‘No. We aren’t. And if you’d stayed around longer this afternoon I would have introduced you properly, but of course, you no longer wanted to talk to me, and you were draped all over Mr Somerset, and as you’d already jumped to all your usual wrong conclusions –’

‘I do not jump to conclusions.’

‘You do. All the time.’ He unhooked her tense fingers from the tumbler and put it on the floor beside his own. ‘It’s another one of your many faults.’

She wriggled away from him again until she came up against the arm of the sofa. ‘Stop criticising me.’ She tried to stare angrily and failed. ‘I’ve been through hell for you these last months.’

‘And you think I haven’t?’ His eyes glittered, reflecting the candle flames. ‘I hadn’t got a clue what was going on. I felt you knew something that I didn’t.’

‘Oh, that. It was a misunderstanding,’ she said quickly. ‘I thought that Caroline owned Peapods. I thought that you’d lose everything if –’

‘Whatever put that notion into your head?’

Knowing she’d never tell Drew that Caroline had deliberately lied, Maddy shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. I jumped to the wrong conclusions, I suppose.’

Drew laughed then. He was very close. He looked ten years younger. ‘Jesus, Maddy. I thought I was going mad.’ He slid his hand inside the robe and stroked her gently. ‘You’ve lost weight.’

Her skin burned beneath his touch. She shuddered. ‘I didn’t eat much.’

‘Hell, it must have been serious.’ He buried his face in the cloud of her curls. ‘Well, start eating again. I don’t want you all gaunt and boring. We’ll have to put you on a diet of Mars bars and Hobnobs right away.’

‘Right away?’ She had untied his bathrobe and was letting her fingers caress his firm, smooth, clean body.

‘No, not right away,’ he groaned, kissing her face, her eyes, her neck, and lastly, lingeringly, her lips.’ I love you so very much, and right now there’s something far more important …’

He made love to her in the candlelight with an urgency born of deprivation. She clung to him, nipping his shoulder between her teeth, clenching her nails into his strong back. The crescendo grew in pace with the storm outside, and exploded with the same force.

‘Oh, God …’ Maddy lay beneath him on the sofa, loving the weight of his body, the feel of his hair falling silkily on her face. ‘I love you so much …’

‘Can you wait two years?’ he whispered, sliding away from her without letting go, and pulling her against him. ‘To become Mrs Fitzgerald?’

‘I think so,’ she murmured drowsily. ‘I don’t seem to have any choice, do I?’

Drew grinned at her. ‘I suppose in the meantime, you wouldn’t consider becoming my mistress?’