She was dressed smartly that day in light blue office suit with blonde hair resting lightly on her shoulders. Staying professionally composed in the rough and tumble of her dealings with senior executives was normally easy but this was different and she flushed as she reached into his lap for the papers.

The sheets were soon back into her briefcase and she returned to the other end of the bench to regain her composure.

"Perhaps not such a good place to work on a windy day", she commented wryly.

People had often told her she had a pretty laugh. Now it came, abruptly and was snatched away quickly by the freshening breeze.

"Not if you don't want to spend your lunch time chasing your papers across Hyde Park", he replied with a hint of a twinkle in his eye. "Although the exercise might be useful – perhaps it might catch on – people might franchise it".

The thought of people rushing round Hyde Park chasing paper was attractive to the anarchist in Sarah and she smiled.

"Anything would be better than working through the break. It's just a bad habit - lunch times are meant for rest and recuperation."

"It's true that we work better in the afternoon if we take a proper break," he said.

Sarah turned on the bench to face him more directly, challenging.

"If you really believe that", said Sarah, "you'd put your work away."

"I suppose in my experience even when people do talk, they usually say very little. All in all, I usually prefer to do something constructive."

Their conversation had not yet been extended beyond small talk. It could easily have stopped there. Both of them could, without loss, have retreated back to a respectable privacy.

But Sarah did not want that to happen. Silently, she took a deep breath and opened the door of their conversation wider.