‘I’m afraid not, Laura, and you must forgive me for not taking Bessie’s dieting as seriously as you did. I’m now kicking myself both for that and how testy I’ve been with you about it.’

Laura managed a shaky laugh. ‘No need to kick yourself, love, Jeremy has just succeeded in bruising the pair of us. I feel as if I’ve been through a mangle wearing rose-coloured spectacles and had them smashed.’

Jake went to sit beside her on the sofa and took her hand. ‘We’re in this together, Laura. Whatever it takes to get Bessie right you can count on me, as I know I could on you if it were Janis or Jeremy.’

Whatever it takes to get Bessie right. Warming though Jake’s words of reassurance were to Laura, there was to them too a chilling ring.

Chapter Three

Halfway through a lunchtime signing session at Hatchards, Marianne looked up to greet the next person at the table and did a double-take. Simon Newman lining up to get my signature? This had to be a hallucination.

‘I got off on the wrong foot with you,’ he said, ‘and since then I’ve been in New York. This seemed as good a way as any of my going out the door and coming in again.’

On his face was that quizzical smile. Had this not been a public appearance Marianne, though her heart was thudding, would surely have burst out laughing.

‘May I call you this evening?’

‘Since I can’t talk now, please do. But my number is ex-directory—’

‘Or I’d have called you before I left for the States.’

Marianne turned to the young man standing beside her and received from him a wink. He was one of the promotions people whom her publishers employed and escorting authors to signings was part of his job. He had in the past accompanied Marianne on some of her whirlwind tours, necessitating their spending the evenings together, and had told her it was a relief to be with an author who preferred to retire early and in some respects reminded him of his mother.

Marianne Dean, though, was now behaving like some of the younger novelists of Paul’s acquaintance. I am never going to live this down! ‘Would you mind scribbling my home phone number on a scrap of paper, Paul, while I sign the book for Mr Newman?’

‘Why not write the number under your signature?’ said Simon.

‘Wouldn’t that be defacing the book?’

‘On the contrary,’ he answered, holding her gaze. Blushing like a schoolgirl and aware of Paul carefully not looking at her, Marianne did as she was bid.

That evening, seated opposite Simon in the intimate atmosphere of a French restaurant, Marianne, despite having acknowledged his effect upon her, was prey to confusion.