It was ten years later. Jake had changed completely. The leather jacket had gone, the bike had gone.

But that mouth was still exactly the same.

That mouth…She knew what it felt like. She knew how it tasted. She knew just how warm and sure those firm lips could be. Jake was an austere stranger beside her now, but she had kissed him. The memory was so vivid and so disorientating that Cassie felt quite giddy for a moment.

She swallowed. ‘I had a major crush on Rupert, but it was just a teenage thing. Remember what a gawk I was?’ she said, removing her gaze firmly back to the road. ‘I have this fantasy that if I bumped into Rupert now he wouldn’t recognise me.’

‘I recognised you,’ Jake pointed out unhelpfully.

‘Yes, well, that’s the thing about fantasies,’ Cassie retorted in a tart voice. ‘They’re not real. I’m never likely to meet Rupert again. He lives in a different world, and the closest I get to him is seeing his picture in a celebrity magazine with some incredibly beautiful woman on his arm. Even if by some remote chance I did meet him I know he wouldn’t even notice me, let along recognise me.’

‘Why not?’

‘Oh, I’m much too ordinary for the likes of Rupert,’ said Cassie with a sigh. ‘You were right about that, anyway.’

Jake looked taken aback. ‘When did I ever say you were ordinary?’

‘You know when.’ She flashed him an accusing glance. ‘After the Allentide Ball.’ After you kissed me. ‘Before you punched Rupert on the nose. I gather you took it upon yourself to tell Rupert I wasn’t nearly sophisticated enough for him.’

It still rankled after all these years.

‘You weren’t,’ said Jake.