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that intense.
    It was Flynn. He was here.
    It hadn’t been hard to keep track of him over the years. At first, his skiing skills had kept him in the sports section of the newspapers and she had followed his exploits through their pages. Then as time passed, the Internet grew up and took over the world, and she’d done it that way instead. Flynn’s looks and talent had gained him plenty of attention, companies fell over themselves to sponsor him and he was favored for a medal at the next winter Olympics. He might have won one too, if it hadn’t been for an accident in training, causing him to fall and break an ankle.
    The fracture turned out to be a complicated one requiring intricate surgery and signaling the end of Flynn’s skiing days. At the age of twenty-four he returned to Bath and took a job with Gray’s, the wine merchants. His new employers made no secret of the fact that they had selected him for his celebrity qualities; basically he was there to charm the socks off the buyers and raise the public profile of the company. Nobody, not even Flynn, could have guessed what an asset he would become. Three years later he became a partner. Gray and Erskine went from strength to strength, supplying new and old world wines to an expanding list of hotels, restaurants, festivals, and private clubs. They sourced and imported direct from small family-run domains, and garnered attention from wine writers impressed by their selection skills. Internet sales, introduced by Flynn, caused profits to soar to the next level. Flynn’s genuine enthusiasm for wine and his ability to relay that to the customers was what made a big difference. Entering the world of wine may have come about almost by accident, but it had turned out to be an amazingly happy one.
    Over the years Lara wouldn’t like to admit how many times she’d clicked on the Gray and Erskine Wine Merchants website.
    It wasn’t stalking. She’d been hundreds of miles away. It was just… keeping an eye on Flynn and seeing what he looked like.
    OK, call it stalking-from-a-distance.
    Anyway, she no longer needed to switch on a computer in order to see him. He was here. Oh God.
    She’d begun mentally preparing herself for the fact that at some stage in the near future she would be seeing him again.
    But not here, now, today, without any advance warning at all.
    This really wasn’t fair.
    The thin, elderly man standing in front of her turned and gave her a quizzical look. Lara realized she’d been hyperventilating, panting like a dog at the back of his wrinkled tortoisey neck.
    â€œSorry.” Hastily she pretended she’d been using her hand to fan herself. “Hot.”
    But… oh, oh, it was Flynn. Flynn Erskine, whom she hadn’t seen for almost nineteen years, and he was heading her way.
    Not that he’d noticed her, skulking at the back of the group behind an old man with a corrugated neck. Lara ducked down further still and surreptitiously cupped a hand over her mouth to keep her rapid breathing to herself. Flynn had reached the foot of the steps now and was talking to some people he knew. Asking them what was going on, no doubt. God, he still had it. For some people starting off as a beautiful teenager meant it was all downhill from there on, while others improved with age. Flynn, needless to say, was one of those. He had the kind of face you could just gaze at forever. His bone structure had sharpened, matured. Those dark brown eyes were still utterly mesmerizing, that mouth as perfect as she remembered. His dark hair was less spiky, more grown up. And he was wearing a well-cut gray suit, which definitely wasn’t something she’d seen him in before. In the old days, T-shirts and jeans had been about as sophisticated as—
    â€œOh my goodness, everyone out of the way, this lady’s GOING TO BE SICK!”
    The woman next to Lara let out a shriek and leaped to the left. Startled, Lara