I exhaled loudly. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I whispered. If anyone had been around to accuse me of flirting I would have denied it, but I was potentially on the verge of it. Fooling around, I made my eyes bigger and puckered my lips more, holding eye contact suggestively. ‘I’m only asking for a hint …’

He gave an internal hum of a laugh. ‘You’re very used to getting what you want, aren’t you?’

‘I mean, no. Obviously.’

Was he on the verge of flirting too?

‘I’m putty in your hands,’ he said.

If he was, was he the one pushing the boundary, or was I?

‘If that was true you’d tell me at least what I need to wear for this surprise, Patrick. So I’m prepared.’

He leaned in a tiny bit more, if that were possible, getting so close that his breath tickled underneath my nose. My heart beat in double time, my breathing shallow at his proximity. He definitely did have red in his stubble. I’d thought so once back after class at bootcamp, but now I could see it up close and clear as day. Part of me wanted to reach out and touch it – to feel the masculine contours of him. He had a streak of sunburn alongside one eye where he’d missed his sun cream application, and in the dim light his eyes seemed darker. Instead of being green they looked like pools of chocolate, his lashes bleached by the sun but still long. He looked solemn, wrestling with a decision and totally torn over which way to go. It made me want to tell him it was okay, that whatever he was concerned about was totally fine. I wanted to cure him of whatever was making him seem so confused.

‘Look as lovely as you always do,’ he said, his voice low and gruff and – it was impossible to ignore – kind of suggestive. He added, testing the limits of a thing I couldn’t quite put my finger on: ‘You know how it undoes me.’

I let out a guffaw in nervous shock, the sound of my laugh shattering whatever delicate thing we’d just been holding between us. ‘Pongy Paddy!’