As she approached, he lifted his head and his entire demeanor softened. He jumped to his feet. She let him kiss her, not a full-on supersnog, they were in her working environs, after all, and he hadn't put up her mirror or replied to her text, then she pulled away.

"Happy birthday," he said, his eyes shining into hers.

"What happened to Helsinki?"

He shrugged, still smiling. "It's your birthday."

"You mean, negotiations briefly broke down but you're going back tomorrow?"

"Yeah." He sighed. "I can get nothing past you. I don't even know why I try. Can I take you to lunch?"

She waited. She thought about her mirror. "Probably."

"Then will you take the afternoon off work and spend it in bed with me?"

"I've got a press conference."

"I've missed you," he said softly.

"I've got a press conference." She set her jaw. She would not let herself say another word.

He was unhumanly persuasive. He didn't even have to speak to exert his will, all he had to do was look at her with those gravel eyes, eyes that said he was an unhappy man and all that made life bearable for him was Katie.

It was a measure of just how persuasive he was that, after the terrible first date at Glyndebourne, Katie ever went out with him again. She was adamant that she would have nothing further to do with him, but somehow he talked her into giving him one more try. On the second date, which was entirely different from a trip to the opera but probably as risky, Conall took her to meet his family. It was his nephews' birthday, Laddie and Hector, fourteen-year-old identical twins with identical hostile haircuts growing down over their eyes and an identical absence of interest in Katie when she was ushered into their small sitting room. Only at Conall's instigation did they grunt a greeting, but they remained slumped immobile, one on the couch, the other on the floor.

Katie was mortified. No one but a headcase would think this was a good idea. But Conall's brother, Joe, a balding sandy-haired man, was friendly enough, as was his wife, Pat. Then a little girl bowled into the room and declared, "I like your shoes."

"Are you talking to me?" Katie asked.

"Who else here has wicked shoes?"

This was Bronagh, Conall's seven-year-old niece, who looked so astonishingly like Conall that Katie actually laughed.

"I know," Joe said. "You'd think the missus was diddling me brother behind me back, but she swears she wasn't."

Pat rolled her eyes. "I'm mad but I'm not that mad." Too late, she realized what she'd said.

"Thanks, Pat," Conall said. "Like I'm not having enough trouble trying to convince Katie I'm normal."

"Show us the new car!" Joe said, kick-starting a stampede to the front door. Even the Surly Twins were roused from their torpor at the idea of test-driving Uncle Conall's new Lexus. They piled out of the house and Pat melted away to the kitchen, leaving Katie alone with Bronagh, who sighed extravagantly. "Boys and their toys. Give me a try on of your shoes and I'll paint your nails silver."

By the time the men returned from their trip around the block, Katie had been ferried upstairs by Bronagh, who confided that she had taken to her.

Conall's risk had paid off: the warmth of his family had convinced her that he might just be semi-sane.

"You can take me for lunch," she said to Conall. "Then you can feck off. You can't just-"

"I know, I can't just waltz in here, expecting you to up-end all your plans when they've been in place for weeks and it's all my fault anyway for signing up for an unpredictable takeover which overlapped the week of your birthday and to add insult to injury I didn't put your mirror up."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. He'd said it all. "Exactly."

"Exactly," he agreed. "But you can't blame a man for trying."

On their way to the restaurant, a cyclist zoomed toward them, scattering Katie and Conall to opposite sides of the pavement.

"Jesus Christ!" Conall said. "They're bloody everywhere."

"They make me feel guilty. I keep thinking I should start cycling to work."

"The environment?" Conall opened the restaurant door.

"Mmmm . . ." That and her thighs. "But I'm so lazy. Funny, because I loved my bike when I was a kid."

A managerial-looking type had recognized Conall and they were led straight to their table.

As they sat down, Katie asked Conall, "Did you have a bike?"

A shadow passed over his eyes.

"What?" she asked. "You twitched or something."

"I had a bike."

"So why the twitch? Tell me why. It can be my birthday present."

"I already gave you a watch!"

"Tell me."

He paused. "You know the upbringing I had?"

Conall had grown up without much money. Not abject Angela's Ashes, drunken-father/mother-on-the-game poverty, but fairly hand-to-mouth. His dad had been a plumber, his mum a dressmaker. All through his childhood, their front room had been Mrs. Hathaway's work space, covered with bolts of fabric and strange off-cuts and half-finished wedding dresses. He grew too fast and his mum was always worried about new shoes for him.

"There wasn't any money for bicycles."

