I need an hour at lunchtime to meet an English friend at Gare du Nord.’ She purposefully enunciated the ‘d’ at the end of ‘Nord’. It really irritated him.

But Robert was more interested in who she was meeting. ‘What English friend?’

Shannon took another bite of her biscuit. She could picture him right now, frowning into the phone, running an irritated hand through his thick, dark hair. He was too easy. ‘Oh. No one you know.’

‘A man?’

Fun though it was to make Robert jealous, Shannon didn’t have the energy this morning. ‘No. A girlfriend. Kate. We worked together in the UK. I have mentioned her before.’

Despite the short notice, it was going to be great to see Kate. Shannon had been so busy since she came to Paris to work for Robert that she hadn’t had time to make any friends here. Of course, dating him made that even more difficult. He didn’t have a large social group himself. Although his divorce had happened a long time before he met Shannon, his ex-wife seemed to have won most of their mutual friends in the settlement. He also had two almost-adult daughters. Shannon hadn’t met them either; families weren’t her thing.

Robert’s voice was so sharp he was in danger of cutting himself. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why is she coming this weekend? We have work to do.’

Shannon took another cookie and snapped it in half. If he was going to talk to her like that, he didn’t deserve an answer. This was why she hadn’t let him stay over last night. He’d started on at her about meeting his girls. She’d tried — again — to make him understand that she just wasn’t the maternal type. With any luck, God had got that memo too.

Finally, when he didn’t get a response, Robert’s voice softened. A little. ‘Okay. Meet your friend from the station. I can do the Louvre on my own. I’m in the office now. How long before you get here?’

This was usually how their disagreements went.