Unfinished Business with the Duke. Heidi Rice

She’d bought the condoms months ago, just in case Gio visited this summer, and had gone all the way to Middleton to get them, so Mrs Green the pharmacist in Hamilton’s Cross wouldn’t tell her mum.

      ‘Aren’t you worried that it’ll hurt? Jenny Merrin said it hurt like mad when she did it with Johnny Baxter, and I bet Gio’s…’ Melanie paused for effect. ‘You know…is twice the size. Look how tall he is.’

      ‘No, of course not,’ she said, starting to get annoyed.

      Yes, it would probably hurt a bit, she knew that, but she wasn’t a coward. And if you loved someone you didn’t worry about how big their ‘you know what’ was. She’d read in Cosmo only last week that size didn’t matter.

      The bus took the turning into the Hall’s drive and she breathed a sigh of relief. She wanted to get home. There was so much to do before dinnertime. She needed to have a bath and wash her hair, wax her legs, do her nails, try on the three different outfits she had shortlisted for tonight one last time. This was going to be the most important night of her life, and she wanted to look the part. To prove to Gio she wasn’t a babyish tomboy any more, or a gawky, overweight teenager.

      She felt the now constant ache between her legs and the tight ball of emotion in her throat and knew she was doing the right thing.

      As the bus driver braked, she leapt up. But Melanie grabbed her wrist.

      ‘I’m so jealous of you,’ Melanie said, her eyes shining with sincerity. ‘He’s so dishy. I hope it doesn’t hurt too much.’

      ‘It won’t,’ Issy said.

      Gio wouldn’t hurt her—not intentionally—of that much she was certain.

      So much had changed in the last few years, but not that. Before she’d fallen in love with him he’d been like a big brother to her. Teasing her and letting her follow him around. Listening to her talk about the father she barely remembered and telling her she shouldn’t care if she didn’t have a dad. That fathers were a pain any way. Things had been difficult, tense between her and Gio since she’d grown up—partly because they weren’t little kids anymore, but mostly because he’d become so distant.

      His relationship with his father had got so bad he hardly ever came to visit the Hall any more, and when she did see him now his brooding intensity had become like a shield, demanding that everyone—even her—keep out.

      But tonight she would be able to get him back again. That moody, magnetic boy would be her friend again, but more than that he’d be her lover, and he’d know he could tell her anything. And everything would be wonderful.

      Issy crept through the darkness. Feeling her way past the kitchen garden wall, she pushed the gate into the orchard. And eased out the breath she’d been holding when the hinge barely creaked. She sucked in air scented with ripe apples and the faint tinge of tobacco.