The angel on top was askew and she started carefully to adjust it. Then she began to check the lights, twisting each bulb in turn, taking her attention from him. ‘They didn’t even ask why I was there,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘I could have been there to talk about my wedding. I could have been there to make enquiries about anything at all. But I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and carrying a small backpack Lorna had given me.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘The backpack was pink. Anyway, they obviously sorted me as a type they didn’t want. They asked me to leave, and suddenly there was a security guard propelling me onto the pavement.’ She shrugged. ‘Given my opinion of Carver Salons, I should have told you to take your very kind offer to buy this salon and stick it. But of course it’s a very generous offer, and I need the money and the thought of me being in opposition to you is ridiculous.’

There was a moment’s silence then. Guy thought about his Paris staff. They were the best. They ran weddings that were the talk of the world.

They’d kicked this woman out. She must have been humiliated.

Maybe he needed to be a bit more hands-on.

He didn’t like to be hands-on.

He thought suddenly of the first wedding he’d planned. He’d been home from college, where he’d been studying law-a career his parents had thought eminently suitable but which bored him stupid. Christa-the girl he’d been dating since both their mothers had organised them to their first prom-had been managing his social life, and that had bored him, too. Then Christa’s sister had announced her engagement to someone both families thought entirely unsuitable.

Louise had wept on Guy’s shoulder. Without parental support, and with no money of her own, she’d been doomed to have a civil ceremony and go without the party she’d longed for.

Intrigued, Guy had set to work. He’d painted cardboard until his hands were sore, transforming a small local hall into a venue that looked like a SoHo streetscape.