Executing a swift change of direction, he turned down the footpath edged with grass already turning to summer gold, obeying a compulsion he hadn’t felt since first drawn to Nicoletta. The way that had ended, Nicoletta disappointed and frustrated while he was exasperated and puzzled, had put him off dating local women who might – quite reasonably – come to expect commitment. Tourists were accommodating: here, then gone. Zia was a tourist. How much impact could a tourist have on his life in a couple of weeks?

She noticed him when he was a few strides from the gazebo and glanced up with a flash of her arresting smile. A blue and white bag rested against her smooth brown leg and she held what looked like a handwritten letter. A bundle of envelopes lay in the mouth of the bag.

‘Busy?’ he asked.

‘Just reading. Ursula’s fallen asleep in the shade behind Villino Il Pino.’ Then, as if realising that what she held in her hands was perhaps not usual holiday reading, added, ‘These are letters to my mother, Vicky. They mention Montelibertà. She obviously came here once. I’m trying to discover more about her because she died when I was ten.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘At least I had lovely grandparents to bring me up.’ She tilted her head enquiringly. ‘Do I look as if I might be of Italian descent?’

He took the question as an invitation to linger, stepped into the gazebo and sat on a lounger. ‘I thought you were Italian when I first saw you. In fact, I thought you were probably from the Binotto Group, come to bother Lucia and Durante. You looked like a business person.’

Her eyes sparkled. ‘I’d had an interview for a job in Montelibertà.’

Surprise shivered through him. ‘You’re staying to work here?’ So, she wasn’t a tourist?

The smile faded. ‘It’s not that easy any more. I haven’t even applied for residency. I just wanted to see what might be involved, what an employer would ask for.’ She added, ‘I was always told my father was Italian but not who he was. If I could prove I have an Italian parent, I might get Italian citizenship by descent – jus sanguinis or “right of blood”. I thought if I found him … well, it’s why I’m here, really.’

‘Here at this address?’ His gut tightened, roughening his tone. ‘Please don’t say it’s Durante! The last thing Lucia needs just now is to discover her husband fathered some illegitimate kid. She’s upset and frightened enough.’

Zia snatched off her sunglasses. ‘Of course it’s not Durante—!’ Then she checked, retreated slowly behind the sunshades and muttered stiffly, ‘I don’t have any reason to suspect it’s Durante and I’m not here to embarrass anyone.’