Natalia shut her eyes and let her mouth open, ever so slightly to start with. Then she kissed him back, with all the passion that she had missed for so many years. For a minute or so they were lost in one another, utterly oblivious to the drunken catcalls from what was left of the film crew at the next restaurant.

‘You want see my boat?’ Natalia whispered. She had no idea why she was acting like this. She had been so guarded, so intent on her privacy for such a long time, and suddenly this man, this film star, was making her lose all her inhibitions. She just wanted to ride this magical night, to ride this magical man …

‘Let’s go,’ Ben whispered back, chucking down several hundred-euro notes on the table. Taking Natalia by the hand, he dragged her purposefully in the direction of her yacht, until she upped her pace and they were running together, hand-in-hand, breathless and laughing. Nearly as tall as Ben in her flat shoes, Natalia had no problem keeping up.

Good God, the legs too. How could he not have noticed the legs before?

‘What has happened to us?’ Ben asked. ‘Half an hour ago, I was a different person.’

‘My life will never be the same,’ said Natalia simply. While she meant it with all her heart, none of this really felt as if it were happening to her, Natalia Evanovitch. It was a magical dream, a dream from which she never wanted to wake.

They kissed some more, under the palm trees and the stars and the warm French sky.

‘I don’t even know your name,’ said Ben, pushing a stray strand of blonde hair away from her face as he gazed into her slanty, wide-apart eyes.

‘I’m Natalia. Natalia Evanovitch.’ She kissed him again, feeling young and skittish, like the teenager she’d never been allowed to become.

‘I’m Ben. Ben Jones.’

And suddenly Natalia realized why she recognized him. Ben Jones. He was the bastard who had fucked things up between Poppy and Damian and Bella last year. The bastard who had broken Bella’s heart, been responsible for Poppy’s near-demise and nearly ruined Damian’s life. The bastard who cared for nobody but himself. She had seen him once before, at Bella’s exhibition last year. That was where she knew him from.

She pulled away abruptly.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘You must go.’

‘Natalia.’ Ben reached out and ran his finger down her cheek, smiling. ‘You don’t need to get cold feet. This is real. It’s happening, and it’s real.’

‘It was real before I knew who you were.’ Natalia grabbed his hand and shoved it away from her cheek. ‘Do the names Poppy, Damian and Bella mean anything to you?’

And before he could answer, she had disappeared onto her yacht.

Ben was dancing with a couple of supermodels at Les Caves du Roy, the ultimate St Trop club, located in the basement of the legendary Byblos hotel. Any man on the planet would be happy to be in his shoes, but his heart wasn’t in it. All he could think of was Natalia. What fucking bad luck it was that she knew the people he had shafted so badly last year, his erstwhile friends. Having seen her look of contempt as she pushed him away, Ben had done a lot of soul searching, and not come to any pleasing conclusions.