In retrospect she blamed her late husband’s sexual reticence on his respect for her staunchly moral father and on the fact that he had been a good deal older than his bride-to-be. She studied the photo of the blond, green-eyed man with clean-cut features on her desk: Jeffrey had been a very attractive man. It was little wonder that she had fallen so hard for him and it still amazed her that he had chosen to marry a teenage school-leaver rather than one of the more eligible career women whom he met in the course of his work as a successful barrister.

Late afternoon, several impressive boxes were delivered to Abbey with Nikolai Arlov’s compliments. By the time Abbey had finished unwrapping them her desk was a sea of crumpled tissue paper. She could barely credit that he had sent her the blue gown from the show in spite of her clearly stated lack of interest. That he had also thrown in the matching shoes and jewellery shook her even more. The devil was certainly in the detail.

‘The clothes have arrived,’ she texted him. ‘Were you denied a dress-up doll as a child?’

‘I only want to undress you,’ he replied, which sent a wave of heat travelling through her and settling between her thighs in a most disturbing way.

‘There’s no question of that,’ she texted back, shaken by his frankness and unsure of how best to deal with it. But she did not want him to harbour expectations in that line of the evening ahead of them.

She left the office earlier than was her wont and made her way home to the ultra-modern apartment where she lived. It had originally belonged to Jeffrey and the minimalist design and elegant brown and beige décor owed more to his taste than hers. Nothing she bought ever seemed to fit the sparse interior and trinkets always seemed to take on the aspect of messy clutter. Her doll’s house, which was in the style of a mock stone castle, was perched on the mirrored hall table, where its fairy-tale lines looked least obtrusive. The world of miniatures was her only hobby and the house and its miniature family of inhabitants provided a wonderful outlet for her lively imagination.