He paused, considering, then looked at her with a quizzical expression that contained an edge of hurt. ‘Is that why you agreed to this? To see how much I knew?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe a bit.’

He seemed to accept that. ‘What are we going to do?’

She found she wasn’t angry any more. As he’d said, they both now knew what the game was going to be. ‘Join forces. Go to the auction together. See what happens?’

He considered that. Then nodded. ‘What about … this?’

‘What?’

‘Is this still a date?’ He was trying to make her think he was actually still concerned about that – that it really did matter to him. She wasn’t sure how she felt about it. If she was going to be stringing him along, waiting for a chance to take the object for herself, she didn’t want to have to play the scarlet woman to do it.

That would only be the case if she wasn’t also genuinely … okay, this was complicated. She looked him in the eye. ‘If you want it to be.’

He looked like the cat that had got the cream. The size of his reaction, and the moment it took for him to conceal it, warmed her. Or fooled her, she thought, a moment later. He held up his glass. ‘Cheers.’

She picked up her glass, satisfied that at least her hand wasn’t shaking, and touched it to his. ‘Cheers.’

*   *   *

It was around eleven when they got back to Catford. They had each made an obvious effort to talk about other stuff on the way, though when Ross started to weigh up various dead ends in the op, he had gently shut her down. Yeah, that was just normal. She should know when to let herself not work. She liked having someone tell her that, actually. It was seductive. It was probably quite deliberate on his part.

They walked to her place; the housing block loomed above them. They stopped by his car. She wasn’t going to invite him in.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘thank you for a lovely evening.’

She couldn’t help but laugh at that. ‘No, thank you.’

‘So, neither of us is going to tell the others about…?’

‘No.’

Instead they were going to play out this game of theirs. He was looking at her very determinedly. She let herself look challengingly back.

‘Well.’ She put a little tired sigh in her voice. Time to turn in. She was going to see how far he was prepared to take this.

He suddenly stepped forwards and put his hands on both sides of her face, and with incredible gentleness and force at the same time, kissed her.

She realized that she’d raised her hands. What she did with them, what she did next, this was so important, she had just a second to decide …