Roberto cleared his throat. ‘And if he’d fallen in love with his English girlfriend and left to live in England we didn’t know how we would have been able to see him. We had little money. He had little money.’

Zia smiled, though she couldn’t smother a sigh. ‘You didn’t have to worry about Gerardo falling in love with Tori, apparently.’ She went on to tell them what she knew of Tori’s death and later Vicky’s. Fiorella’s eyes brimmed more than once. ‘You don’t hate us?’ she asked Zia hoarsely.

Emphatically, Zia shook her head. ‘Of course not. But you can see why I didn’t tell you who I was. I had no idea how your family would greet me or if I’d cause trouble between Gerardo and his wife and kids.’

Roberto and Fiorella sighed in unison. Roberto lifted his hands. ‘It’s possible. You understand,’ he added, ‘that it’s up to Gerardo if he confesses to them?’

Zia grimaced. ‘I don’t think we need worry about that either. He won’t.’

They talked for a little longer and then, after Zia had shyly exchanged kisses with her grandparents, Roberto took Fiorella home. Fiorella hadn’t helped out today but she looked exhausted and Zia didn’t mention work. There was only one cottage to service and she was well able to whizz through it by herself.

She set to stripping Villino Il Pino’s beds feeling as though she was in a dream, the knowledge that Fiorella and Roberta were glad to discover another granddaughter gradually sinking in as if her heart were a sponge expanding to soak up the joy.

Once the cottage was clean and redolent with the scent of fresh linens, she wiped her eyes one last time then carted the laundry bag of last week’s sheets up to the house, moving slowly in the August heat. As she rounded the olive grove, she saw Durante on the dusty drive, talking to a taller man.

Piero, his mouth set, brows knit in a frown.

Both men glanced up at the sound of her footsteps on the gravel. Durante lifted a hand and beamed and she could do little but wave back. Piero lifted a hand also. Perfunctory. No smile. Sunglasses hiding his eyes.

Pulse hurrying, Zia headed for the laundry room behind the kitchen feeling ashamed all over again that she’d hit Piero with that unacceptable burst of temper on Saturday. Hands clammy, she took her time stuffing the white cotton sheets into the washing machine, telling herself it was best he knew she wouldn’t be manipulated. Damn him for trying, just as Brendon used to; it was an unacceptable fault.