When the first dishes were laid out before them, including the rice, he observed her skill using chopsticks.

‘You really know how to do that,’ he observed as they started to eat. ‘You must have been in China for some time.’

He spoke in Mandarin Chinese and she replied in the same language, glad to demonstrate that she was as expert as he.

‘About six months,’ she said. ‘Before that I lived in England most of the time.’

‘Most?’

‘I’ve always travelled a lot to improve my languages. They were all I was ever good at, so I had to make the most of them.’

‘How many languages do you speak?’

‘French, German, Italian, Spanish…’

‘Hey, I’m impressed. But why Chinese?’

‘Pure show-off,’ she chuckled. ‘Everyone warned me it was difficult, so I did it for the fun of proving that I could. That showed ’em!’

‘I’ll bet it did,’ he said admiringly, reverting to English. ‘And I don’t suppose you found it difficult at all.’

‘Actually, I did, but I kept that to myself. You’re the only person I’ve ever admitted that secret to.’

‘And I promise not to reveal it,’ he said solemnly. ‘On pain of your never speaking to me again.’

She didn’t have to ask what he meant by that. They both knew that the connection between them had been established in those few minutes of devastating consciousness in his surgery, and today he’d come looking for her because he had to.

Olivia thought back to last night, to the disturbance that had haunted her dreams, waking her and refusing to let her sleep again. Instinct told her that it had been the same with him.

They might spend no more than a few fleeting hours in each other’s company, or they might travel a little distance along the road together. Neither could know. But they had to find out.

‘So you came out here to improve your Chinese?’ he asked in a tone that suggested there must be more to it.