‘God no.’ He leaned back in his chair and studied her as if she was a specimen under glass, something rare. ‘More power to you and your family. It’s nice to know unconditional love isn’t just an empty phrase.’

She wanted to say, ‘I’ll give you unconditional love’, but knew how ludicrous it would sound with their five-day ticking time line. Not to mention the very wide gulf between a handsome billionaire with tons of women dogging his heels and, well, someone like her. ‘I didn’t always get my way,’ she said, in an effort to mitigate her faux pas. ‘I was grounded more than once when I was older.’

He lifted his brows. ‘For?’

She was able to make Dominic laugh then and made a conscious effort to entertain him with small-town stories. She had plenty of them. Nana was a born storyteller and Gramps hadn’t been any slouch either. His canoe outfitting business was about schmoozing too, not just sending people off into the Boundary Waters with good equipment and good maps.

‘Gramps died suddenly when I was twenty. A heart attack. Although he’d been sprayed by Agent Orange so many times when he was in Vietnam, he always said he was living on borrowed time. His death hit Nana and me pretty hard. You’re lucky that both …’ she stopped. ‘Sorry. I forgot. Tell me about Melanie. She’s older right?’

He grinned. ‘Quick save, babe. Yeah, Melanie’s almost six years older. She more or less raised me. She’s grounded in a remarkable way. Some people roll with the punches when life’s shitty, buckle down and get on with getting on. Then there’s people like me who fight the indifference and neglect as though I’m some fucking Don Quixote on a bike.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I was trouble from a young age. Anyway, Melanie was my guardian angel, she made everything hunky dory when it wasn’t.’ He looked down for a moment, then blew out a breath. ‘We’re going to have to change the subject or I’m going to start drinking seriously.’

‘Did you like the movie?’

‘I liked that you liked the movie. It was fun.’

For a long moment they looked at each other, a kind of crackling reminder that the fun would soon be over shimmering like lightning in the air. Then they both started talking at once.

‘You first,’ he softly said.

‘I was just going to say, the casting for Count Fersen was well done. He was the perfect hero, self-sacrificing and all that.’ Her voice trailed off because Dominic was staring at her like he was memorizing her face.

‘I agree. That was nice,’ he said as her cheeks flushed. ‘Although self-sacrifice is probably a lost art now.’

Another restless silence, the undercurrent of change palpable. They both knew their time together was finite, each moment precious.

‘If you’re finished eating,’ Dominic suddenly said, pushing to his feet. ‘I’ll clear up the dishes. No, sit, I’ll do it.’

She watched him carry the dishes to the wheeled cart the houseboy had used to deliver the food, doing her own memorizing against the future when she’d only have that to remember him by. She was overcome by a poignant sense of loss and when he leaned over and gently kissed her cheek in passing as he returned to the table, her pulse rate skyrocketed and her belly clenched. He had only to touch her and she was weak with longing. How would she survive without him?

He smiled at her as he took his seat and reached for a chessboard that had been delivered with the food. He needed a distraction, something to focus his mind away from the wild, milling confusion. ‘Do you play?’ He started placing the pieces on the board. ‘If you don’t, I’ll show you.’

‘I play a little.’

‘Black or white?’

‘White.’

He glanced up and grinned. ‘Naturally.’

She was good, and two evenly matched games later, he told her so.

‘You sound surprised,’ she said.

He was leaning back in his chair, drinking from a fresh bottle of champagne, feeling calmer, less dislocated. ‘You play better than a little, that’s all I meant. It’s a compliment.’

‘From a man who apparently doesn’t often lose at chess. Or did you let me win?’ They’d both won a game.

‘Hell no. I always play to win.’

‘I’ve noticed that once or twice,’ she drolly noted, the battlefield of chess having relieved her agitation as well.

He smiled. ‘You can always hold your own, babe. Like this game. Who taught you? You’re tough to beat.’

‘My grandpa. He was a sniper in Vietnam. Long-term strategy kept him alive, he always said. Chess was the same, he told me: know your opponents, plan ahead, wait for the kill. I beat him the first time when I was eleven. We celebrated with blueberry pie and ice cream.’

A lucent warmth lit his gaze. ‘Now there’s a picture. I would have liked to have seen you at eleven.’

‘No you wouldn’t have. I was a skinny tomboy with a butch haircut.’

‘Nana didn’t mind your butch cut?’

‘They both mostly let me do what I wanted.’

He laughed. ‘So they’re to blame for your obstinacy.’

‘Who’s to blame for yours?’

‘Fuck if I know. Probably fighting for my life in my dysfunctional family.’

‘Was it really bad?’

He shrugged. ‘Nah, lots of people had it worse. Melanie and I had each other.’