He shakes his head. “It’s how you date. I’m not sure about anyone else. What happened to dinner and drinks?”

“Zeb, Zeb, that’s other people, baby.”

“Please don’t call me baby,” he says in a slightly anguished voice.

“What shall I call you, then? Bunny? Pet? Lovie? Princess?”

“No,” he says in a revolted tone of voice.

“Anyway, Mr Evans,” I say loudly. “That sort of boring date is not for us.”

“It isn’t?”

“Nuh-uh. No. We are going to do dating a different way.”

He folds his arms and grins at me. His smile is wide, his eyes very blue, and for a second I lose my train of thought.

I shake my head to clear it. “I was thinking about this last night, and I came to an executive decision.” I wink at him. “I put the word executive in there. You should be thrilled.”

“Ecstatic,” he drawls, and I snort.

“Okay, you dated Patrick for five years during which you no doubt alternated periods of being extremely bored with the odd bit of wanting to murder him.” His mouth twitches. “You probably did lots of really boring stuff. While you were doing that, I didn’t so much date as just try to keep up with whatever criminal impulses my dates had towards my money.” He straightens, looking cross, and I wave my hand. “Never mind,” I say airily. “The point is that you and I are different.”

I sober quickly. Are we, though? Are we different or am I just an amusement and he’ll go back to what he knows?

“We are different,” he says quietly, his eyes steady on mine. “Don’t ask me how, but we are.”

I smile gratefully at him. “So, we’re each going to come up with dates that are different. Something a bit quirky. Something that shows the other person something about us.” I wave my hand at the bookshop, its windows shining in the sun. “This is mine. I love travelling. I’ve been all over the world, usually on a very small budget. This is always my first port of call.” I pause before looking hard at him. “But absolutely no sex tonight.”

He blinks and an old man huffs disapprovingly as he walks past us.

“Thank you for broadcasting that to the entire street,” Zeb says dryly. “You know I live to share my personal life with complete strangers.”

I smile somewhat nervously. “I don’t think we should have sex while doing these dates,” I say softly.

“Why?”