He realized it on the M4 heading out of London towards Oxfordshire. The clues were all there: the Kensington town-house he was house-sitting was luxurious – silk sheets, basement pool, home cinema – yet here he was, making the journey out to Chilcot for the weekend in the slim hope of bumping into Stella in the Feathers. Stella he thought with a ridiculous grin on his face as he pressed down the accelerator of his ancient Mini. Just her name was enough to get his heart leaping. She felt so good for him, so right and now she was single. And it didn’t help that she was gorgeous, of course. He had fallen in lust with her the minute he’d first laid eyes on her at the Milford shoot. Not that he’d been silly about it; he’d still slept with at least a dozen stunning women in Ibiza, but the point was that he’d found it difficult to shake Stella from his mind. Yes, her luminous beauty beguiled him, but having got to know her and spend time with her through her recent traumas, it was her strength and kindness that had really won him over.
