Zia’s breath caught. ‘You told them about me?’ It was so unexpected that she responded with the first thing that came into her head. ‘Had you been drinking?’

He laughed. ‘You must have taken lessons in scolding from my wife! No.’ Then he amended, ‘Or not much. All my life I thought I felt nothing for you but when you left? My stomach felt sick.’

‘Wow,’ she said, at a loss. Totally, utterly, unable to decide what to feel.

He cleared his throat. ‘When you come back, they want to meet you.’

It was so unexpected that Zia let out a gasp and Piero’s arms tightened around her like walls that wouldn’t let in anything bad. ‘Seriously?’ she choked. Then, on a misgiving, ‘But do they hate me?’

Gerardo’s voice turned almost husky. ‘No, Zia-Lucia. They want to know who you are.’ As if feeling the need to persuade her he added, ‘They’re nice people. More like Ilaria than like me.’

She laughed, but then asked cautiously, ‘And what about Ilaria? What does she think?’ She hadn’t forgotten his wife thanking her for keeping away from her family.

‘If the children are OK then Ilaria is OK.’ He didn’t sound quite so positive on that score but Zia decided she could work with that.

She looked up at Piero and felt suddenly shy. ‘I think I might be returning to Italy, after a while.’ A slow smile spread over Piero’s face and he cocked his eyebrows as if to say, ‘Really?’ She kissed the hollow of his neck. ‘Tell Riccardo, Caterina and Laura that I look forward to meeting them. Very much.’

‘Good,’ he said, sounding gruff this time. Then, ‘I’ll see you soon.’

Zia was left with a silent phone and a crackle of astonishment. ‘Who would have thought Gerardo would be the one to remove the big obstacle?’

Piero’s eyes were alight and though he smiled he said, ‘There are just two problems left.’

Her shoulders sagged. ‘What?’ When things seemed too good to be true, they usually were.

In a voice weighty with sorrow he pronounced, ‘You haven’t told me you love me. And you haven’t said whether you’ll marry me.’

Laughter burst from her, the kind of bubbling, joyful explosion that she’d thought she’d forgotten how to make. Then she sobered because actually this was deadly serious stuff. She cupped his face. ‘Of course, I love you. And I’ll marry you any day, any place.’

Then their mouths found each other, gasping at the touch of tongues, the kiss going on and on, pulling them closer and closer together, deepening, exploding. And just to make really certain nothing had been lost in translation Zia said against his mouth, ‘Ti amo, caro.’

And he returned, ‘Ti amo anch’io.’

I love you, darling.

I love you too.

Epilogue