That threw him; she could tell. She burst out laughing.

‘No-I wasn’t-’ he said hastily.

‘Oh, yes, you were. Don’t deny it to me. I’ve been here too often. I know what people think when they meet me unawares.’

‘Am I that easy to read?’ His tone suggested a hesitant smile.

‘Right this minute you’re thinking, How the hell did I get into this, and how am I going to get out without being rude?’

It was a favourite joke of hers-to read their minds, trip them up, make them feel a little uneasy.

But he wasn’t uneasy. He took her hand and held it tightly, speaking seriously.

‘No, I’m not thinking that. I don’t think you could guess what I’m thinking.’

He was wrong. She could guess exactly. Because she was thinking the same thing.

It was unnerving to find such thoughts possessing her about a man she’d only just met, but she couldn’t help herself. And a part of her, the part that rushed to meet adventure, wasn’t sorry at all. True, another part of her counselled caution, but she was used to ignoring it.

But for the moment she must act with propriety, so she showed him the array of equipment that helped her to function.

‘I talk to the computer and it talks back to me,’ Celia said. ‘Plus I have a special phone, and various other things.’

He took her to lunch at a small restaurant next door, and he talked about his firm while she tapped information into a small terminal. Afterwards he began to walk her back to the office, but she stopped, saying, ‘I have to take Wicksy to the park.’

He went with her, watching, fascinated, as she plunged into her bag and brought out a ball.

‘If I throw it now, I won’t hit anyone, will I?’ she asked anxiously.

He assured her she wouldn’t, then wished he’d been more cautious. Instead of the ladylike gesture he’d expected, she put all her force into hurling the ball a great distance, so that a man contentedly munching sandwiches had to jump out of the way with an angry yell.

‘You told me it was safe,’ she said in mock complaint.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise you could throw that far.’

With a bark of joy, Wicksy bounded after the ball, retrieved it and charged back to drop it at her feet. After another couple of throws he came to sit before her, his head cocked to one side, gazing up at her with a significant expression.

‘All right, let’s go,’ she said, taking the ball from his mouth and putting it away. ‘This next bit is rather indelicate, so you may want to go away.’

‘I’ll be brave,’ he said, grinning.

She found a spot under the trees, said, ‘OK, go on,’ and Wicksy obeyed while she reached into her bag for the scoop and plastic bag.

‘Would you like me to do that for you?’ he asked through gritted teeth.

‘That’s being gallant above and beyond the call of duty,’ she said, liking him for it. ‘But he’s my responsibility and I’ll wield the pooper-scooper.’

‘Well, I offered,’ he said, and something in the sound of the words told her he was grinning with relief.

When the business was complete they made their way back across the park.

At the door of her building he said, ‘I meant to tell you a lot more about my firm and our requirements, but there wasn’t time. Can I take you to dinner tonight and we can talk some more?’

‘I would like that.’

She spent the rest of the afternoon hard at work, for she wanted to impress him. Then she went home, showered, and put on a gold dress that she’d been told looked stunning with her red hair.

In the apartment next door lived Angela, a good friend who worked in a wholesale fashion house, and one of the few people Celia trusted enough to ask for help. Having called her in, she twisted and turned before her.

‘Will I do?’

‘Oh, yes, you’ll do, and then some. You look gorgeous. I was right to make you get that dress. And those sandals. Lord, but I envy you your long legs and your ankles. If you knew how rare it is for a woman to have ankles as slender as yours, and yet have perfect balance so that you can walk on them without wobbling! I could murder you for that alone.’

Celia chuckled. She owed Angela a lot, for it was she who’d taught her how to win the admiring glances that she knew followed her even without seeing them. Angela had decreed the colours that went with Celia’s red hair.

‘But what does it mean-red hair?’ Celia had asked.

‘It means you’ve got to be very careful what you wear with it. You’re lucky in your complexion, pale and delicate, the perfect English-rose style.’

‘What’s an English rose?’ Celia had asked at once.

‘Let’s just say men go for it. That’s what you’re hoping for, isn’t it?’

‘Certainly not. This is a business meeting to discuss strategy and forward planning.’

‘Boy, you really have got it bad.’

