"It's not hard to grasp, Adam," said Jonathan down the phone, exasperated. "It's a simple disappearing trick. Just on a larger scale than you're used to."

"It's brilliant, JC," Charlie said, Adam having put the phone on loudspeaker at his end so that the pair of them could hear him. "It's so simple but it's exactly what Adam's promised them."

"Well, 'simple' isn't quite the word I'd use," Jonathan responded, somewhat put out by Charlie's take.

"Och, come off it, you know that's not what I meant," she chided with a laugh. "Sublimely simple in its appearance, complex under the surface, and completely perplexing to anyone who's part of it. And that's the best part. We can have all the media people right up there in the seats to experience it for themselves. Pure brilliance!" He could hear the envy in her voice, wishing she'd come up with it herself, and he gave himself a silent pat on the back.

Adam butted back in. "I understand the revolve. That's the easy part. But how will they not spot they're looking at something different?"

"That's the wonder of all this new tech," explained Jonathan. "We can have cameras everywhere that reflect exactly what we want them to on the screens. They can change so subtly now it's imperceptible to the human eye, so even by the time the audience has done a 180, they think it looks exactly the same. But when we remove the screen, bam, Las Vegas has disappeared. We'll need to figure out all the flourishes and distractions, but that's your area."

They entered a long discussion about the mechanics of it, Jonathan stressing how important the location out in the Nevada desert would be, and equally how important the time of day would be; where the sun would be sitting while the trick was taking place could be the easiest giveaway of all. Adam warmed up as they talked, starting to understand exactly how it would function, and where he would come in as the ringmaster, using his skill to tease and divert the audience before the big reveal. He had to hand it to Jonathan; this was a killer illusion. And the gall of making Las Vegas 'disappear' in front of people's eyes, just before he was going to undertake a run of shows there. Genius.

Jonathan had forgotten how much he loved this moment, revealing his plan and seeing how people responded to it, seeing their excitement about it. He imagined Adam must get a similar feeling when he was up on stage performing and feeding off the audience reactions; personally he couldn't think of anything worse.

They arranged to speak again the next day, once Charlie and Adam had pitched the idea to the powers that be.

"They're going to love it, Jonathan," enthused Adam, "This is going to go global."

"Always happy to help the brand," replied Jonathan drily.

"You're a lifesaver, JC," said Charlie, not for the first time over the past week. "Thank you. We'll let you know how it goes. Talk to you soon."

Jonathan heard someone pick up the phone and then Adam's voice was in his ear again. "Wait a minute. I've taken you off speaker. You're not getting away without telling me about New York."

"I don't know what to tell you, Adam," he sighed. "We had a great day catching up and then the awards thing was a lot of fun. She was nominated, which she'd neglected to mention beforehand, so it was quite a big deal."

"Good for her. I sense a 'but' though?"

"It all went a bit to pot the next morning."

"Did you…?"

Adam could hear Jonathan's eyeroll down the phone. "No! We didn't. Is that all you ever think about?" Jonathan would never admit that he had, in fact, thought about it himself a number of times throughout the evening.

"Sorry," said Adam, suitably chastised. "So, what went wrong?"

"Nothing 'went wrong' per se. But we started talking about what happened back in the day and it opened the floodgates."

"Ah. She cried and you didn't know what to do?"

Jonathan marvelled that Adam had managed to get through six decades without managing to discover how to comfort a woman. He imagined Adam had simply run away anytime a woman had shown any emotions at all outside of simpering adoration. "Nothing quite that simplistic," he explained. "There's a lot that we never talked about back then which we need to discuss now if we're going to be…friends…again, and it's not easy. For either of us."

"Hmmm." Adam sounded perplexed. "And that's what you want? To be 'friends'?" he asked carefully.

Jonathan was silent for a few seconds before he replied. "Honestly, I'm not sure if we're capable of being just friends, so I don't know how to answer that."

"But you want to keep seeing her?"

"Yes," said Jonathan quietly, for some reason ashamed to say so. "But I'm not sure if she'll want to keep seeing me after yesterday."

He couldn't remember ever having been as vulnerable in his life as he'd been in that hotel room and while a part of him was embarrassed to have opened up so much, he also felt a tidal wave of relief to have finally told Maddy of the secret he'd held for well over a decade.

