‘Told her off? I stood in front of her and ate every last one. And I’ve told her that next week she has to go back, apologize to the manager and hand over two weeks’ pocket money. If she’s lucky he won’t send her to prison.’

‘She won’t do that again in a hurry, then.’ He looked amused.

‘She won’t speak to me again in a hurry either,’ said Maxine. ‘According to Ella, it was my fault for not allowing her to buy any Jellytots in the first place.’

Guy rose to his feet and picked up a tea towel. When he started drying the plates she’d washed, Maxine knew at once something was up.

‘But they do speak to you,’ he said, his tone casual. ‘Tell me, what do they think of Serena?’

Uh oh. It hadn’t escaped Maxine’s notice that Serena had arrived with four suitcases and only left with two. She might have known she shouldn’t get her hopes up. ‘Why? Are you thinking of marrying her?’

‘I’m just interested in hearing anything you may have picked up,’ said Guy.

Serena had stuck up for her, Maxine remembered, when he had bawled her out over the Oliver Cassidy incident. She’d also given her a Monopoly board-sized box of expensive makeup, an unwanted gift which she said she’d never use. In her own vague way, Maxine supposed, she wasn’t really that bad. Not scintillating, but bearable.

‘They think she’s OK,’ she replied, washing a teaspoon with care. ‘They don’t dislike her, anyway. She doesn’t really talk to them that much.’

Guy raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that it?’

Maxine handed him the teaspoon. ‘As far as Josh is concerned, most of your girlfriends go so far over the top they’re practically in orbit. At least Serena doesn’t do that. She doesn’t gush over them.’

‘Hmm.’ He paused, then said, ‘And how about you?’ She gave him an innocent look. ‘I don’t gush either.’

‘What’s your opinion of Serena?’

He wasn’t being very fair. If she said anything remotely bitchy it could only go against her.

With a trace of resentment, Maxine said, ‘Why are you asking me? My opinion hardly counts.

You’re old enough to make up your own mind about whether or not you like her.’ Furthermore, she thought grumpily, she couldn’t for the life of her understand why he should be so apparently taken with Serena and so uninterested in herself.

‘I know.’ There was a glimmer of a smile on his face. ‘I have. But it is going to affect you.

Serena’s sold her flat in London and she’s going to be moving in with us when she gets back from Barcelona.’

Oh hell, thought Maxine. If Guy and Serena were going to play happy families, did that mean she was out of a job? Aloud, she said, ‘Permanently?’

He shrugged. ‘We’ll see how it goes. She was looking at other flats, but completion on her own went through more quickly than expected, so it seemed an appropriate time to ... well, try it.’

Maxine turned, gave him a look and said nothing.

‘I know, it’s hardly the romantic gesture of the decade,’ hedged Guy, ‘but it’s tricky, with the children ... I just don’t want to make any mistakes.’

‘And what do Josh and Ella think of all this?’ she countered. ‘They haven’t said anything about it to me.’

‘I’m speaking to them this evening.’ He smiled. ‘I asked you first.’

‘What for, my permission?’

‘Your opinion.’

Maxine dried her hands on a tea towel. ‘Don’t their opinions matter?’

‘Of course they do,’ Guy retorted. ‘If they really couldn’t handle it, Serena wouldn’t move in. And this isn’t a cue,’ he added severely, ‘for you to put the boot in behind my back.’

She kept a straight face. ‘Would I?’

‘Of course you would.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s why I’m saying don’t even think of it. This is important to me.’

Me too, thought Maxine. Leaning against the sink and folding her arms she said mildly, ‘If Serena’s moving in, does that mean you won’t need me any more?’

‘Good God, of course not!’ Guy looked astonished. ‘Is that what you thought? No, Serena has her career .. . she travels abroad more often than I do. You’d still be needed to look after the children.’ He paused, then added, ‘If anything, I was more concerned that you might decide to leave.’

It was the nicest thing he’d ever said to her, Maxine decided. Heavens, it was practically a full-scale compliment. ‘Does that mean you really want me to stay?’ she said, milking the situation for all it was worth.

But Guy wasn’t that easily fooled. ‘The children do,’ he replied neatly. ‘But then they don’t know about the incident the other night outside your sister’s flat.’

‘Oh, but I hadn’t really been arrested—’

‘I know.’ He looked amused. ‘I’m just saying there isn’t much point in fishing for compliments. There’s such a thing as pushing your luck too far.’

