Max, on the other hand, was always going to be a gamble. But when life without him meant putting her heart into permanent cold storage…

‘Why don’t you save it until the fourteenth, Max?’

‘The fourteenth?’

‘Valentine’s Day. We have a date, or have you forgotten already?’

‘Actually, I don’t remember you saying yes to that.’

‘I didn’t. I’m saying it now. Turn up with the ring in your pocket, do your stuff then and we’ll make an announcement.’ Her flippant tone gave nothing away of the tangle of emotions in her heart.

‘You want me to go down on one knee in front of everyone?’

‘Would you do that for me?’

He hesitated for barely a second. ‘Anything.’

‘I’m the only one you have to convince, Max,’ she said, then leaned across and kissed him. ‘Make it a solitaire. Not too big. I don’t want it to look as if it came out of a Christmas cracker. Now, can we eat?’

Everyone worked on Valentine’s Day. Even John and Robert were pressed into service at the Mayfair restaurant, working together, a pair of world-class experts in smoothing out wrinkles, keeping diners whose tables were delayed from getting fractious.

Max was at the Knightsbridge restaurant. Lavish, contemporary, it was a favourite with the social elite as well as the aristocracy of the theatre.

Louise was playing hostess at the Chelsea restaurant, a popular haunt with the livelier celebrities who arrived trailing a crowd of paparazzi. She knew them all and would be at her best there, Max knew, and, as the original restaurant, it was traditionally where they held the huge after-hours party where everyone, all the staff, all the family, gathered to celebrate the year.

This year, as their diamond anniversary, was extra special in more ways than one. Max patted his jacket where the ring he was going to give Louise-a solitaire, a single carat, he wanted her to know that he’d been listening-was tucked into his ticket pocket, along with the safety pin she’d given him.

When he’d emptied his pockets on his return from Meridia, it had been there among his change and keys. Such a small thing and yet it had signalled a change in their relationship: a move from war to peace. A symbol, a link that somehow held them together, and since the night when he’d told her he loved her, asked her to marry him, he’d taken to carrying it with him.

He hoped to get away some time in the evening. He’d arranged for a bottle of Krug to be waiting in the tiny office and, with the door firmly closed, he’d make a proper job of his proposal. He’d seen the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. A momentary shadow of doubt. He had to convince her, once and for all, that without her Bella Lucia meant nothing to him. It was true. He’d looked into the abyss, the dark emptiness of life without her, and he knew it was true. She would always come first.

He glanced at his watch. Ten o’clock. A quick look around. Everything was humming. No problems. He could slip away now, be back before…