‘By the way,’ he remarked, ‘why aren’t you wearing the necklace I gave you?’

Oh Lord, something else she’d got wrong. She’d hoped he wouldn’t notice so she wouldn’t have to admit that she’d lost it. Mislaid it, she corrected herself, it would turn up sooner or later. ‘I forgot to put it on this morning,’ she fibbed.

‘You forget a lot of things, don’t you, Willow?’

She laughed nervously to cover up her unease at lying to him. ‘You know me, I’ll forget my own name one day.’ She reached out to put her hand on his leg. ‘Don’t be angry with me. You know I don’t like it when you’re cross. And it’s not good for the baby,’ she added, knowing that that would always be her trump card to win him round.

‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘But really you have to try harder not to upset me so much. You know how much I love you. I just can’t bear the thought of another man stealing you away from me.’

‘That’s not going to happen,’ she said, touched at his honesty and the depth of painful sadness in his face. She reminded herself that he just wasn’t as confident and secure as he made out. Which wasn’t surprising, given how he’d lost his parents.

Chapter Thirty-Five

‘What a thoroughly unpleasant way to spend an hour of one’s life,’ said Naomi.

They were standing on the street after their appointment with the senior partner of Crambourne and Co Solicitors to discuss the drawing up of a prenuptial agreement.

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ replied Ellis. ‘Let’s go straight to the wine bar for lunch. I need something to wash away the distastefulness of what we’ve just put ourselves through.’

‘So it wasn’t just me?’

‘No,’ he said with feeling, ‘it was grim and has nothing whatsoever to do with how I feel about you and the life I imagine us sharing together.’

‘It was like the very worst kind of business transaction,’ said Naomi, when they were seated at the table Ellis had booked for them. ‘It was horrible hearing it all distilled down into such matter-of-fact terms. There was no mention of love. Of our simply wanting to be together.’

‘I suppose we should focus on why we’re doing it,’ he said.

She looked at him with an anxious frown. ‘Remind me, why are we?’

He reached across the table and stroked her hand. ‘To satisfy our offspring that we’re marrying for all the right reasons. That we know what we’re doing.’

‘Back there in that office I kept asking myself exactly that, what on earth am I doing?’

‘Second thoughts about marrying me?’

‘No. Well … sort of.’

‘Oh,’ he said flatly. But he could add nothing else as their waiter appeared just then to take their order. He was an awkward young lad of about seventeen and stumbled over his words as he tried hard to remember the specials of the day. When his torment was over – they made it easy for him and each opted for the salmon en croute – he returned with two glasses of rosé. Alone now, Ellis risked the question he had to ask.