‘If you want to marry someone, why don’t you marry Maxine?’ said Ella, as if that solved the problem. ‘Then Serena wouldn’t need to move in.’

Guy tried to imagine what was going on in her seven-year-old mind. Ella’s memories of her mother were becoming sketchy. She had been cared for by nannies – first Berenice, now Maxine

– for over three years.

‘I’m not marrying Serena,’ he replied carefully. ‘We just thought it might be nice if she came to live here.’

Ella frowned. ‘But she’s your girlfriend. Does that mean she’d be sort of like a mummy?’

Guy didn’t know the answer to that. In darker moments during the past year or two when other people had made pointed comments and guilt had mingled with the weight of parental responsibility, he had wondered whether he should simply find himself a wife, a suitable stepmother for the children, and stop waiting for it to happen. It, he thought, was taking its time.

Love didn’t grow on trees.There had been more than enough willing candidates, God knows, but the ones who would have made ideal stepmothers had never captured his interest and those with whom he had become briefly involved had on the whole been wildly unsuited for the task.

And it was a hell of a task for any woman; he knew that. But of all of them, at least Serena had had the guts to be honest with him from the start. Young children weren’t something she was familiar with. She was sure Josh and Ella were perfectly nice but if he didn’t mind she’d prefer to take her time getting to know them. Besides, she had added, who knew how their own relationship would work out? There didn’t seem much point in getting too emotionally involved with the kids if all they ended up doing was splitting up. That would only cause them more unnecessary pain.

It might be a pessimistic attitude, but it was practical. Guy was willing to give it a go. Just because he had fallen in love with Véronique within minutes of meeting her didn’t mean it always had to happen that way. Maybe this time with Serena, it would simply unfold at a gradual pace.

Ella, wearing pale pink pyjamas and Mickey Mouse slippers, was curled up beside him on the sofa. Reaching for the doll she had been playing with earlier she began replaiting its blond nylon hair.

‘No, Serena’s just ... Serena,’ said Guy cautiously, in reply to her question. ‘She’s a friend.’

‘So we aren’t going to be a whole family?’ Ella gazed up at him, eyes serious.

He gestured towards Josh, sitting on the floor in front of them. ‘The three of us are a family, sweetheart. You know that.’

‘Serena’s just Dad’s girlfriend.’ It was Josh’s turn to explain the situation to his young sister. ‘She isn’t part of our family because she isn’t related to us. The only way she can get related is if Dad married her, but even thenshe’d only be a distant relation.’ Glancing at Guy for confirmation, he added cheerfully, ‘Like that man who gave us the money the other week, our grandfather. He’s a distant relation too. It means they can buy you presents but they aren’t allowed to tell you off.’

Guy hesitated, then nodded. This particular matter had yet to be sorted out. All he’d got so far each time he’d attempted to call his father was the answering machine.

Ella, however, brightened. ‘He was nice! When are we going to see him again?’

‘I don’t know, sweetheart. We’ll have to see. Now, are you happy about Serena moving in?

Is there anything else you’d like to ask me?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. As long as she isn’t allowed to tell us off.’

‘That’s what Maxine does,’ said Josh earnestly. ‘It’s her job.’

Ella finished fiddling with the doll’s springy hair. ‘And teaching me how to do plaits,’ she said with pride. ‘Daddy, will Serena sleep in the same bed as you when she starts living here?’

Guy nodded once more. For the sake of appearances, Serena had been occupying the guest room for the past week. From now on, however, the subterfuge was going to have to come to an end. ‘Yes sweetheart, she will.’

‘Poor Serena,’ said Ella with a sigh. ‘She’s really going to hate it when you snore.’

Chapter 21

The trouble with liking the sound of someone from the letter they had written in reply to an advert, Janey decided, was that it didn’t tell you everything about them. Certain vital details only emerged later, when it was too late to say you’d changed your mind after all and that although you hadn’t even got to know them yet you just knew it wasn’t going to work out.

If James Blair had only mentioned in passing that he had a laugh like a donkey on helium, for example, she would have crossed him off her list faster than you could say snort. As it was, he only hit her with the awful reality of it after introducing himself in person, in the foyer of the theatre where they had arranged to meet prior to seeing a play in which his sister had a starring role.