I was halfway around the world, alone in a far-flung project office in the middle of a Siberian winter. It was dark, it was cold, never above -12C for the four months I was there. My partner in the UK was going off me, our finances were the reason I was there, yet my employers kept putting off paying me. To call it a winter of discontent would have been overly cheery.

He was the voice on the other end of the line in some nice, orderly European office. I couldn't understand why headquarters had offered us his services, a former top-notch journalist to edit project literature, but there he was. I faxed him samples of the local language, pictures of the local project, and we had long discussions about such arcana as how much space the different languages would take up. I imagined him with a rather round face and red hair. One late December day, our last call before Christmas, we had a long conversation finishing documents and somehow wishing each other very tenderly a lovely holiday. It was kinder and more inquiring than calls between colleagues usually are, and knowing that we'd miss each other without ever knowing why.

I finished my contract and life went on. Spring and summer came round, the sun came out, I got a new job. Half a year later, completely unexpectedly, we met. I vaguely remembered his name when he rang my new office to say he was on a business trip here. Out of courtesy I thought that someone in the office should welcome him. I waited, bored, in the hotel lobby.

He was nothing like the voice on the phone: very tall, elegantly but casually dressed, with soft eyes and dark, curly hair - like a classical statue come to life. We walked towards each other and I heard a voice that might as well have come from the heavens: “It's you!” I stammered my way through dinner; he never took his eyes off me. I noticed his wedding ring and slapped him when he asked me what someone like me was doing alone. We avoided each other for a while, but ultimately fell into bed.

A thrill in a sleepy town

Teenage love on a sulky holiday in Wales

Kidnap by a Latin lover

An encounter in Kenya with a Bolivian who loved to dance

My man of letters

A university professor who taught some tough lessons to his younger lover

A Greek god in England

A romance in Rhodes develops into something more

We followed each other around the world, made love in half a dozen cities, ate wonderful meals, shared happiness and sorrow. It took years to unravel and years to forget. Except I don't think we ever quite managed that last bit.

Do you have an affair to remember? E-mail your 400-word story to loveaffair@thetimes.co.uk

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