As Ruth and Malcolm walked up the pathway to the front door of the flat, Harry opened the door to let them in.

"Harry," Malcolm said, stepping through the door with Ruth's suitcases.

Harry only had eyes for Ruth. "Hello, Ruth," he said, his voice firm, hiding his nerves. To anyone who knew him, Harry seemed calm and in charge of himself. Only he knew how scared he was – that he would do or say something idiotic which could drive Ruth back into her shell.

"Hello, Harry," Ruth replied, standing in front of him, while Malcolm put the suitcases on the floor, by the wall, out of the way.

Harry's instinct was to gather Ruth in his arms. He'd forgotten how blue were her eyes, how small she was, how her hair caught the light, rendering it the colour of chocolate, and how kissable were her lips. He found himself drowning in her eyes. It took every ounce of his considerable self-control for him to step aside to allow Ruth to enter her own flat. As she brushed past him he closed his eyes and breathed in her scent. He felt heady and bedevilled by her presence. No sooner had Ruth stepped into the flat than Malcolm left.

"I'll leave you to it," he said quietly to Harry. "Don't overdo things. `Bye, Ruth. I'll check with you in a few days."

"Thank you, Malcolm," she said, standing next to Harry, himself still holding open the front door.

"You can close the door now, Harry," Ruth said, once Malcolm's car had disappeared down the street.

"I have a pot of tea brewing," Harry said, after he'd closed the door, and set the alarm. "You might like to have a look around the flat while I pour it."

Ruth smiled up at him, and his stomach did a little flip. "I'd rather like it if you showed me around, Harry. You seem to know your way around."

He led her around the flat. There was not a lot to see – kitchen, dining alcove, sitting room, entrance hallway, bedroom, and a tiled room which served as bathroom, toilet and laundry.

"This is a lovely room," Ruth said as she walked around the surprisingly spacious bedroom. "Are the flowers from you?" When he nodded, she smiled at him, and his stomach clenched. "Did you choose the duvet cover?"

"Yes. Do you like it?"

"Very much. You know me so well, Harry."

Harry felt embarrassed by her gratitude. He had organised a flat for her, paid her first three months rent, and decorated it for the Ruth he remembered, out of gratitude for her sacrifice four and a quarter years earlier. Harry turned, about to leave the room, when Ruth spoke very softly, her words stopping him in his tracks.

"I missed you, Harry." Her voice was soft, but highly charged with something he could not quite identify. "Did you miss me?"

Harry stopped in the doorway, barely able to breathe. Whatever this was between them – at this moment, only ten minutes after she'd arrived home – whatever it was, it was happening too soon. He wasn't ready. Slowly, Harry turned, to see Ruth watching him, her eyes darkly blue, searching his own eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "I missed you every single day."

They were standing perhaps a yard and a half apart, too far apart to reach out and touch one another. They each stood on the spot, watching the other …... and waiting. Harry allowed his eyes to travel up and down Ruth's body, the moment making him bold. Her chest was heaving, as her eyes watched him closely. He noticed suddenly that her breasts were not quite as full as he'd remembered, but perhaps he had remembered them as larger because in his private moments, alone in his house, he had tended to obsess over them, imagining them as being more – larger, rounder – than the reality. Emboldened, Harry took a step towards her, and reached his hand towards her hand. Without taking her eyes from his, Ruth grasped Harry's hand, and pulled it against her stomach, where she held it in both her hands.

Harry was becoming completely lost in her. Whatever it was happening between them, he didn't want it to stop. He wanted to step closer to her, and wrap his arms around her. He wanted to kiss her until he took her breath away. He wanted to lead her to the bed behind her, carefully remove her clothes and his, and make love to her, slowly and thoroughly. But he wasn't ready to have this happen on this day.

"Ruth," he said, engaging all his reserves of self-control. "I want to be here with you. I've missed you. I want nothing more than to kiss you right now …..."

"But …... there's a but, isn't there?"

"We have so much we need to say to one another. There's so much we've both lived through. I need to know what happened while you were ... away."

Ruth nodded. Harry held her hand and led her to the kitchen, where he sat her on a chair, and poured them each a cup of tea.

"Malcolm told me you'd met someone," Ruth said, once they had settled across the small table from one another. "He said you'd moved on."

"I was waiting for you to mention that. It wasn't a relationship, Ruth, and I didn't move on. I had sex with a woman on a semi-regular basis in an attempt to drive thoughts of you from my mind."

"Did it work?"

"No. No, it didn't."

"Did you love her?" The Ruth who had left London would never have asked such a question. This new Ruth didn't hesitate to ask.

"No, Ruth. It was purely physical. I haven't seen her in …... some weeks, since I knew you were planning to come home. I gave her a fake name, and it seems she did the same. I really have no idea at all who she is …... and it doesn't matter. Not to me. And she can't contact me now ... now I have a new phone number." Harry waited, not wanting to tell her any more about Stephanie Hoff. It hadn't been his finest hour. "You lived with someone in Cyprus. Was he …... important to you?"

"At the time, yes he was. That was my attempt to move on, Harry, but it didn't work for me either. I expected more from him than he was capable of giving. He wasn't you, Harry."

