He dragged his fingers through his hair, as if to erase the unsettling thoughts. He didn’t have time for ‘entertainment’. And, with marriage very much on the agenda, he shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

As it was, he had to snatch this hour to celebrate a little girl’s birthday out of a crammed schedule when he should, instead, be concentrating on the reception for travel journalists and dinner with the men who had the financial power to make his airline a reality.

‘Are you a permanent fixture, Metcalfe?’ he asked. ‘Or will Jack Lumley be back on duty tomorrow?’

‘I couldn’t say, sir,’ she said, glancing up to look in the rear-view mirror, briefly meeting his gaze, before returning her attention to the road. ‘He was taken ill earlier today.’ Then, ‘I’m sure the company could find you someone else in the meantime, if you insisted.’

‘Someone with a beard?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Her dimple had disappeared. She wasn’t smiling now. Not even close. She thought he objected to a female chauffeur?

‘And if I did?’ something made him persist. ‘What would you be doing tomorrow?’

Her eyes flickered back to him. They were green, like the smudge of new leaves in an English hedgerow in April.

‘If I’m lucky I’ll be back at the wheel of a minibus, doing the school run.’

‘And if you’re unlucky?’

‘Back at the wheel of a minibus, doing the school run,’ she repeated, letting loose another of those smiles, albeit a somewhat wry one, as she pulled into the forecourt of a massive toy store. She slid from behind the wheel but he was out of the car before she could open the door for him and looking up at the façade of the store she’d chosen.

It hadn’t occurred to him to dictate their destination. Jack Lumley would have taken him to Harrods or Hamleys, having called ahead to check which of them had what he was looking for, ensuring that it would be gift-wrapped and waiting for him, charged to his account.