‘What did she make of Rupert?’

‘She thought he was shallow.’

‘I bet she thought he was gorgeous too,’ said Cassie with a provocative look, and Jake pokered up and looked down his nose.

‘Natasha is much too sensible to judge people on their appearances,’ he said stiffly.

Of course she was. Cassie rolled her eyes as they overtook a van that was hogging the middle lane, startling the driver, who gave a grimace that was well out of Jake’s field of vision. The van moved smartly into the slow lane.

‘So how come she got involved with you if she’s so sensible?’ she asked, forgetting for a moment that Jake was an important client.

‘We get on very well,’ said Jake austerely.

‘What does getting on very well mean, exactly?’

Ahead, there was a flurry of red lights as cars braked, and Jake moved smoothly into the middle lane. ‘It means we’re very compatible,’ he said.

And they were. Natasha was everything he admired in a woman. She was very attractive-beautiful, in fact-and clear-thinking. She didn’t constantly demand emotional reassurance the way his previous girlfriends had. She was focused on her own career, and understood if he had to work late, as he often did. She never made a fuss.

And she was classy. That was a large part of her appeal, Jake was prepared to admit. Years ago in Portrevick, Natasha wouldn’t have looked at him twice, but when he walked into a party with her on his arm now he knew that he had arrived. She was everything Jake had never known when he was growing up. She had the assurance that came from a life of wealth and privilege, and every time Jake looked at her she reassured him that he had left Portrevick and the past behind him at last.

He didn’t feel like telling Cassie all of that, though.

The traffic had slowed to a crawl and Jake shifted gear. ‘I hope this is just sheer weight of traffic,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to spend any more time on the road than we have to.’

Nor did Cassie. She wriggled in her seat. Quite apart from anything else, she was starving. Afraid that she would be late, she hadn’t had time for breakfast that morning, and her stomach was gurgling ominously. She was hoping Jake would stop for petrol at some point, but at this rate they’d be lucky to get to a service station for supper, let alone lunch.

The lines of cars were inching forward in a staggered pattern. Sometimes the lane on their left would have a spurt of movement, only to grind to a halt as the supposed fast-lane speeded up, and then it would be the middle lane’s turn. They kept passing or being passed by the same cars, and Cassie was beginning to recognise the occupants.

An expensive saloon on their left was creeping ahead of them once more. Covertly, Cassie studied the driver and passenger, both of whom were staring grimly ahead and not talking.

‘I bet they’ve had a row,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘The couple on our left in the blue car.’ Cassie pointed discreetly. ‘Have a look when we go past. I can’t decide whether she left the top off the toothpaste again, or whether she’s incredibly possessive and sulking because he just had a text from his secretary.’

Jake cast her an incredulous glance. ‘What’s wrong with getting a text from your secretary?’

‘She thinks he’s having an affair with her,’ said Cassie, barely pausing to consider. ‘She insists on answering his phone while he’s driving. Of course the text was completely bland, just confirming some meeting or something, but she just knows that it’s a code.’

It was their lane’s turn to move. Against his better judgement, Jake found himself glancing left as they passed. Cassie was right; the people both looked hatched-faced.

‘They could be going to visit the in-laws,’ he suggested, drawn into the fantasy in spite of himself.

Cassie took another look. ‘You might be right,’ she allowed. ‘Her parents?’

‘His, I think. She’s got a face like concrete, so she’s doing something she doesn’t want to do. They don’t really approve of her.’

‘Hey, you’re good at this!’ Cassie laughed and swivelled back to watch the traffic. ‘Now, who have we got here?’ They were passing a hatchback driven by an elderly man who was clutching onto the wheel for dear life. Beside him, a tiny old lady was talking. ‘Grandparents off to visit their daughter,’ she said instantly. ‘Too easy.’

‘Perhaps they’ve been having a wild affair and are running away together,’ said Jake, tongue in cheek.

‘I like the way you’re thinking, but they look way too comfortable together for that. I bet she’s been talking for hours and he hasn’t heard a word.’

‘Can’t imagine what that feels like,’ murmured Jake, and she shot him a look.

‘I wonder what they think about us?’ she mused.

‘I doubt very much that anyone else is thinking about us at all.’

