‘Oh, you know, pedicures, massages, waxing.’

Jake paled. ‘Waxing?’

‘I believe a certain wax is very popular with men nowadays,’ said Cassie naughtily, enjoying his expression of horror. ‘You want to look your best for our wedding photos, don’t you?’

‘Not if it involves wax of any kind anywhere!’

‘Oh well, if you’re going to be such a baby…’

‘Why don’t we just give the voucher to someone else?’

‘We can’t do that. Wedding Belles might want photos of us enjoying our prize for the article.’

‘If they think they’re getting a photo of me having any hairs ripped out, they’ve got another think coming!’ said Jake firmly.

‘Don’t worry; I’m sure we can find you something less painful,’ Cassie soothed him as she flicked through the brochure that had come with the voucher. ‘Maybe you could have a facial-or, I know, a seaweed wrap! That wouldn’t hurt.’

Jake was looking aghast. ‘A wrap?’ Then he caught Cassie’s dancing brown eyes, realised that she was teasing and relaxed into a laugh. ‘If you dare book me in for anything like that, Cassie…!’

‘What, and risk you cancelling our contract? No way-although it would be almost worth it to see your face.’

It was a good thing they had had that discussion about love earlier, Cassie decided. She had been in danger of forgetting that theirs wasn’t a real relationship for a while, but now that she’d remembered she could relax and enjoy herself again.

She tucked her hand into his arm. ‘Worry not,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t do anything like that to you.’

‘So, can we go now?’

‘Go? We haven’t even started yet!’ Cassie pointed to where a set of doors was swinging apart to revel a huge ballroom crammed with stalls. ‘The show’s just opened, and we’ve got a whole winter-wonderland of weddings to explore…’

‘Have you got a moment?’

‘Jake!’ Cassie looked up in astonishment as he appeared in the doorway. It was the following Tuesday, and she was sitting on the office floor surrounded by fabric samples. She scrambled to her feet, ridiculously breathless. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

He was looking uncharacteristically hesitant. ‘I wanted to ask a favour. In the circumstances, it seemed only fair that I should come to you, but I can go away if you’re busy.’

‘No, no. It’s fine.’ Cassie swept a pile of magazines off a chair. ‘Sit down. I’m sorry it’s all such a mess.’

She grimaced, looking at the office through Jake’s eyes. They really ought to tidy up some time. Every surface was piled high with magazines, fabric books, photographs, brochures, and samples of everything you could think of from thank-you cards to lip salves to artificial flowers. A wedding dress in a protective bag hung from a door, and the walls were covered with photos of all the weddings Avalon had planned. It was a colourful, cheerfully chaotic place, but, coming from his immaculately cool and contemporary office, Jake was unlikely to be impressed.

‘Coffee?’ she offered, and then wished she hadn’t. They only had chipped mugs, and the milk was probably off.

‘No. Thank you.’

Phew. Cassie lifted a pile of cake-design brochures off another chair and sat down. A favour, he had said. ‘So, what can I do for you?’

She was rather proud of how normal she sounded, not at all as if her heart was bouncing around in her ribcage and interfering ludicrously with her breathing. She was disconcerted, in fact, by how pleased she was to see Jake.

In the end, they had had a good time at the wedding fair, and the weekend had seemed, well, a bit empty without him. Jake had said goodnight as they parted, but hadn’t mentioned meeting again. Why would he? It was her job to get things going at the Hall, and she had that well in hand. They would need to arrange a photo session at some point, but the Hall wasn’t ready for that yet.

As it was, the week stretched drearily ahead. Cassie had even caught herself wondering if she could invent an excuse to call him, and had had to give herself a stern talking-to, reminding herself about key words like ‘contract’, ‘professionalism’, and ‘incompatibility’.

Jake seemed to be having trouble deciding where to start. ‘Remember that voucher we won on Friday?’ he said at last.

He had taken so long that Cassie had begun to worry that he was about to give her bad news. Relief made her laugh. ‘Look, there’s no need to worry,’ she assured him, relaxing. ‘I won’t book anything.’

‘It’s not that.’ Jake wanted to get to his feet, but the office was so crowded with stuff that there was nowhere to step, let alone pace. How on earth did Cassie manage to work in all this clutter?

He brought his attention back to the matter in hand. ‘It turns out that one of the accountants at Primordia is getting married next year, and she was at the Wedding Belles party.’

