Piero grinned. ‘I sent the Dolce and Gabbana back to her.’ Nicoletta had acknowledged its return by text and he hoped that she’d also acknowledged the symbolism of the action. He was not on the market.

‘And she returned all the jewellery you bought her?’ Salvatore’s eyes twinkled, obviously having a good idea of the answer.

Piero rolled his eyes, enjoying the gentle banter rather than perpetual talk about the vineyard sale. ‘I didn’t expect it.’

Salvatore chuckled. ‘So, you weren’t disappointed.’

Graziella gave a sniff, tap-tap-tapping on the computer. She didn’t join the conversation but Piero couldn’t imagine her sending back so much as an earring that a man had bought her. She was too damned acquisitive.

He headed back to his own office reflecting idly that being with a man fifteen years older didn’t fit with Graziella’s designer gear and highly glam image.

His steps paused.

Was she hoping his father would die soon? Salvatore might have left her money in his will. Or if they married and Salvatore passed before Tenuta Domenicali was sold she’d inherit a quarter of the vineyard. He shivered at the nightmare thought that if she got Emiliano onside, they’d outvote Piero.

Back at his desk he glanced at his new watch and turned his mind to happier things. Zia’s plane should have landed. He pictured her driving her red car along the dusty state road and wondered when she’d arrive at Bella Vista. In the next couple of hours he could get away.

His gut tightened with pleasurable anticipation as he sped up completing a batch of computer files and rang the systems guy at a distributor’s to ask whether they were likely to be implemented today. Receiving an unequivocal ‘No, non posso’ he raced through his inbox. By 4 p.m., he was scooting through the now-empty outer office and out through the door.

The wheels of his mind turned as he drove away from the vineyard. How would things be with Zia? The six days of her absence had passed slowly. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw Zia’s taut, naked body and her full, sexy mouth on him.

That one amazing night of making love to her seemed to have switched on something he’d thought Nicoletta had switched off – openness to something more than ‘casual’. The memory of their calls while she’d been in England … the car’s air conditioning was barely able to cope with the heat level of his thoughts.

Then, swinging left to circumvent the centre of town, he frowned. How had she ended up attending a job interview? That text had caught him unawares. But what else had he expected? That somehow Italian law would make an exception for her and she’d stay indefinitely? She’d need a job to go home to.