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He didn’t want to play with her tender heart, but he wished there was something he could do for her.

Something that could give her the security she craved.

* * *

Stella dressed with great care for the presentation.

She wore a grey shift dress and carefully twisted her hair into a neat chignon and put in her pearl earrings. She even wore a little make-up.

Nothing though would help.

She and Daisy had been working on it for two weeks, but both quietly knew it simply wasn’t good enough.

Stella felt sick with nerves when she arrived at work, and kept looking at the clock, even though her meeting wasn’t until late afternoon.

So nervous was she that the bagel she usually wolfed down sat half uneaten on her desk, while the other half sat like lead in her stomach.

‘Sir Charles has to move the presentation to tomorrow,’ Jinty informed them. ‘Something urgent came up.’

‘Again?’

Stella should be relieved at the slight reprieve but one more night wasn’t going to turn her proposal into something dazzling and she really just wanted it over and done with.

Tricky indeed. Stella flicked through the document she had spent the past weeks on and felt a flutter of panic. Her first alone, without luck, or memory, or whatever had got her to this point.

And it was her own fault.

Yes, she’d tried and yes, she’d found some similar locations, but her heart had been in Sant Lavia.

She missed Gabe.

More than a temporary lover should.

And there was this scary feeling that nothing could ever replicate him, nothing was going to ever be quite as good again, or quite as blissful.

It was because he’d been her first, she kept telling herself. Of course that was the reason her heart felt broken. She would get over him soon. Of course she would.

But right now…

‘Stella—’ Jinty gave her a smile ‘—could you take this out to Sir Charles?’

‘Wow!’ She looked at the champagne in the bucket and knew it was the best. ‘Is this celebration the reason my meeting was moved?’

‘I guess.’ Jinty smiled.

It wasn’t an odd job, it was sort of part of the day, pitching in, just taking out champagne to the garden. She’d done it many times before, placed the ice bucket and glasses down and left Sir Charles and whoever was with him to it.

Only she’d barely opened the door when she nearly dropped the bucket and glasses, for even that first night at Bella Vista with his back to her, she had recognised him.

He wore a deep navy suit that skimmed his wide shoulders and his black hair was shorter than she remembered and immaculately cut. Clutching the champagne bucket, she stood in the doorway frozen, scarcely able to believe that she’d been held in those long arms, that she’d once been naked and coiled around that body.

Then the door closed behind her and Sir Charles turned. ‘Ah, here she is…’

‘Your champagne,’ Stella croaked, walking to the shaded table and placing down the bucket, utterly unable to look at Gabe as he and Sir Charles made their way over. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

‘You’ll do no such thing,’ Sir Charles said. ‘Stella, I had no idea your scout had been so productive.’

Her eyes flew to Gabe’s and in the utter confusion of the moment, somehow those grey depths anchored her, held her, made her safe…still, enough that she remembered her manners.