‘Mmm,’ Lily said far back in her throat as she tilted her head. The thickness of her coat didn’t seem to prevent her from feeling the thickness of him because she circled her hips against his erection. Heat speared through him.

He liked her hair loose and spilling over her shoulders. He threaded his fingers through it, cupping the back of her head. ‘How do you feel about getting a hotel room?’ Then he answered himself immediately. ‘Damn, I can’t abandon Doggo in the apartment. Franciszka might not think to let him out if we’re not back in the morning.’

She murmured against his jaw, ‘Maybe Franciszka has gone to bed already. She seemed pretty shattered.’

He throbbed against her, hardly able to think of anything but getting some – all – of those clothes off her and feeling her beautiful skin against his. ‘Let’s check it out,’ he muttered. ‘Doggo wouldn’t mind being left in possession of the sofa in the sitting room.’ But it was actually several more minutes before they retraced their steps because he found it impossible to stop kissing her, to stop sliding his hands under her coat to cup her titillating behind.

Finally, Doggo obviously having exhausted the interesting smells in the immediate vicinity returned to nudge Isaac’s legs and they climbed back up the hill out of town.

They paused when they reached the annexe door. ‘Let’s be really quiet so we don’t wake her if she’s out for the count,’ he murmured, nuzzling Lily’s hair.

But they stepped into the warmth to see Franciszka parading around the annexe looking very much awake, speaking Polish and swooping her phone around to give her family a guided tour on Skype.

‘And here are Lily and Isaac,’ Franciszka said in English, pointing the phone their way.

They smiled weakly at whoever was on the other end and drifted gently apart.

Chapter Sixteen

The Middletones were in the minibus and on their way to the Food, Lifestyle & Health show by nine thirty on Thursday morning. Lily felt a churning mixture of pleasure and nervousness because she’d received a message from Kirstin that it would be Garrick Tubb taking them to lunch between morning and afternoon performances.

Behind the wheel, Isaac frowned in concentration as a fine veil of snow fell on the busy roads around Zürich. Lily and Carola cast an eye over their programme, as if they didn’t know it off by heart.

‘How are you doing?’ Lily asked Carola under cover of the road noise and the chatter from the seats behind them. ‘Still no news from Owen?’

‘Owen “The Dud” Dudley?’ Carola smiled but it was obviously a mask for pain. ‘Total silence. He’s moved on to the next mug. After Duncan walking out on me for a younger woman and now The Dud ghosting me I think I’ve worked out that men are shits.’