How? Allison wanted to ask. He’d never asked her, taking her tastes for granted. That she wasn’t the slightest bit fussy and would eat virtually anything – apart from tripe, which she had tried once and thought it as disgusting as it looked – wasn’t the point. She was tempted to come up with a list of things she didn’t eat, then sighed instead. It was the way he was; she wasn’t going to change him, or even try. ‘Yes, I’d love to come for dinner.’ If he did expect payment for the meal, she’d handle that when the time came.

The last few dates had been, at her request, after-work affairs. It was easier as, apart from her work clothes, she had nothing much else to wear. Certainly nothing glamorous enough to come remotely close to the dress he’d seen her in that first night. It was why, on the Saturday evening, she decided to wear it again. It might be her last opportunity to wear it for a while. She certainly wasn’t going to waste money buying something new when she might not be seeing him again.

She gave the taxi driver the address and sank back in the seat. The dinner would be a final attempt to see if Peter was worth pursuing. When the taxi pulled up outside his home on Union Square, her eyes widened. She assumed he, like her, would live in a small apartment, not an impressively elegant Victorian end-of-terrace home. The house of her dreams. Painted white below the first-floor windows, the upper part was mellow, old brick. Some of the houses along the terrace were missing the wrought-iron rail on the upper windowsills. Not Peter’s house. It was all simply perfect.

When the taxi pulled away – with a far bigger tip than she’d planned to give, merely because she was so entranced with the house – she stood on the footpath and stared for a moment before slowly climbing the steps to the front door.

There was a doorbell and a brass knocker. Tempted to use the latter, she shook her head at her foolishness and pressed the bell, hearing it chime within, a sonorous ding dong that made her smile.

It was opened almost immediately. ‘Allison! Wow, you look stunning.’

‘I know you like this dress,’ she said, as if she’d looked through her vast wardrobe of clothes and chosen to wear it to please him.

‘I like you in that dress.’ He leaned forward and pressed his lips briefly to hers. ‘I have an odd feeling I’d like you in anything.’

She smiled. He really could be so charming. How could the owner of such a beautiful house not be?