When she was fully dressed, she hesitated in front of the mirror as she listened to him murmuring into the phone, arranging to pick up their hire car. Then, with a shrug, she simply bundled her hair into a pony tail and swept her make-up into a sponge bag without putting any on.

He blew her a kiss from as she came out of the bathroom and covered up the mouthpiece of the phone to whisper, ‘Great! I like you best without make-up.’

‘You look good without it, too.’

He chuckled, then went back to his conversation.

She looked at his one suitcase and the clothes still hanging in the wardrobe, and as he put the phone down, she asked, ‘Aren’t we taking the rest of our things with us?’ They had brought considerable excess luggage on the plane, after the shopping in Singapore, and she had been horrified at how much that had cost. Since then, she had added a big pile of books to the number of things they had.

‘Good heavens, no! We’ll leave them here.’

‘You mean you’ll pay for the whole suite just to store our luggage?’

‘Why not?’ He shrugged.

‘But that’s a dreadful waste of money. It’ll cost you a fortune.’

He looked at her in wonderment. ‘You’re the only female I’ve ever met in my whole life who’s wanted to save me money, not spend it!’ He gestured to their things. ‘Anyway, what else can we do with all this? I don’t want to clutter up the car I’ve hired, and we’ll only have to bring the stuff back again.’

‘We can see if the hotel has any storage space for guests or at the very least, we can hire their cheapest room to keep our things in.’

He threw out his arms in a gesture of submission and grinned. ‘Very well, Scrooge. Whatever makes you happy.’

She beamed back at him. The real Ben was back again. At least, she thought this was the real Ben. And she hoped he’d stay, too, this time.

After picking up the hire car, a large, luxurious four-wheel drive, they headed south down the freeway. An hour later they arrived at Mandurah and he turned off the highway towards the town centre, which lay on the water. They took a brisk stroll along the foreshore to stretch their legs, following an attractive boardwalk along the water’s edge.

‘This is one of my favourite places in the whole world,’ he said, waving at the people in a boat that was chugging slowly across the water.

She tried to hide her amazement. It was pretty enough, built along the sides of a very wide estuary, but surely he’d been to more striking places? Still, it was nice, she had to admit.