To her mother's annoyance, Penny moves into the newly decorated flat with Vince but disaster soon strikes as, due to Penny not locking the door, the flat is burgled and vandalised. A horrified Penny tells Vince she's finished with him and moves back with her parents but when they are away for the weekend, Vince turns up with good news and she has him back as they spend the night together.

Penny hopes Vince will ring her so that she can tell him she never wants to see him again but when he fails to call she goes to his betting shop on the pretext of nervously placing a bet. Vince suggests a night out and collects her in his car where, encouraged by her friend Elaine on how to take revenge on a cheating lover she destroys his credit cards - unaware that his friends are in the back seat watching. At least her bet turns out to be a winner and Vince flatters her by remembering their first date.

Some months have elapsed and Gina is attempting to obtain details of Vince's new wine importing business, run in conjunction with Les's Portuguese vineyard, as part of her divorce settlement. Back in London Penny meets up with Vince, who employs Norman as his head of sales though Daphne does not share her husband's delight since Vince caused her to faint in the street. Penny is also unhappy when Vince crashes his car into hers but then he does make up for it by proposing.

Penny returns to London and is irate to learn that Vince has been married – though not especially happily – for a while but omitted to tell her in Paris. Invited to his flat, she takes revenge by cutting up his clothes – only to find that the flat and the clothes belong to somebody else.

Penny recalls how she first met Vince when he was selling ice creams from a van, their subsequent courtship, and the events leading up to her being jilting at the altar, and her subsequent decision to marry respectable but controlling Graham. Consequently, she comes down on the side of believing that she and Vince have no future together.

Vince tricks Penny into going away on a week's holiday at his family's new Portuguese villa.

Penny is summoned to a meeting at a restaurant with Graham, her controlling, patronizing estranged husband. He tells her that he wants her to admit to adultery with Vince to lessen the shame of a divorce – otherwise his mother will exclude him from her will. Fortunately Vince arrives to rescue Penny, and he has a plan – and reinforcements.

After getting her divorce Penny meets Vince for lunch and he proposes to her, though given his past record she is wary. Furthermore she has the offer of a training course in Paris, so that when he stays out all night, despite having a good reason, she decides that she is better off without him and must put herself first in future, accepting the Paris course

In 1978, high-flying secretary Penny Warrender was due to marry bookie Vince Pinner but he jilted her at the altar. Penny has since had a disastrous marriage to Graham and is divorced whilst Vince remains single. By 1983, by chance, both are in the same pub with their new dates, neither suitable, and Penny and Vince meet by the cigarette machine. They realize that they cold get back together though maybe as just good friends.

Penny is alarmed when she appears to have pregnancy symptoms and, whilst Vince's parents are delighted to think they may have a grandchild, Daphne is anything but, giving her daughter a cautionary tale of a former friend in a similar predicament. Vince agrees to stand by her though ultimately it turns out to be a false alarm.

Things go badly in the divorce court for Vince, with Gina's solicitor vilifying him and a feminist judge giving her control of most of Vince's businesses, including the wine importers - though Norman's job is safe. He does however hold onto the most lucrative - the scrapyard. In Portugal things are no better for Les, who discovers that the three German tanks Vince bought and sold are now aiding a revolution in Africa.

Vince realizes how much he wants to get back with Penny and decides to brave a visit to her house to supposedly return her handkerchief, knowing that he will not exactly be welcome with her parents. This is an understatement as he has to run the gauntlet with Penny's imperious mother Daphne, who lets him know how she has always felt about him and how she has always believed that Penny was too good for him.

Penny and Vince meet in the park and he invites her to dinner at his flat - purely as a friend. The food is awful but the pair get on, Penny describing how her marriage broke down, but she resists Vince's attempts to get her to stay the night. She does start to soften when he whispers sweet nothings but leaves when she realizes he has stolen them from song lyrics - though she does give him her work number.

Having heard that Penny is back from Paris, Vince's wife, the elegant but highly unpleasant Georgina, comes to her office, posing as a client, and summons her to a meeting with herself and Vince. Georgina recognizes that Penny still loves Vince and admits that she only married him for his money.