Save the Last Dance: The Ballerina Bride / Invitation to the Boss's Ball

When she sneaked a look at him again his eyelids were closed, and seeing him give in to drowsiness pulled her own lids down, too. She let them slide closed as she rolled over, but before sleep took over she whispered, ‘Thank you, Finn.’

‘No problem’ was the mumbled reply.

And then Allegra wasn’t aware of anything any more.

‘Doesn’t this make you wish we had a packet of marshmallows?’ Finn was enjoying the contrast of the warmth from the fire on his face and front and cool night snaking up his back under his shirt. With a million childhood campfires swirling in his head he turned to Allegra, who was sitting on a log they’d pulled close to the fire for a bench, looking at him with blank eyes. He poked the fire with the stick he’d been holding before dropping it into the flames.

‘You never went camping as a kid?’ he asked, almost wondering if such a horror could be true.

She shook her head.

Wow. A deprived childhood indeed, despite her obviously cultured and privileged background.

‘Not even once?’

She bit her lip and shrugged. Finn tried hard to find the silver lining. He liked silver linings; they protected a man from the depressing facts of life. His gaze roamed to the shelter, the fire, the moonlit beach and then he turned back to her. ‘At least this week should go some way to making up for that.’

She smiled at that. ‘Apart from the marshmallows,’ she added quietly.

Right then and there, Finn decided to send a whole crate of marshmallows to Allegra when he got back to London. Then she could use her fire-making skills to roast them whenever she liked—if she ever managed to get the knack of it, of course.