‘We must look like any other couple heading out of town for a long weekend,’ said Cassie, ignoring him.

Perhaps that was why it felt so intimate sitting here beside him. If they were a couple, she could rest her hand on Jake’s thigh. She could unwrap a toffee and pop it in his mouth without thinking. She could put her feet up on the dashboard and choose some music, and they could argue about which was the best route. She could nag him about stopping for something to eat.

But of course she couldn’t do any of that. Especially not laying a hand on his leg.

She turned her attention firmly back to the other cars. ‘Ooh, now…’ she said, spying a single middle-aged man looking harassed at the wheel of his car, and instantly wove a complicated story about the double life he was leading, naming both wives, all five children and even the hamster with barely a pause for breath.

Jake shook his head. He tried to imagine Natasha speculating about the occupants of the other cars, and couldn’t do it. She would think it childish. As it was, thought Jake.

On the other hand, this traffic jam was a lot less tedious than others he had sat in. Cassie’s expression was animated, and he was very aware of her beside him. She had pushed back the seat as far as it would go, and her legs, in vivid blue tights, were stretched out before her. Her mobile face was alight with humour, her hands in constant motion. Jake had a jumbled impression of colour and warmth tugging at the edges of his vision the whole time. It was very distracting.

Now she was pulling faces at a little boy in the back seat of the car beside them. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, while Cassie stuck her thumbs in her ears and waggled her fingers in response.

Jake was torn between exasperation and amusement. He didn’t know where Cassie got her idea that she was ordinary. There was absolutely nothing ordinary about her that he could see.

He glanced at the clock as they inched forward. It was a bad sign that they were hitting heavy traffic this early. It wasn’t even midday, and already they seemed to have been travelling for ever.

Cassie had fallen silent at last. Bizarrely, Jake almost missed her ridiculous stories. Suddenly there was a curdled growl that startled him out of his distraction. He glanced at Cassie in surprise and she blushed and folded her arms over her stomach.

‘Sorry, that was me,’ she apologised. ‘I didn’t have time for breakfast.’

How embarrassing! Cassie was mortified. Natasha’s stomach would never even murmur. At least Jake seemed prepared to cope with the problem.

‘We’ll stop and get something to eat when we get out of this,’ he promised, but it was another twenty minutes before the blockage cleared, miraculously and for no apparent reason, and he could put his foot down.

To Cassie’s disappointment they didn’t stop at the first service-station they came to, or even the second. ‘We need to get as far on our way as we can,’ Jake said, but as her stomach became increasingly vocal he eventually relented as they came up to the third.

After a drizzly summer, the sun had finally come out for September. ‘Let’s sit outside,’ Cassie suggested when they had bought coffee and sandwiches. ‘We should make the most of the sun while we’ve got it.’

They found a wooden table in a sunny spot, away from the ceaseless growl of the motorway. Cassie turned sideways so that she could straddle the bench, and turned her face up to the sun.

‘I love September,’ she said. ‘It still feels like the start of a new school year. I want to sharpen my pencils and write my name at the front of a blank exercise-book.’

Perhaps that was why she was so excited about transforming Portrevick Hall into a wedding venue, Cassie thought as she unwrapped her sandwich. It was a whole new project, her chance to draw a line under all her past muddles and mistakes and start afresh. She was determined not to mess up this time.

‘It’s great to get out of London too,’ she went on indistinctly through a mouthful of egg mayonnaise. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing Portrevick again, too. I haven’t been back since my parents moved away, but the place where you grow up always feels like home, doesn’t it?’

‘No,’ said Jake.

‘Really?’ Cassie was brushing egg from her skirt, but at that she looked up at him in surprise. ‘Don’t you miss it at all?’

‘I miss the sea sometimes,’ he said after a moment. ‘But Portrevick? No. It’s not such a romantic place to live when there’s never any money, and the moment there’s trouble the police are at your door wanting you to account for where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing.’

Jake could hear the bitterness seeping into his voice in spite of every effort to keep it neutral. Cassie had no idea. She had grown up in a solid, cosy house in a solid, cosy, middle-class family. They might have lived in the same place, but they had inhabited different worlds.

Miss it? He had spent ten years trying to put Portrevick behind him.