‘Sorry, force of habit. I had clients who took their insurers to court because they wouldn’t pay out when their house burned down. They’d left a hairdryer on while they’d had a power cut. Went out for dinner and the power came back on. Half the house went up in flames. The insurers said they were responsible. Took quite a battle to agree that it was accidental.’

‘I bet you’re the sort that always reads the policy, aren’t you?’ teased Izzy.

‘Yes. Always,’ admitted Hannah. ‘It’s just being careful. No point taking risks, if you can help it.’

‘Huh! That’s no way to live life,’ said Meredith with surprising animation. ‘You can’t allow for everything. When I got married, it never occurred to me that my husband would run off with another woman and leave me with two small children. And if you’d have told me that would happen I might have run a mile, but do you know what? Now I wouldn’t change a thing. Yes it was tough, but I’m so close to my girls that I’m grateful to the old git.’

As Meredith spoke, Hannah looked up, some sixth sense drawing her attention to the arrival of Conor coming through the door with Fergus. She immediately dropped her gaze and picked up the damp beer mat on the table in front of her, but not before she’d managed to register that in a navy-blue T-shirt that fitted his lean frame rather nicely along with thigh-hugging, faded jeans, he looked rather hot. Something stirred low in her belly but that might have been because she could remember what his chest looked like under the blue jersey fabric. She reminded herself sharply that he might be handsome and he’d been kind to her the other night, but he was still far too full of himself.

‘Did you see who just walked in?’ asked Izzy. ‘Mr Hottie himself.’

‘I’m old enough to be his grandmother, but he has a certain something,’ said Meredith. ‘They handed sex appeal out in sack loads where he’s concerned. No wonder he was so popular. Bit of a lothario by all accounts. Always in the paper with some actress or model. Do you know he was engaged to Polly Daventree? Actress-turned-chef. She’s gorgeous. I bet they made a stunning couple.’

‘What happened? You said was.’ Izzy asked the very question that Hannah longed to. She’d heard of Polly Daventree – she’d won Celebrity Masterchef a year or so ago, which Hannah might not have watched but couldn’t have not known because it had been in all the tabloid newspapers.