‘Let’s go to bed,’ he said, rising to his feet, his tie loose, his shirt open at the throat. ‘Let’s make love in comfort this time.’ The expression in his slate-blue eyes as he looked down at her sent heat once again racing through her veins.

Discussion could wait.

Love-making was far more important.

This time both of them were languorously and sensually unhurried. When he moved to enter her she stayed him with her hand, rolling from beneath him and easing herself on top, sitting astride him and leaning forward so that her breasts brushed his tautly muscled chest.

‘I love you,’ she said huskily, using all her self-control to move with exquisite slowness.

‘I know,’ he said, his voice breaking as he fought to hold his orgasm back for just a few seconds longer.

As his face contorted with the effort, she felt so much joy at their mutual pleasure she thought she was going to die.

At that moment it was impossible to think of anything ever dividing them. It was impossible to think of anything but of how very much she loved him.

‘I love you, Claus,’ she whispered again, bending towards him, her mouth a fraction away his. ‘No matter what. Always and for ever.’

Their bodies were slippery with sweat, their orgasms simultaneous. Afterwards, satiated and deeply exhausted and amid a tangle of sheets, they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

A little after two o’clock he woke, remembering the work he still had to do. Raising himself up on his elbow, he gazed down at her.

She stirred, opening her eyes.

‘Go back to sleep,’ he said gently, tucking the sheet over her naked shoulder. ‘I’m going in the sitting room to finish some paperwork. I won’t be long.’

She made a mewling sound of protest, but there was no fire in it. Even before he had gone from the bed, her eyes were again closed, her breathing rhythmic.

He shrugged himself into his dressing gown and padded barefoot into the sitting room. Picking up his briefcase from where he had dropped it at the door, he carried it across to the coffee table and delved into it for the file he deemed the most urgent. Other files, together with the hard-backed envelope containing the photographs his secretary had handed him, he put to one side.

Over the last year, bureaucratic paperwork had swollen from a torrent of red tape to a positive Niagara. A single business transaction could entail as many as forty different forms, and industry was bound by so many rules and regulations that it needed an army of lawyers to keep track of them all. Unfortunately, someone had to keep track of the lawyers and where the House of Remer was concerned, he was that person.

Ignoring the half-full bottle of wine, he poured himself a whisky, settled himself comfortably on the sofa and began the tedious task of checking the latest armaments contract, a copy of which had been requested by the Minister of Economics.