‘I will teach you my best seduction techniques.’ He grins. ‘Oh Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. You need me.’ He puts his hand over his heart. ‘You really need me.’

‘But you’re not my type!’

‘What do you mean, I’m not your type!’ He does the puppy dog eyes thing again. ‘You wound me with your harsh words. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I’m not offering to be your date, I’m going to teach you how to get one. We pretend, what have you got to lose?’

‘Not actual, proper dates?’ I want to make sure. Whatever happens, I must not, I cannot date Noah. I know exactly how men like Noah can affect your life, however cute they are. Well, that’s the problem. They’re always cute. Or brooding, or magnificent, or sexy, or seductive in some other way.

Or a combination of all of the above.

‘And you’d do this for me because?’

‘You need help.’

I go to object, but I’m not sure why. Apart from not liking being described as in need of help. But he is right.

‘And your dad was a shit to say something like that.’

I sigh. ‘He’s probably forgotten already, and I won’t be seeing him for ages.’ But it would be nice to show him that I can get a date, that I’m not going to be a lonely spinster.

‘And I want to help you, not shag you. Well I’m quite happy to shag you if you ask nicely,’ I glare at him, ‘but mainly I want to help.’ He holds his hands up. ‘I promise, no shagging, not even excess manhandling, or anything.’ He starts to get a bit flustered; I guess dating is new territory for me, and not-dating is confusing territory for him.

We stare at each other. He puts his hands behind his back. ‘Look, no hands!’

I giggle, I can’t keep a straight face. ‘You’re cute you know.’ I grin at him.

‘I know.’ His eyes are twinkling, seriously cute and hot.

‘And modest.’

‘Totally modest, it’s one of my strong points.’

‘I don’t even want to go near your weak points then.’

He laughs. He is cute.

‘You’re quite cute yourself, Rosie Brown. But I think you need to get to bed, don’t you?’ My cheeks start to burn. He grins. ‘Alone.’

I do. Alone. ‘Seriously,’ I say as I slide off my stool, this time on purpose, ‘it’s really kind of you to offer to help me, but I don’t think it would work.’

‘Seriously, I think it could.’ He pays the barman, waving away my attempts to split the bill. ‘Here. Think about it.’ He picks my mobile phone up from the bar, and taps in his number, then hands it back to me. ‘Hang on, I’ll walk you home.’

‘I’m fine, I …’

‘I’m walking that way.’

‘How do you know? You don’t know where I live!’

‘You said it took twenty minutes, in your ridiculous shoes, so it can’t be far.’

I’m impressed he remembers what I said, in fact I’m impressed he was listening that closely.