‘We were unsuited. Let’s leave it there.’ His voice was gentle but the hint of warning was unmistakable.

‘Of course,’ Lucia said at once. When Marco’s barriers went up even she knew better than to persist.

‘It’s time I was leaving,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, Mamma. I’m simply going to meet Harriet d’Estino and form an impression. If I don’t like her I won’t mention the idea. She won’t know anything about it.’

As he boarded the plane for London Marco reflected that he was behaving unlike himself. He believed in thinking things through, but he was committing an impulsive action.

An apparently impulsive action, he corrected the thought. He was an orderly man who lived an orderly life, because success flourished from good order. That meant stability, the correct action performed at the correct time. He’d intended to marry at thirty, and would have done so if Alessandra hadn’t changed her mind.

That thought no sooner lived than he killed it. Everything concerning his aborted engagement, including the emotional fool he’d made of himself, was past and done. A wise man learned from experience, and he would never open himself up like that again.

His mother’s suggestion of a sensible marriage had been a godsend. To found a family, without involving his heart suited him exactly.

He arrived in London in the late afternoon, taking a suite at the Ritz and spending the rest of the day online, checking various deals that needed his personal attention. The five-hour time difference between America and Europe was too useful to be missed, and it was past midnight before he was through. By that time the Tokyo Stock Exchange was open and he worked until three in the morning. Then he went to bed and slept for precisely five hours, efficiently, as he did everything.

This was how he spent the night before meeting the woman he was planning to make his wife.