‘You talk too much, Adrienne.’ Without shifting his gaze from Libby’s pale face, he strolled into the bedroom and she noticed for the first time that he was carrying a mug. ‘Drink that.’ He placed a mug of black coffee on the bedside table. ‘It will help.’

Confronted by this final confirmation that he was well aware of her delicate condition, Libby shrank back against the pillow, stricken with guilt at her own behaviour.

She’d obviously been horribly drunk the night before.

What she didn’t understand was how.

Unlike her, he was fully dressed and she was uncomfortably aware of his wide shoulders and sleek, dark good looks next to her near nakedness. Deciding that so much masculine virility was too much for a woman with a headache, Libby reached for the coffee.

Grandma had a point, she thought weakly. She didn’t know about the rich bit, but he was incredibly good-looking. Almost enough to make a woman forget that all men were rats.

Which was evidently what she must have done when she’d agreed to go back to his flat with him.

How could she have done such a thing?

She never took risks like that!

She was obviously seriously on the rebound.

Catching sight of her pink dress draped carelessly over the back of a chair, she gave a whimper of mortification.

How had it got there? She had absolutely no recollection of getting undressed. Realising that she was wearing a white silk shirt that she’d never seen before in her life, her stomach flipped.

What exactly had happened the night before?

She remembered arriving at the auction and being given a drink of orange juice by Bev.

And she definitely remembered fireworks.

‘Yiayia says that if a man and a woman spend a night together they have to get married,’ the girl said firmly, and the man said something sharp in a language that Libby assumed was Greek before switching to English.

‘Go and get ready for school,’ he ordered, ‘and wash that muck off your face. They’ll refuse to have you back if you look like that.’

‘That’s why I did it,’ the girl said moodily, and he sighed, the long-suffering sigh of a man stretched to the limits of his patience.

‘You know you have to go back.’ His voice was firm but held a note of sympathy. ‘Just until we sort this out. I’m interviewing housekeepers next week.’

Adrienne looked at him. ‘If you got married you wouldn’t need to employ a housekeeper. It’s time you settled down with a decent woman, not someone like—’

‘Adrienne!’ This time the man’s voice was icy cold. ‘That’s enough. Go and wash your face.’

The girl’s slim shoulders sagged. ‘But—’

‘Now!’

The commanding tone evidently worked because Adrienne subsided and left the room with a last curious look at Libby.

There was a long silence and Libby felt her colour rise.

Feeling that someone ought to say something, she put her coffee down and pushed her tangled blonde curls out of her eyes. ‘Er…about last night…’