Her last four words said it all. Those four words were the reason they were sitting at that table, less than an hour after Ruth had arrived from Athens. Those four words were the reason his heart was beating too fast, and his face was flushed, just from sitting across from her at her small dining table, which he had carefully chosen to replace the sorry looking table which had had a scratched surface, and a wonky leg. Those four words were the reason Ruth was having difficulty avoiding saying the words, `Harry, please stay the night with me.'

Harry breathed deeply in an effort to bring his body under control. He was in danger of taking her hand and leading her back to the bedroom; that is what he wanted to do. "I think I should go," he said quietly, unable to look across the table at Ruth.

"Do you want to?" she replied.

"No. I don't want to go," he whispered.

"Then stay."

He stood quickly, and stepped away from the table, still not looking her in the eye.

"I want you to know, Ruth," he said carefully, "that leaving you right now is almost as difficult as it was watching you leave me that morning a little over four years ago." He looked up at her then. "I'm leaving now because I should, because it's the right thing to be doing …... not because I want to. I need you to know that."

With that, Harry left.

Ruth spent the rest of the day unpacking and finding storage places for the things she'd brought back from Greece. She had to keep busy, because her mind was full with Harry. He was so much more than she'd remembered. He was more …... of everything …... and she was as hopelessly drawn to him as ever. Several times during the afternoon, Ruth considered going around to Harry's house, knocking on the door, and pushing her way past him. She'd stay with him, and refuse to leave. Somehow, she hadn't quite the bottle to carry that off.

At the very bottom of the larger of her two suitcases was a packet of photographs, the only proof that existed she'd ever met George and his son, Nico, Clara, her neighbour in Paris, or Jorge, the man who arranged for her to do translations in different parts of Europe. These people had taken her in as friend, employee, and lover. One day she would tell Harry about her life with George, but now was not the time. He would be upset and angry to learn that George had wanted them to have a child, but Ruth had refused to go along with it. From that moment, her relationship with George was doomed. While she had been looking to George for companionship and sanctuary, he had been hoping she would help him expand his small family. She had been unable to tell him that were she ever to have a child, there was only one man on earth she would want to be that child's father, and that man lived in England, and was a section head in MI-5. Rather than helping her move on from loving Harry, her twenty months living with George had only resulted in her loving Harry even more.

The last item she had to check was her shoulder bag. She tipped its contents on to the table, and amongst the tissues, and tampons, and passports, bus and train tickets, lipsticks and chap sticks, combs and hair-clips, was the new mobile phone Malcolm had handed her before they'd left the airport.

"Guard this with your life," he'd said. "The only numbers on it so far are mine and Harry's. Harry's is the number at the top. I'm the only one with the facility to find you if you're carrying this phone. It will not register on all the usual networks. There is an embedded chip which I can track, even when the phone is turned off. That is your protection, but it may also be your downfall. If you ever find yourself outside your normal field of activity, let me know, or if I'm not in the country, let Harry know."

Ruth wasn't sure why such safeguards were necessary, but she was sure that in time, Malcolm's caution would make more sense to her. After she had left Cyprus (one afternoon while George was working a double shift at the hospital) she had managed to stay on the move. It was safer that way. She had hoped that by living back in London, she would be safer, and such high levels of caution would not be necessary.

Ruth had eaten dinner while watching the News on TV, and was running herself a bath when the front doorbell rang. To her knowledge, only two people knew where she lived, and it was very unlikely Malcolm would turn up without asking or announcing himself. She quickly turned off the taps over her bath before she walked down her short hallway to open the door. On her doorstep, Harry was standing in the dark, his familiar body shape silhouetted against a streetlight.

"Harry ….."

"May I come in, Ruth?"

Ruth stood aside to let him past her. He looked nervous. He smelled familiar, just like she'd remembered him from before, and when he put his arms around her, and pulled her to him, he felt wonderful. All at once he felt solid, firm, and soft as a mattress.

"I tried, but I couldn't stay away," he said against her hair, his hands travelling over her back, from her shoulders down to the rise of her buttocks. His hands were so warm, and they left a trail of heat wherever they touched her. She briefly imagined her skin covered with red hand prints the size and shape of Harry's hands.

"I'm glad," was all she was able to say, as she tucked her hands around him, under his bulky jumper. Between his jumper and his shirt, she ran her fingers up and down the knobbly bones of his spine.

When they stumbled to the kitchen, he pushed her against the counter, and kissed her fiercely. This was such a different kind of kiss to the kiss of goodbye on the day she'd left England forever. That had been such a sad kiss, a kiss of regret. This time they kissed with passion and fire, their bodies hard against one another. Ruth could feel Harry's arousal against her stomach as he pressed himself against her. There was not a shred of ambiguity about why he had knocked on her front door. Her body was on fire, and his was seeking more of her.

Unlike several occasions in their past, she was not about to push him away. Her mind was telling her that this was happening too soon for them, they had only just been reunited after years apart. Another part of her argued that if this didn't happen now, it possibly never would. Perhaps the time was right. It felt perfect. He felt perfect. She suspected that were she to turn him away this time, he would walk away from her forever. A man like Harry could take only so much rejection.

All Ruth knew was that she didn't want to see him walking away from her.