Katie put her hand over her mouth. "I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry."

He waved away her apologies. "It's okay, it's okay. But Spudz did this offer where, if you collected five thousand chip packets, you'd get a free bike."

"Who could collect five thousand chip bags?"

There was an odd little moment, then he said, "I did."

"How?"

"I needed somewhere where they ate chips in huge quantities. So I went to the local pub and did my pitch."

"What age were you?"

"Nine. No, ten. No, nine."

"And what happened?"

"They had a good laugh at me, the barmen. But they said they'd collect them for me."

"And did they?"

"Yeah. And in three other pubs too."

"Three others!" Even aged nine he'd been an entrepreneur. What was she doing with this man?

"It took me nearly four months, but I got five thousand chip bags and I got the bike."

"What are you trying to tell me?"

She watched him retreat back into himself. "That I got a free bike when I was nine."

That he never gave up? That if he wanted something, he got it? That he was driven in ways she would never understand?

"My mirror-" she said.

"It's on the wall."

"Since when?"

"Since . . ." He took a look at his watch. "Since an hour and forty-four minutes ago."

"Jason's wedding?"

"I'll be back for it. I swear on my life."

"On your life?"

"On my life, I'll be there. Everyone in Helsinki knows about it."

She exhaled slowly, wondering if it was okay to relax.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out. "For your mirror. For the way I am. I know you're holding back on me . . ."

She was startled. Yes, she'd taken care not to fully surrender her heart and her hope and her future to a man who mightn't be capable of caring for them. But she hadn't realized he'd noticed.

"Who knows what's going to happen with us," he said. "But whatever it is, it won't work if only one of us is into it."

He'd never been so forthright before and she wasn't sure how to reply. "But Conall, you're a workaholic. It makes you unreliable."

He flinched. "I'll change. I'm trying. I turn off my phone when we're together, haven't you noticed?"

She had but . . . She took a risk and jumped into virgin territory. "I've been heartbroken before. I really don't know if I have the energy for it again."

"Who's to say that that's what would happen?" He was earnest. "You could just as easily get sick of me."

"Maybe," she acknowledged.

"Please don't."

He sounded unexpectedly anguished and suddenly the word LOVE was hanging in the air, looping them together, garlanding them with flowers and hearts and lovebirds and pink mist. I love you. It was there, all that was needed to breathe life into it and make it real was for one of them to utter it. I love you. But Katie wouldn't.

Even though she had fallen in love with him, just a bit. You couldn't not. He was sexy, sexy, sexy.

It was up to him.

He looked at her, an eyebrow raised questioningly. She presented a bland face to him and he watched her for a little too long. "Okay." He sighed. "Let's order."

Day 57 . . .

"Hi, Maeve."

"Hi, Doreen."

"What'll it be?"

"The usual."

"Ham salad on brown bread, no mustard? Despite there being a wealth of sandwich differentials to choose from in the modern Ireland?"

"I'm happy with the ham."

"A bag of plain chips." Doreen put them on the counter. "And a can of Fanta." But there was no Fanta on the shelf. "Where's the Fanta?" Doreen called to some unseen person behind a door.

"We're out of it," the unseen voice said.

Maeve became aware that the next girl in the queue seemed almost as distressed as she herself was by this news.

"Maeve, I don't know what to say, but we're out of Fanta," Doreen said.

"Ah feck!" the girl beside Maeve groaned. "I love my Fanta!"

"Hi, Samantha. Sorry, girls." Doreen looked grim. "Heads will roll for this, is all I can say. I'll do my best to have it in again by Monday."

Suddenly, there was some kerfuffle at the storeroom door and then a hand was extended, holding one can of Fanta. "Last one," the voice attached to the hand said.

"You're in luck, Maeve," Doreen said. "Sorry, Samantha."

This was Maeve's chance. An act of kindness, right there and then. She forced herself to gift it to this Samantha and it was hard, almost as hard as smiling warmly at random strangers. But Samantha was effusive with gratitude and Doreen gave Maeve a free can of Lilt as a substitute, and Maeve tried to savor the warm glow generated by her own goodness. The thing was that she didn't like change. Any alterations to her routine, no matter how small, threw her, and refreshing and all as the Lilt was, she felt quite off-kilter for the rest of the day.

Day 57 . . .

Lydia, hungover and exhausted, had just pulled in to eat her lunch, a strawberry yogurt and a banana-it was all she could trust her stomach with after the number of units she'd consumed the previous night-when her phone rang. It was a County Meath number, one that she didn't recognize-then she did! Shite.