'I might,' she said at last, with an air of making concessions, 'manage distinguished-'

He pulled a face.

'But not middle-aged-'

His mouth went down at the corners.

'And definitely not raddled.'

He eyed her as if assessing the strength of the opposition. Then inspiration seized him. He pulled out a pair of glasses with thick black frames and put them on.

'Raddled,' he said firmly.

She shook her head. 'Distinguished. That's my best offer.'

'What kind of a rotten photographer are you?' he demanded, outraged. 'I'm not asking for very much.'

'You're asking for the moon. Michelangelo couldn't make you seem raddled. You don't look middle-aged even with the glasses on. You've got all your hair, and it's kept its colour.'

He ran a hand distractedly through his shiny dark locks. 'You can blame that on Phoebe,' he said. 'I wanted to use a bit of flour at the sides, but she wouldn't let me.'

'Good for her,' Lee said. 'She has, if I may say so, a lot of common sense that she plainly did not inherit from her father.'

He grinned. 'She gets her savvy from her mother.

'Then give my compliments to her mother,' Lee said tartly.

'That lady has been out of my life for years,' Daniel said in a changed voice. 'Something I'm very glad of at the moment.'

Suddenly it wasn't funny any more. His eyes were on her and there was no doubt about his meaning. It was ridiculous. Discounting their first meeting, they'd known each other only a few minutes, and they'd spent those minutes having a laughing, idiotic conversation. But there'd been another conversation going on beneath it, communicating their mutual attraction.

She took a slow breath. She distrusted this man. Not that she knew anything about him, but she distrusted all men, especially those with charm. Jimmy Meredith had been the most charming man in the world-for a time.