‘Well, make the most of it as it will probably end up being turned off when the kids come down,’ said Ed wryly. He went to the door and bellowed, ‘Supper’s ready!’ up the stairs.

‘I’m surprised,’ said Perdita, who had recovered a little. ‘I’d have had you down as a man who listened to what he wanted in his own house.’

‘I was before I came up against the immovable will of a teenager,’ Ed said with grim humour. ‘I could insist, I suppose, but there are so many fights with adolescents in the house that you end up choosing the ones you think are really important and letting all the others go.’

Sure enough, when Cassie clattered down the stairs the first thing she did as she swirled into the kitchen was to head for the CD player. ‘Oh, Dad, not this boring old stuff again,’ she said, ejecting the CD. ‘You are so sad!’

‘Perdita was enjoying that,’ Ed pointed out mildly, but Cassie only tossed her head.

‘She was probably just saying that to be polite. Can I put on some real music?’

‘No,’ said Ed as he drained the spaghetti. ‘It’s Bach or nothing.’

Rolling her eyes, Cassie plonked herself down next to Perdita as Tom drifted into the room, followed by Lauren, who was a slighter, quieter version of her big sister.

‘I can’t do my stupid French homework,’ she complained, slumping into a chair when she had been introduced to Perdita. ‘I hate my teacher here. Everybody does.’

‘Be nice to Perdita and maybe she’ll help you afterwards,’ said Ed. ‘She speaks French.’

The three of them turned to look at her as if she had sprouted three heads. ‘I spent a year working in Paris,’ Perdita excused herself.

She expected Cassie to sneer at this but instead she seemed to be impressed and talked animatedly about a school trip to Paris the previous year. ‘I wanted Dad to take us to France this summer but he wouldn’t,’ she told Perdita.

‘I took you to France a couple of years ago and you complained the whole time,’ said Ed mildly as he handed out plates of spaghetti.

‘That’s because you hired a stupid house out in the middle of the country and made us walk everywhere and Lauren kept throwing up in our bedroom.’

‘Only once,’ protested Lauren.

‘It was at least three times!’

‘It wasn’t!’

In no time at all the minor squabble had degenerated into a bitter argument about who had been sick when, where and with what degree of inconvenience to the rest of the family.

‘Do we have to have this discussion when we’re eating?’ Ed demanded at last and forcibly changed the conversation by asking Perdita about her time in France.

‘Well, I did have food poisoning once,’ she said, and the girls laughed when Ed pretended to glower.

‘I’ve heard enough about throwing up this evening, thank you!’

It was just the evening Perdita needed, and she was amazed at how quickly she felt at home with Ed’s children. Tom was quieter than the girls, but more than capable of holding his own. Cassie was clearly the dominant personality, but when she forgot her pose of tortured teenager she could be very funny. She and Lauren chattered engagingly about their friends and school, which they claimed to loathe in spite of the fact that they appeared to have settled in with remarkable ease. They were already vilifying their poor teachers as if they had known them for years.

Perdita countered with some of the more scurrilous stories from her own school days in Ellsborough, and they were soon comparing their experiences of being young, particularly the trials of having a strict parent always wanting to know where you were going, what you were doing and, more importantly, who you were doing it with.

‘It was like living with the FBI,’ Perdita remembered and, sensing an ally, Cassie shot her father a look.

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ she said meaningfully.

‘You know, you’re supposed to be on my side,’ Ed complained to Perdita with a grin. ‘I only invited you because I thought you were a responsible adult!’

By the time she time left, Perdita was feeling brighter and more relaxed than she had done for a long time. The tension that had gripped her when she’d left her mother’s house had been swept away by an evening of animated conversation. Supper had been simple but tasty, and although spaghetti wasn’t the easiest of dishes to eat elegantly there was something incredibly comforting about sitting around a kitchen table.

Cassie and Tom were made to clear away while Lauren went to get her French homework. Ed watched, resigned, as Perdita did it all for her. Lauren was absolutely delighted to discover that Perdita didn’t intend to explain everything to her, but simply wrote out the answers for her to copy.

‘I think the idea is that you try and help them to understand,’ he tried to point out, but Perdita made a face.

‘That’s the teacher’s job. I’m sure Lauren would much rather I just did it for her.’

