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They insist they are strictly good friends. But dance partners Ali Bastian and Brian Fortuna appear to have struck up a particularly close relationship.

During a break in rehearsals for Strictly Come Dancing last week, the former Hollyoaks star and her professional dance partner shared several tender kisses as they took a half-hour romantic stroll in the park near their rehearsal studio in South London.

Their intimacy came after Brian made a public declaration that his interest in the svelte 26-year-old went beyond the dancefloor, admitting that he had been asking Ali out for weeks – though she kept knocking him back.

But she seems to have relented now, as there were more tender moments back at the rehearsal studio when 27-year-old Brian flicked a hair away from Ali’s face as they relaxed on the balcony.

Later, the pair left hand in hand then said their farewells with another kiss and cuddle before Ali, who split from childhood sweetheart Nick Kennedy last Christmas, was driven home in her BBC car.

Their relationship is not the first to blossom in the new series of the high-pressure BBC1 show.

Ex-boxer Joe Calzaghe recently told friends he and and Kristina Rihanoff – dubbed the ‘Siberian siren’ following a former doomed relationship with fellow professional Vincent Simone – are also an item off the dancefloor.

In a joint interview before last night’s show, Brian and Ali both insisted they were still just friends – but their coyness was contradicted by their habit of finishing each other’s sentences, and the fact that Ali referred to Brian as ‘Honey’.

Asked if their relationship had gone further than the professional, Brian said: ‘She keeps shooting me down. One day hopefully she’ll accept and we’ll see.’

Ali giggled: ‘Hey we’ve only just met,’ before admitting: ‘We have been spending a lot of time together.’

Brian said: ‘It’s like a blind date. You don’t know if you’re going to get on.’

Ali added: ‘It did feel like that. They keep you completely in the dark till you meet in front of the cameras. I didn’t know who I was going to be paired with but I was really really glad to be paired with Brian.