It had gone better than he'd anticipated but, given that he'd expected she'd never want to speak to him ever again, it wasn't a particularly high bar. He still couldn't get over the fact that she didn't seem to think his kissing Carla was what had been the end of everything and, if not that, then she believed something else would have happened to separate them. He supposed that the logic made sense and he chastised himself for never having come to the same conclusion.

Adam brought him back to the here and now. "Well, you'll just have to make sure she does," he said, not seeming to remember just how strong-willed Maddy could be.

"I'll try."

"Make sure you do," pushed Adam. "Let me know what's happening. And we'll be in touch after we speak to the Encore people."

They said their goodbyes and Jonathan pondered their chat, wondering how best to proceed with Maddy.

He'd meant what he'd said to both Adam and to Maddy herself, that he wanted to keep seeing her. More than he could even bear to admit to himself. And he hoped that she felt the same. But he couldn't deny that the thought also scared him. He'd dealt with so much emotion over the past few months and it was now obvious to him that seeing Maddy again was only going to bring more emotional upheaval. He'd been kidding himself that it could be a simple friendship; it never had been and it was never going to be. But he couldn't be sure of what it was going to be either and that was incredibly unsettling.

After their talk they'd gone to find some food – lunch, by the time they made it out of the hotel – and then headed over to Tannen's so that Jonathan could get his magic fix before they'd had to leave for the train. They had managed to avoid any further delicate discussions or references to that morning but in doing so, they'd both been fairly subdued and hadn't managed to return their conversation to the levity of the day before. Jonathan was extremely worried that he'd managed to ruin this newly-discovered friendship before it had properly begun and he'd retreated even further into his shell as a result. On parting at Penn Station, as had happened after their dinner in Philadelphia, Jonathan had felt a stab of fear at leaving her, thinking that it could be the last time he saw her.

His chat with Adam had renewed his determination not to fall into the same trap as first time around, allowing her to distance herself from him, and not being brave enough to take the initiative to contact her himself. If he did that, before he knew it, years would have passed and he'd be full of regret once more. Plus, she was the one who'd suggested both of their recent meetings; now it was his turn to step up.

With Sophie packed off to school, Maddy sat in her back garden enjoying the sun on her face, a cup of tea in hand, and finally with the space to absorb everything that had happened over the previous couple of days in New York.

It was at times like this that she wished she had someone she could talk through her feelings with, but aside from her therapists, occasionally Barry and Sheena back in the day, and Jonathan himself, she'd never managed to be vulnerable enough with friends to allow them so deeply into her world and her past. Besides, she could still barely explain what had happened with Jonathan to herself, let alone trying to enlighten someone else of all the nuances of their almost-relationship.

She thought about their first day in New York going round the museums talking, laughing, bantering and bickering. It had felt just like it used to; so easy to be with him and like they were a team again. And yet there had also been an unspoken tension between them which laid bare all the layers of feeling which had been hidden away under the surface for years. It had been a strange thing to know there was so much history and yet to carry on without addressing it properly, but she'd been grateful for the time simply to get to know him again without any of that coming into play.

Then he'd appeared at her hotel room door in his tux, a smile on his face and a compliment on his lips, and oh god that hair, and she'd realised in that moment that she was in a lot of trouble, a feeling which had only intensified as the evening had progressed.

It had filled her with pride to see him engage so easily with her colleagues and she'd been reminded just how smart and sharp he was, with a knowledge and awareness of the wider world on a par with her own. It had made her recall numerous discussions about a news item or a political situation where they'd held each other to account, debating back and forth, often arguing their case so successfully that they'd changed the others' mind on a subject. God, she missed that.

And then there was the dancing. The Jonathan she'd known back then would never have voluntarily started dancing with her, holding her close like that and making her feel like no-one else mattered. She'd soaked in the moment at the time but now she didn't know what to make of it. She would never admit it to him but it was while they were dancing that the lyrics of one of her Mum's favourite songs had come to her unbidden - the way that you hold me, whenever you hold me, there's some kind of magic inside you - and that was why she'd chosen to sing 'Nobody Does It Better' at the karaoke instead of her actual party trick song, which had always been Whitney Houston's 'Greatest Love of All'. She'd meant every word of the song's lyrics as she sang them to him through the darkness of the bar.

