I was walking behind a crowd of Italian students when I saw him and a rush of affection welled up inside me. He was leaning back against the wall by the circular red underground sign, hands thrust deep in his jacket pockets, scanning the stream of pedestrians left and right as they approached him. I care for this man, I thought. He’d got under my skin in a hundred different ways: the love he showed Betsy, his kindness towards me, the sweet things he’d said about the baby, even the passion with which he’d described his job. All these things added up to one special man and I hoped – regardless of what it would mean for me – with all my heart that he’d heard what he’d wanted to hear in the boardroom today.

He spotted me and his face broke into that wide friendly smile I’d come to treasure. He pushed through the students and grabbed hold of me, lifting me on to my tiptoes, pressing his cheek to mine and rocking me side to side.

‘You superstar,’ he laughed. ‘Lottie, you’re an absolute legend.’

I felt myself melt into his arms. The noise of the traffic fell away, the hustle and bustle of the people on one of the world’s busiest streets disappeared. It was just him and me, wrapped up in each other. I closed my eyes and breathed him in, feeling his heart beating against mine.

‘You should probably put me down,’ I said.

‘Oh crikey!’ He lowered me immediately and looked down at my tummy. ‘Have I squashed the lemon?’

An elderly man with a tiny white poodle under his arm did a double take as he walked by and we both burst out laughing.

I shook my head. ‘Not at all. And it’s the size of a pomegranate now; lemons are so last week.’

We grinned at each other for a few seconds, enjoying each other’s company.

‘You were fantastic on the radio, so calm and confident.’ His eyes danced with pride. ‘And when you put that dickhead Devine in his place, I spat out my coffee on my desk.’

We both laughed. Someone shouted at us to get a room and we stepped out of the flow of humans towards the wall.

‘It was a risk,’ I admitted, pulling a face. ‘If he’d said he preferred the French wine, it could have ended very differently indeed.’

He shook his head. ‘I loved the fact that you were so confident that he’d prefer ours. I had every faith you’d pull it off.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But your granddad’s wine is pretty amazing, it was that I’d got my faith in.’

‘And all that stuff you said about supporting the growth of the wine industry and exporting Granddad’s products to China,’ he marvelled. ‘He’d have been chuffed.’

I suppressed a sigh. ‘There are no shortage of opportunities.’