No matter what Barb said, she wasn’t ready for a new life. She already had an all-consuming one.

Or did she? Barb was right, she accepted. The life she knew was coming to an end.

Where did she go from here?

Wherever-as long as her decisions were based on sense and not hormones, she told herself fiercely and headed back up the mountain.

‘Anyone strike your fancy?’

Jake’s manager and friend from university days was watching a blonde totter across the car park to her cute little sports car. She was definitely Rob’s choice for the night. Maybe he’d even take it further.

As opposed to Jake. He had no intention of ever taking things further. Yeah, it had been crazy to agree to speed dating. He was here for less than a week, and every one of the women he’d met tonight had diamonds in their eyes.

He didn’t do diamonds. Diamonds had been drilled out of him early.

Jake had been brought up by a mother who spent her life bewailing an Australian father who was, according to her, the lowest form of life on the planet. Love made you cry, his mother told him, over and over from the time he was a toddler, since she’d taken him back to the States and-as she’d said repeatedly-abandoned her dreams for ever.

Maybe his mother’s broken dreams had left their legacy. Who knew? He needed a shrink to tell him, but a shrink couldn’t change him. He didn’t do long-term relationships. He’d never felt the slightest need to take things down that road. Women were colleagues and friends. They were often great companions. The occasional mutually casual relationship was great, but why open yourself to the angst of commitment?

Rob, however, had talked about tonight as though it was the answer to his prayers. As if diamonds were on his agenda. Which was ridiculous.

‘What do you see in this five-minute set-up?’ he demanded, and Rob gave a crooked smile.