‘I think it’s all the way up there,’ Ellis said to Grace, looking at the maps app on his phone before pointing over her left shoulder and up a hillside far into the distance. The hotel where they were staying was near the seafront and so they could see that Connie’s villa would take some time to get to, and it would be dark soon. So instead, they crossed the road and headed towards a central piazza with a fountain in the middle and lots of narrow, cobbled lanes leading off it, which were lined with candlelit restaurants and cafés with sun-bleached striped canopies, in search of something to eat.

After choosing a fish restaurant and being seated at a lovely table under a yellow canopy with a perfect view of the fountain in the piazza where they could people-watch and soak up the evening’s atmosphere, they shared an enormous salt-baked sea bass with lemon and herbs, a Caprese salad and garlicky tomato bruschetta. Grace was enjoying a glass of white wine that the waiter had recommended from a local vineyard, when her mobile rang. On pulling the phone from her handbag and glancing at the screen to see that it was Bernie, her heart sank, and so she put the phone back in her bag and tried to ignore it. Her sister would only be calling to complain about something again, and she didn’t want anything to spoil so much as a second of the magical time she was having here in Italy.

Fortunately, the phone stopped ringing, and Grace took another mouthful of the crisp, yet fruity-flavoured wine and sat back in her seat feeling contented and relaxed. She was over her earlier embarrassment on the train, and now settled back into the easy and amicable yet professional conversations that she had enjoyed with Ellis in the café at home.

‘Everything OK?’ Ellis asked, lifting the empty wine bottle and motioning to the waiter to bring them another one, please.

‘Yes. It’s my sister …’ Grace told him, trying to sound breezy.

‘Take the call if you like, I don’t mind,’ he smiled.

‘Oh no, it’s fine. I’ll talk to her later,’ she said vaguely, helping herself to an olive from the bowl on the table.

‘Don’t you want to talk to her now?’ he asked.

‘Um, not really,’ she said, discarding the olive stone onto the side of her plate.

‘Why not?’ he asked, taking an olive too.