Over the years Maddy had resigned herself to the fact that she'd most likely end up alone, without a partner. In truth she wasn't sure she was actually capable of having a long-term relationship; she'd never managed up to this point in her life, and she thought it was probably easier not to set herself up for more heartache by trying to meet someone new. It was only when she was faced with a situation that was different to her everyday reality that she realised just how much she was missing out on by being on her own. And having Jonathan beside her - with her - at the awards had reminded her how good it felt to have someone else there for you and you alone; someone to be your partner in crime whatever life served up. The only problem now was that she couldn't fool herself into thinking that she wanted that person to be anyone other than Jonathan.

Irrespective of what Rina had intimated, it had also been obvious to Maddy that Jonathan was not behaving solely as a friend either. While in the past she'd so often found it difficult, if not impossible, to fathom what he was thinking, the intervening years seemed to have softened some of the hard edges from both of them so they'd actually been able to show that they were enjoying each other's company. She knew that, for her at least, it was a reflection that she now knew exactly what she'd been missing.

The thing was, when Adam had got in touch and she'd initially written to Jonathan, she really had intended only to extend the hand of friendship to him. She didn't know who he would have become since they'd last seen each other, so to expect anything more would have been foolish. But his emails had proven that he was still the same man, if perplexingly more complimentary than ever before, and by the end of their dinner in Philadelphia, for her the illusion of being able to be 'just friends' had been shattered.

His revelations on their second day in New York had shocked her to the core. While she'd gone to bed the previous evening with a cautious, albeit alcohol-fuelled hope that there may be a glimmer of hope for their future, she'd crashed firmly back to earth during their chat the next morning. But where it was a shock to hear that the kiss with Carla hadn't meant anything and there had been no real relationship between the pair of them, it was actually the fact that he'd opened up and told her about what had happened which had been the most astonishing.

She'd spent years moving on and setting up a new life for herself. She'd had to reconcile what had happened, and through both time and therapy she'd faced up to many of her own failings as well as forgiving Jonathan for any of his. She'd recognised that the situation they'd ended up in was both of their faults, but she could only take responsibility for her own actions and that's what she'd worked hard to do. Through that process, she'd finally admitted to herself how she really felt about him, but she'd never allowed herself to presume that his feelings had been as strong as hers.

And yet…yet…now he was telling her that he'd spent all these years squarely blaming himself for their parting - he'd cried in front of her for the first time ever in his life, for goodness' sake. He'd never got over it, and that meant that he really had cared about her, more than he'd ever let her know, and more than she'd ever let herself believe. And that was terrifying. Terrifying because of what they'd lost, and terrifying because of what could still be.

It would be easier to end it now before it began. She may have done a lot of therapy but that deep-seated fear of letting someone in – properly in - was still firmly in place. How could she possibly have any confidence that they might be able to make something work after the car crash of their first attempt, if she could even call it that? And much as she now understood he'd felt strongly for her back then, he was obviously in a difficult emotional place from his separation, and she couldn't presume anything on his part.

Most important of all, Sophie had to be her priority, and she was in no doubt that keeping the status quo was the safest thing to do for her daughter.

She realised she was making an awful lot of assumptions; there might not even be another opportunity to see Jonathan before he went back to England and that could be the end of it. Maybe that was for the best. Much as she felt sick with fear to think that she might not see him again, she also felt a rush of relief knowing that if she didn't see him, she wouldn't have to open up her heart again with absolutely no guarantee of a better outcome than last time.

A ping from her mobile brought her out of her pensive state and back to the now lukewarm cup of tea in her hand. She picked up her phone to find a new email in her inbox and ruefully said a soft "you bastard" to herself as she read it.

Maddy,

Thank you again for inviting me to the awards. I had a great night, and I hope I didn't ruin it by instigating our conversation the next morning. I'm aware that what I told you was a lot to take on board, and I hope I haven't made things more difficult for you by opening up old wounds.

I'd like to see you again before I go back home, otherwise it might be a long time before we have another opportunity. I don't want to make the same mistake a second time. I wondered if you'd be open to me coming to visit you next week? In D.C.?

Jonathan