Ursula giggled and shoved the phone back at her. ‘Go ’way! Like I’d be a hairy gooseberry while you and Signor Bedtastic make eyes at each other. Told you he wasn’t miffed with you. He didn’t have to take your advice, did he? Anyway,’ Ursula continued. ‘Stephan’s only gone off because he’s promised to take his nephew swimming. Soon as he’s available we’re going to FaceTime so I want to shower and sort my hair.’

She finished her pastry and bounced off to the bathroom while Zia replied to Piero. Ursula’s otherwise engaged but I’d love to. x They arranged that he’d pick her up in forty minutes and she rushed off to change out of her shorts and into a cotton dress with turquoise flowers splashed on her favourite colour of red. Then she wove her hair into a fat, fishtail plait to swing glossily down her back.

When she slid into his car’s passenger seat, she found her smile had suddenly turned shy. A lot had passed between them in the previous forty-eight hours.

He leaned over and brushed a kiss on her mouth. ‘You look gorgeous in red. You were in a red and black dress the first time I saw you and you took my breath away. Have you visited a café called Don Peppi in Piazza Lucia, by the church? They bake their own pastries in the morning.’

His manner was so normal that Zia gladly followed his lead, though she had made a promise to herself not to poke her nose into vineyard business in the future. ‘I don’t think so, though Altarocca where Tori used to work, where she met Gerardo, is just off that piazza.’ She was hyper aware of the proximity of the golden skin of his bare arm as he turned the car and began back up the drive.

He glanced over as the car brushed the last of the yellow broom. ‘I never asked what happened there. How did it feel?’

‘Odd,’ she admitted. ‘We had a reasonable meal but I kept trying to bring them to life in my mind then feeling sad because I couldn’t. I wish Lucia had a video of Tori as well as those few photos.’

He covered her hand with his for a moment then drove down into Montelibertà, demonstrating acute spatial awareness by parallel parking in a small space in Corso Sant’ Angelo. They strolled hand-in-hand down Corso Musica, past the theatre and into Piazza Lucia to find an empty table with a view of the comings and goings of the square.