Five years earlier 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 is still single. By chance both are in the same pub with their new dates, neither of which are suitable, and Penny and Vince meet up by the cigarette machine. She is still angry, he attempts to calm her down. They realize that they cold get back together though maybe as just good friends.

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.

Vince decides to ask his scrap dealer father Les what he should do regarding his relationship with Penny and is surprised at the result given that it is the first time in years that he has needed advice. Penny meanwhile is also surprised - when her mother reveals to her about some of her past relationships, in order to put her daughter off seeing Vince again.

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.

Penny's mother Daphne is not pleased when Vince arrives at the birthday tea she and husband Norman have organized for Penny - and even more annoyed when Penny tells her that she and Vince are moving into a flat together. But it is Penny's turn to be angry when the flat in question is in a terrible state and Vince suggests she sells her car to pay for its renovation.

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 vandalized. A horrified Penny tells Vince she has 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 and Vince meet for a pub lunch but he so annoys her by bringing up the past and telling her that he sold the flat behind her back that she throws a drink over him. Drunk and depressed he turns up at her house to apologize but has an encounter with the law but next day he and Penny inevitably make up.

Penny thinks Vince is taking her for granted and decides to teach him a lesson.

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.

Penny and Vince attend her boss's daughter Sammy's wedding where Vince accidentally gets his cuff link caught up with the bride's dress - leading to a row with Penny and the cancellation of the honeymoon. Meanwhile Daphne is less than delighted to get a surprise visit from Vince's parents, Rita and Les and his clumsy brother Clifford. Not only do they remind her of the aborted wedding but they seem to have more money than her.

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

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.

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

Two years have passed. Penny, now in a good job in Paris, meets Vince, who has taken over his father's scrap business, at the top of the Eiffel tower as agreed on their last meeting. They return to her flat where inevitably one thing leads to another. Back in England Norman has been made redundant and Daphne is doing her best to keep the news from Vince's mother Rita.

Penny returns to work in 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 decides to take revenge by cutting up his clothes - only to find that the flat and the clothes belong to somebody else.

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. Later Vince confesses to Penny that Georgina trapped him into marriage by feigning pregnancy and says that he intends to leave her. Penny is immensely relieved when she sees him indeed walking out on his wife to stay with his parents.

Penny tells Vince she is being sent back to work in Paris - probably due to a complaint from Gina, who is now filing for divorce. In their Portuguese villa the Pinners are taken aback to hear the news of a divorce and Les tells Vince on the phone they are returning to England. Vince sees this as a chance to have the villa just to Penny and himself but on arrival find the family still in residence and Les is particularly annoyed to learn that Vince has been selling on old German army tanks

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.

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.

Penny and Vince are planning to get married again but are being held to ransom by Gina. Not only has she 'arranged' for Penny to go back to work in Paris but is refusing to employ Norman or import Les's wines unless they call off the wedding. So the couple are forced to announce the postponement of the ceremony. However they are not around to attend the party to celebrate Gina's change of heart and ensuing security for their parents - chiefly because they are both in Paris, tying the knot in secret.