Celia laughed, but inwardly she could feel herself blushing. Her friend’s words were true. She had got it bad already.

When she opened the door to Francesco that evening she heard what she’d been hoping for-a brief hesitation that said he was taken aback by her appearance. She smiled at his wolf whistle and inclined her head in mock acceptance.

There was the tiniest hint of their future disagreements when he wanted her to leave Wicksy behind.

‘He goes with me everywhere,’ she said firmly

‘Surely he doesn’t have to? I’ll keep you safe.’

‘But I don’t want to be kept safe,’ she said, still smiling. ‘Wicksy treats me as an equal in ways that nobody else does.’

‘But you don’t need him if you’ve got me,’ he insisted. ‘Besides, restaurants don’t like dogs.’

‘There’s one two streets away that knows Wicksy and always welcomes him. Let’s not argue about it. Wicksy belongs with me and I belong with him.’

She kept her tone pleasant, but he must have sensed her determination because he yielded. She knew a twinge of disappointment. Understanding her need for independence was one of her silent ‘tests’ and he’d failed it. But there was time yet, and she was determined to enjoy her evening with him.

They walked the short distance to the restaurant, and settled down at their table to talk.

‘Did you have to bring that great folder in with you?’ he asked.

‘Of course. How else could I make my pitch? This is a working dinner, remember? I have several ideas that I think you’ll like.’

She talked for several minutes, illustrating her points by pushing various pages towards him. She’d earlier marked them with nail scissors, so that she could tell by feel which was which.

‘You seem to know everything about everything we’ve ever made,’ he said, awed.

‘I’ve been working hard.’

‘I can tell, but how on earth-’ he asked.

‘I accessed a lot of information about your firm on line this afternoon.’

‘And your computer delivers it vocally?’ he hazarded.

‘There is software that does that,’ she said vaguely.

In truth she’d got Sally to read it out to her, a method she sometimes used when she was short of time. But she wasn’t going to tell him that.

There were two conversations going on here, she realised. On the surface she sold her abilities, while he admired her work. It was pleasant, restrained, but beneath the surface they were sizing each other up.

Celia listened closely to every nuance of his voice. Without being deep, it had a resonance that excited her and made her want to touch him.

She’d chosen this restaurant and insisted on taking Wicksy because in that way she could keep some sort of control. The trouble was that she increasingly wanted to abandon control and hurl herself headlong into the unknown.

She sensed that he, too, was putting a brake on himself, but his caution was greater than hers. Francesco eased her away from the subject of work, and made her talk about herself.

‘How did your parents cope with you being blind?’ he asked.

‘Easily. They were both blind, too,’ she explained.

‘Mio Dio! How terrible!’ he said instinctively.

‘Not really. You’d be amazed how little you miss what you’ve never had. Since they couldn’t see, either, and I’m an only child, I had almost no point of comparison. The three of us formed a kind of secret society. It was us against the world because we thought everyone else was crazy. They thought we were crazy, too, because we wouldn’t conform to their ideas about how blind people ought to behave.

‘They met at university, where he was a young professor and she was one of his students. He writes books now, and she does his secretarial work. He says she’s more efficient than any sighted secretary because she knows what to watch out for. They used to say they fell in love because they understood things that nobody else did. So I grew up accepting the way we lived as normal, and I still do.’

There was a slight warning in her voice as she said the last words, but she didn’t make much of the point.

She managed to turn the conversation towards him. He told her about his family in Italy, his parents and his five brothers, the villa perched on the hill with the view over the Bay of Naples. Then he caught himself up, embarrassed.

‘It’s all right,’ she told him. ‘I don’t expect people to censor their speech because I’ve never seen the things they describe. If I did that I wouldn’t have any friends.’

‘And you’ve never seen anything of the world at all,’ he said in wonder. ‘That’s what I can’t get my head round.’

‘Yes, I suppose it is hard,’ she mused. ‘This morning my friend told me you had deep blue eyes, but I had to tell her I couldn’t picture them.’

In the brief silence she could sense him looking around, and strove not to smile.

‘Why-did she tell you that?’ he asked, almost nervously.

She assumed a wicked, breathy innocence. ‘You mean, it’s not true? Your eyes are really deep red?’