Then her eyes met Lex’s over the baby’s head, and the smile faded.

She was remembering that flight to Paris, too. He could see it in her eyes. The memory was so vivid that they might as well have been back on that plane, side by side, shoulders touching, their hands entwined, her perfume filling his senses as she leaned into him, distracting him with her smile, until it had felt to Lex as if he had left his real self behind and was soaring up with the plane into a different reality where he was a man who didn’t care about control or responsibility or being sensible, and could open himself to every pleasure that came his way.

And look where that had got him.

Obviously he might as well have spared himself the effort of looking unconcerned, though. Romy didn’t quite roll her eyes at his clenched jaw, but she might as well have done.

‘Why didn’t you take the train?’ she asked.

‘It’s too far,’ said Lex shortly. He hated her thinking that he might be afraid. He wasn’t afraid, and if he was, he would never admit it.

‘It’s going to take most of the day to get there as it is. I can’t afford to waste all that time sitting on a train. There’s too much else to do. I was hoping Grant would be prepared to come to London to discuss the deal.’

Romy shook her head. ‘Willie never leaves Duncardie now,’ she said. ‘His wife died five years ago, and since then he’s been a virtual recluse.’

‘So Tim explained. He told me that if I wanted to persuade Willie Grant to agree to the sale, I would have to go there myself.’

‘You must want it badly if you’re prepared to fly,’ said Romy with a faint smile.

‘I do.’ Lex’s face was set in grim lines. ‘My father never managed to get a foothold in Scotland, and it was his one big disappointment. If he hadn’t had his stroke last year, he’d still be on this plane now, on his way to see Willie Grant. He would never have trusted the negotiations to me.’