Lauren nodded eagerly. ‘And now I’ve done my homework, I can go and watch television!’

‘Can Perdita come over when I’m doing my French homework?’ asked Cassie resentfully as a gloating Lauren gathered up her books and skipped out. ‘That’s so not fair! Lauren didn’t have to do anything!’

‘Sorry,’ said Perdita to Ed when Cassie had grumbled off. ‘Did I cause trouble?’

He laughed. ‘Cassie’s just jealous. She hates not being the centre of attention.’

‘Now, I wonder…’ Perdita put a finger to her cheek and pretended to think deeply. ‘Is it possible that Cassie is a bit of a fellow peacock?’

‘Oh, there’s no doubt about that!’

‘Poor you, not only having to work with a peacock, but actually living with one too,’ she teased and Ed grinned.

‘It’s certainly challenging…but then peacocks are always worth the extra effort!’

It was at that point that Perdita made the mistake-the big mistake-of looking into his eyes and the light-hearted banter evaporated into a sizzling pause.

Tom had slouched off earlier, and it was only now that she suddenly realised that she was alone with Ed again. While the other three had been there it had been possible to forget that mad moment of awareness when she had been laying the table. She had been able to pretend that her hand wasn’t tingling at all where her skin had grazed his, that the sight of his mouth didn’t make her feel boneless and that when she looked at his hands her stomach didn’t disappear into a dizzy void.

But now all that was back with a vengeance. Perdita’s eyes skittered frantically away from his and around the room. ‘Goodness, look at the time!’ she said on a gasp, and her chair scraped across the tiles as she pushed it back with a sense of desperation. ‘I must go.’

This wouldn’t do, she told herself, scrabbling for control. There was no way she was going to get hung up on Ed. That would be stupid. She had been through this so many times. Remember what it was like with Nick, she reminded herself. Remember how hurt you were? Remember how you vowed that you would never put yourself in that situation again?

And yet here she was, her throat closed with desire at the mere thought of touching Ed, at the thought of what it would be like to lean against all that solid strength and rest her face against his throat. She had to put it out of her mind right now.

Yes, now.

Perdita made herself breathe slowly as Ed escorted her out to her car. She could do this. Mind over matter. And her mind was telling her that falling even a little bit in love with Ed was out of the question.

There was absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t be a friend to him and his children, but anything more…? No, no, no.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, carefully polite. ‘I really enjoyed myself.’

‘It was a pleasure,’ said Ed. ‘I’m the one who should thank you for coming. We don’t really know anyone here yet, and it’s nice for the kids to have some company other than their boring old dad!’

‘Why don’t you come round to lunch one Sunday?’ said Perdita on an impulse. It must be quite lonely for him in Ellsborough, and she had decided to be a friend, hadn’t she? ‘I’ll invite some friends, make it a party,’ she added, just in case he thought she was trying to set up a date. ‘Bring the kids too. My best friend has teenage children, and they can always sulk together.’

Ed looked pleased. ‘That sounds great. Thank you.’

‘Well…goodnight.’ Perdita hesitated, fiddling with the car keys in her hand. The natural thing now would be to kiss him on the cheek, the way she wouldn’t hesitate to do with any other friend. But Ed wasn’t any other friend, and the situation suddenly seemed fraught with difficulty.

But what could she do? It wasn’t a business meeting so she could hardly offer to shake hands, but getting into the car without a gesture of farewell would seem all wrong.

There was a pause, which she guessed Ed found as awkward as she did, for the moment that she decided to risk a quick brush of the cheeks he leant forward stiffly at the same time. There wouldn’t have been a problem if one of them had kept their head still and let the other do the kissing, but as it was they made a complete botch of it and, instead of a demure brush of the cheeks, their lips collided and both instantly recoiled as if stung.

‘Sorry!’

‘Sorry…my fault.’

For an excruciating moment Perdita couldn’t think of anything to say, but she was burningly aware of her mouth where it had touched his. Her whole body seemed to be jangling, and she was very glad of the dim light that hid the colour flooding her cheeks. It was silly to get in such a state about what wasn’t even a kiss. It had been an accident, no more than that.

‘The French are so much better at this kind of thing,’ she said feebly, trying to make a joke out of it. ‘You always know how many kisses you’re going to get and which side goes first.’