Now. Tonight. Before she lost her nerve.

Pulling a London telephone book from the shelf above her desk, she looked up the number and wrote it down, deliberately, conscious of breathing in and out through her nose, conscious of her heart beating. She picked up the phone and dialed.

Gemma James put down the pen and wiggled her fingers, then raised her hand to her mouth to cover a yawn. She’d never thought she’d get her report finished, and now the tension flowed from her muscles. It had been a hard day, at the end of a difficult case, yet she felt a surprising surge of contentment. She sat curled at one end of Duncan Kincaid’s sofa while he occupied the other. He’d shed his jacket, unbuttoned his collar, pulled down the knot on his tie, and he wrote with his legs stretched out, feet rather precariously balanced on the coffee table between the empty containers from the Chinese take-away.

Sid took up all the intervening sofa space, stretched on his back, eyes half-slitted, an advert for feline contentment. Gemma reached out to scratch the cat’s exposed stomach, and at her movement Kincaid looked up and smiled. “Finished, love?” he asked, and when she nodded he added, “You’d think I’d learn not to nitpick. You always beat me.”

She grinned. “It’s calculated. Can’t let you get the upper hand too often.” Yawning again, she glanced at her watch. “Oh, Lord, is that the time? I must go.” She swung her feet to the floor and slid them into her shoes.

Kincaid put his papers on the coffee table, gently deposited Sid on the floor, and slid over next to Gemma. “Don’t be daft. Hazel’s not expecting you, and you’ll not get any good mum awards for waking Toby just to carry him home in the middle of the night.” With his right hand he began kneading Gemma’s back, just below the shoulder blades. “You’ve got knots again.”