‘Ah,’ said Cassie, seeing where this was going at last.

‘I didn’t recognise her, but she thought she recognised me, apparently, and when our names were announced as winners of that bloody voucher that just confirmed it. So she trotted in to work yesterday and mentioned to someone she worked with in finance that I was engaged.’

‘And word went round faster than you can say “seaweed wrap”?’

Jake nodded heavily. ‘That’s about it. The next thing I know, Ruth, my communications director, is congratulating me and saying I must bring you to some fund-raising event we’re sponsoring on Thursday.’ He sighed. ‘I can’t believe how quickly it’s all got out of hand. I didn’t think anyone in London would need to know about our so-called engagement,’ he confessed. ‘I obviously didn’t think things through properly.’

‘You weren’t to know anyone from work would be at the wedding fair,’ Cassie pointed out consolingly.

‘No.’ Jake brooded, trying to work out where it had all gone wrong. He wasn’t used to his plans going awry. He spent so much of his life keeping things under rigid control; this was way out of his comfort zone.

‘Perhaps I should have laughed it off when Ruth first mentioned it,’ he said. ‘But it seemed humiliating to admit that my engagement was just a marketing exercise. Ruth knew Natasha, too. She would have felt sorry for me.’

He didn’t need to tell Cassie how much he would have hated that.

‘The upshot is that I let her believe that you and I really were engaged,’ he went on, looking directly at Cassie. ‘I’m sorry about this, but I wondered if you would mind putting on an appearance at this do on Thursday, and any other similar events in the next couple of months?’ He took a breath. ‘If you don’t want to do it, I’ll understand, of course.’

‘What, no more blackmail?’ said Cassie, brown eyes dancing.

Jake set his teeth. ‘No. This wasn’t part of our agreement. I’m just asking you to help me.’

‘Of course I will,’ said Cassie, regretting now that she’d teased him. He so obviously hated the whole situation. ‘It’ll be fine. Honestly, I don’t mind.’

‘It’s not likely to be a big deal,’ Jake said. ‘Just a couple of outings.’

‘There you go, then. No problem.’

‘Well…thank you.’

Jake was taken aback by how relieved he was, and he had a nasty feeling it wasn’t just because Cassie was prepared to save his face at work. It was barely two weeks since she had-literally-tripped back into his life, and already she had changed things more than Natasha had in six months.

That wedding fair on Friday…Jake had thought about it all weekend. Cassie had dragged him round every stall. She had tried on tiaras and sampled cupcakes. She had sighed over shoes and chatted to other brides-to-be about make-up and hen parties and how to keep children entertained at a reception.

It should have been Jake’s worst nightmare, but oddly he’d found that he was enjoying himself. He’d liked watching Cassie’s animated face as she talked and waved her arms around, her intent expression as she’d studied the dizzying array of goods and services on offer, and the way she’d licked her fingers after trying a piece of fruit at the chocolate fountain.

They had wrangled over table decorations, pretended to choose a honeymoon destination, dodged behind stalls to avoid Michelle and the ever-silent Mark, and generally laughed more than Jake could remember since…Well, he couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed like that. And all the time he had been aware of Cassie, of her bright face and her warm smile, and the memory of her kiss was like a hum underneath his skin.

So when Ruth had congratulated him on his engagement, instead of quietly admitting that it was all a mistake he had imagined seeing Cassie again, and he had found himself playing along.

It was only after Ruth had gone that he’d realised how much he had taken it for granted that Cassie would agree. He had blackmailed her into this charade, for goodness’ sake! That didn’t happen to nice middle-class girls like her. Jake wouldn’t have blamed her if she had told him to stuff his pretence.

After all, it wasn’t as if she could like being with him. They’d got on well enough at the wedding fair, but in lots of ways being there had just pointed out the differences between them. Cassie was ridiculously romantic, he was rigidly practical. She was warm, vibrant and spontaneous, he was cool and controlled. The only thing they could agree on was that they were completely incompatible.

Jake had told himself he would deserve the humiliation of admitting to Ruth that he had lied if Cassie didn’t agree.

But she had agreed. ‘It’ll be fine,’ she had said easily, and Jake had felt his heart lift.

‘Thank you,’ he said again.

‘When do you want me?’

Now. I want you now. Unbidden, the words hovered on the tip of Jake’s tongue. He clamped his lips together, aghast at how close he had come to opening his mouth and letting them spill out without any idea of where the thought had come from.