He made an expansive gesture. ‘But if you’re to be away for several days it will cost forty or fifty euros. Would you really do that to avoid an hour in the car with me?’

With a sigh, she settled back, raising the beer bottle to her lips and taking several healthy swallows. ‘It’s not that,’ she said eventually. ‘If Lucia’s still ill and Durante injured when I return, I don’t want to impose on you to fetch me back.’

‘Impose on me,’ he said quietly, his laughter gone. ‘I’m sorry for the way things are between us and want to make amends.’

She sighed. ‘I’m sorry, too. I could have invited you for supper on Friday. I felt bad when you turned up. Petty.’

‘You’re cross,’ he said understandingly but his heart lifted at this small step in the right direction.

Her finely marked brows quirked. ‘I was,’ she amended. ‘And uncomfortable that my well-meant advice rebounded and you were angry—’

He cut in gently. ‘How many more times? I wasn’t angry with you. I was angry with Graziella and Binotto’s and for being wrong-footed.’ Then taking advantage of the thaw between them he updated her on the events of the day. He was even transparent about Graziella’s manipulation.

‘That was … misleading,’ she said diplomatically.

‘She lied,’ he corrected forthrightly. ‘But Papà seems able to attribute her manoeuvrings to a yearning to be with him on a round-the-world cruise so I think he intends forgiving her, once he’s set some boundaries.’

They sipped companionably, watching the mountains darken and streak with pink, a promise of yet another boiling day to come. Piero wiped his forehead with his T-shirt. ‘It’ll be a pleasure to spend some of tomorrow in an air-conditioned car.’

‘Like, I’d actually be doing you a favour?’ She laughed. She was halfway down the beer now and had kicked off her flip flops, letting her bare feet rest on the weed-strewn paving.

He replied with gravity. ‘Yes. You’ve agreed to give me the opportunity of being with you.’

Her eyes turned towards him, gaze both wary and thoughtful. Her hair hung long and heavy and he remembered how it had felt tumbling silkily around their naked bodies. He remembered everything about her: her slumberous gaze when she was about to give into sleep; the noises she made; the way her body felt around his. She took his breath away.

‘In fact,’ he pressed gently, ‘I’d be happy to travel with you to England. I should imagine the summer’s fresher there.’

‘Drizzly,’ she said drily. ‘You wouldn’t like it.’