“This is the way—” he kissed her hand again “—I greet a beautiful woman.” Then he wrapped both arms around her and kissed her cheeks. “This is the way I greet my mother. It’s a fortunate man who can do both.”

Gina Franconi laughed as she returned her son’s hug. “To you, all women are beautiful.”

“But only one is my mother.” With his arm around her waist, he led her inside.

Gina approved, as always, the fact that his home was spotless, if a bit too exotic for her taste. She often wondered how the poor maid managed to keep the ornately carved archways dusted and polished and the hundreds of windowpanes unstreaked. Because she was a woman who’d spent fifteen years of her life cleaning other people’s homes and forty cleaning her own, she thought of such things.

She studied one of his new acquisitions, a three-foot ivory owl with a small rodent captured in one claw. A good wife, Gina mused, would guide her son’s tastes toward less eccentric paths.

“An aperitif, Mama?” Carlo walked over to a tall smoked-glass cabinet and drew out a slim black bottle. “You should try this,” he told her as he chose two small glasses and poured. “A friend sent it to me.”

Gina set aside her red snakeskin bag and accepted the glass. The first sip was hot, potent, smooth as a lover’s kiss and just as intoxicating. She lifted a brow as she took the second sip. “Excellent.”

“Yes, it is. Anna has excellent taste.”

Anna, she thought, with more amusement than exasperation. She’d learned years before that it didn’t do any good to be exasperated with a man, especially if you loved him. “Are all your friends women, Carlo?”

“No.” He held his glass up, twirling it. “But this one was. She sent me this as a wedding present.”

“A—”

“Her wedding,” Carlo said with a grin. “She wanted a husband, and though I couldn’t accommodate her, we parted friends.” He held up the bottle as proof.

“Did you have it analyzed before you drank any?” Gina asked dryly.

He touched the rim of his glass to hers. “A clever man turns all former lovers into friends, Mama.”

“You’ve always been clever.” With a small movement of her shoulders she sipped again and sat down. “I hear you’re seeing the French actress.”

“As always, your hearing’s excellent.”

As if it interested her, Gina studied the hue of the liqueur in her glass. “She is, of course, beautiful.”

“Of course.”

“I don’t think she’ll give me grandchildren.”

Carlo laughed and sat beside her. “You have six grandchildren and another coming, Mama. Don’t be greedy.”

“But none from my son. My only son,” she reminded him with a tap of her finger on his shoulder. “Still, I haven’t given you up yet.”

“Perhaps if I could find a woman like you.”