Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Bridget Jones 2)

"Oh God," he said, nestling against my pyjamas. "I feel such an arse." It suddenly struck me as really funny - I mean it was really funny being terrified out of your wits by your own ex-girlfriend. He started laughing too.

"Oh Christ," he said. "It's not very manly, is it, getting scared at night. I thought you were the bullet man."

I stroked his hair, I kissed his bald patch where his fur had been loved off. And then I told him what I felt, what I really, really felt. And the miracle was, when I had finished, he told me he felt pretty much the same.

Hand in hand like the Bisto Kids, we made our way down to the kitchen and, with extreme difficulty, located Horlicks and milk from behind the baffling walls of stainless steel.

"You see, the thing is," said Mark, as we huddled round the oven, clutching our mugs trying to keep warm, "when you didn't reply to my note, I thought that was it, so I didn't want you to feel I was putting any pressure on. I-'

"Wait, wait," I said. "What note?"

"The note I gave you at the poetry reading, just before I left."

"But it was just your dad's 'If ' poem."

Was unbelievable. Turns out when Mark knocked the blue dolphin over he wasn't writing a will he was writing me a note.

"It was my mother who said the only thing to do was to be honest about my feelings," he said.

Tribal elders - hurrah! The note was telling me that he still loved me, and he wasn't with Rebecca, and that I should ring him that night if I felt the same and otherwise he'd never bother me with it again but just be my friend.

"So why did you leave me and go off with her?" I said.

"I didn't! It was you who left me! And I didn't even bloody realize I was supposed to be going out with Rebecca till I got to her summer house party and found myself in the same room as her."

"But ... so you didn't ever sleep with her?"

Was really, really relieved he had not been so callous as to wear my Newcastle United underpants gift for prearranged shag with Rebecca.

"Well." He looked down and smirked. "That night."

"What?" I exploded.

"I mean one's only human. I was a guest. It seemed only polite."

I started trying to hit him around the head.

"As Shazzer says, men have these desires eating away at them all the time," he went on dodging the blows. "She just kept inviting me to things: dinner parties, children's parties with barnyard animals, holidays-"

"Yur, right. And you didn't fancy her at all!"

"Well, she's a very attractive girl, it would have been odd if . . ." He stopped laughing, took hold of my hands and pulled me to him.

"Every time," he whispered urgently, "every time I hoped you'd be there. And that night in Gloucestershire, knowing you were fifty feet away."

"Two hundred yards in the servants" quarters."

"Exactly where you belong and where I intend to keep you till the end of your days."

Fortunately he was still holding me tight, so could not hit him any more. Then he said the house was big, cold and lonely without me. And he really liked it best in my flat where it was cosy. And he said that he loved me, he wasn't exactly sure why, but nothing was any fun without me. And then ... God, that stone floor was cold.

When we got up to his bedroom noticed a little pile of books beside his bed. "What are these?" I said, not believing my eyes. "How to Love and Lose but Keep Your SelfEsteem? How to Win Back the Woman You Love? What Women Want? Mars and Venus on a Date?"

"Oh," he said sheepishly.

"You bastard!" I said. "I threw all mine away." Fist fight broke out again, then one thing led to another and we just shagged, like, all night!!!

8.30 a.m. Mmm. Love looking at him when he's asleep.