‘I bought it with my last long-term girlfriend,’ he confessed. ‘She was a real country freak. We both loved the area, going for bracing walks in the winter, having candlelit dinners, the whole log-fire thing. When we split, I bought her out of the cottage. I thought it would work as a bachelor bolt-hole. But then it just didn’t have the same appeal. Trekking up there to spend the weekend on my own seemed just too much of a sad bastard thing to do. Now all I do is go to check on it every few months. I’m even thinking of getting rid when the market picks up.’

‘I didn’t know that.’

‘You don’t know everything about me, Lauren Osbourne,’ he said with a laugh.

She wondered what else she didn’t know about Zak. ‘Do you have any other dark secrets, Zakary Reynolds?’

‘Oh, I have lots of skeletons in my closet,’ he said with an air of the macabre. ‘But I’ll clear them all out so that you can hang your clothes in there if you insist.’

Suddenly, Lauren realised that she would like to know a lot more about this man. She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘How would you get away from work?’

‘I’ll take some leave.’

‘Jude will know,’ she said. ‘He’ll sack you.’

‘What will be, will be.’

‘Is that Chekhov too?’ she teased.

‘No. I think that was Doris Day.’

‘Could we really just disappear?’ A thrill of excitement ran through her exhausted body.

Her friend shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. We could be there in a few hours. Far from the madding crowd.’

And persistent ex-lovers. Lauren grinned at him. ‘Then let’s do it.’

Chapter 85

Chapter 85

Every day I sell out of my sandwiches and cakes. Every day I take more in. I never realised how hungry these people were. That’s the youth of today for you – no thought of their middle-aged waistlines.

By today, Friday, at close of business I should have made the grand sum of two hundred and ninety-five pounds and I’m almost delirious with joy. I’ve around five hundred pounds to raise now and, if I can avoid giving my colleagues food poisoning, it should take me just a few weeks more. In fact, this is such a lucrative side-line that I’m thinking of carrying on so that I can raise my spending money too. Even when I’m back from Peru, the extra cash would certainly come in handy at home.