'That's good coming from you!' said Bella, provoked out of her awkwardness. 'You've never committed to anyone!'

'I'm just waiting for the right woman,' he said loftily.

'No, you're not,' she said. 'You're scared to take a risk.'

Josh's jaw dropped. 'How can you say that, Bella?'

'Yes, yes, I know that you've taken convoys through war zones and rescued people off mountains in blizzards and all that stuff,' she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Before he set up his own company to provide executive training a couple of years ago Josh had provided logistical support for expeditions. Most of them were providing disaster relief but sometimes he would organise fund-raising expeditions for the aid agencies he dealt with. Bella had never been able to understand why someone would want to pay good money to be tired and cold and terrified for a month, but they had always proved very popular.

'I know you've been in loads of dangerous situations,' she went on, 'but those are physical risks. Have you ever taken any other kind of risk?'

'It was risky setting up my own company,' said Josh, sounding a bit huffy.

Bella was unimpressed. 'That was a financial risk. I'm talking about emotional risks.'

Josh hunched a shoulder. 'You have to approach all risks the same way. Look at the situation logically, not emotionally, and balance the likelihood of possible outcomes.'

When he went all logical on her like that, Bella always wondered how on earth they had come to be friends. Mentally, she raised her eyes to heaven.

'It just so happens that as far as relationships are concerned I've never been convinced that the risk was worth taking,' he was saying, 'but it's not a question of being scared.'

The scared thing had obviously rankled.

'We're not all like you,' he accused her, 'investing everything in a relationship five minutes after you've met a man. You'd think experience would have taught you to keep something back, but no! You're barely over one disastrous affair before you plunge into another one!'