He didn’t explain, but by the sound of his voice Nick thought that his health was probably a factor. Erhard had launched them, and was depending on them to take it from here.

Good luck to you and to Rose.

That caused another of those moments when panic seemed to overwhelm him. But there was no reason for panic. No logical reason.

A royal marriage of convenience. Why not?

So he went on planning for this strange wedding, and the world didn’t crash on his head.

But on that last day, when he walked out of his office before taking a month off, and he found the whole of the office decorated with bridal nonsense, he was forced to see this for the reality it was. It was Saturday. The office should have been deserted, but people had obviously come in especially. Obviously Blake and the partners had decided that today they’d break their silence. Champagne was flowing. The girls from the typing pool were handing round wedding-cake. Blake had found a picture of Rose in a local newspaper’s weddings column, detailing Rose’s wedding to Max years ago. Someone had blown her image up to banner size. Posters of a grainy, bridal Rose were plastered from one end of the office to another.

‘She’s gorgeous,’ everyone agreed, and even Rose, laughing down from every wall, seemed to concur.

Rose’s image unsettled him as nothing else could. This was a Rose without the care lines around her eyes. Rose before…life?

It felt weird that he could think of marrying this woman, he decided, trying to smile as he accepted congratulations. It even seemed dangerous. But he’d gone too far to back out now, and finally he escaped, under a shower of confetti and good-natured banter.

‘There goes the groom to collect his bride. Or the prince to collect his princess,’ they called after him, and he had to smile and concur.