Indignantly she challenged him with a direct gaze, and what she saw startled her. Despite the teasing sensuality of his words, his eyes held the same dispassionate calculation he would have shown to a high-priced purchase.

‘You don’t dress like the others,’ he remarked. ‘Why?’

It was true. Heather was perfectly made-up and her long hair was elegantly styled, courtesy of the store’s beauty parlour. But whereas the other assistants, with their employer’s encouragement, dressed in slightly provocative styles, Heather stuck firmly to conventional clothes. Her skirt was black, her blouse was snow-white and fresh. Her boss had suggested that she might ‘put herself about more’, but she had refused, and since her sales figures were excellent the matter had been allowed to drop.

‘I think,’ the man persisted, ‘it’s because you’re a proud and subtle woman-too proud to put everything in the window. And subtle enough to know that when a woman holds back she’s at her most alluring. By covering yourself up you make a man wonder how you would look without clothes.’

It was a direct, frontal attack from a man with all the nerve in the world, and something in Heather was wryly appreciative even while something else warned her to put him firmly in his place.

‘Can I interest you in anything more, sir?’ she asked primly.

‘You could interest me in a good deal,’ he responded at once. ‘Let me take you to dinner, and we can discuss my interest in you.’

‘That wasn’t what I-still, I suppose I could have phrased that question more cleverly, couldn’t I?’

‘I thought you phrased it perfectly. I’m interested; I’ve made that plain. And I’m a generous man. I doubt your boyfriend will marry you. He’ll disappear, leaving you with a broken heart.’

‘And you’ll leave me dancing for joy, I suppose?’ she couldn’t resist answering.