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‘No, it’s been lovely, but I ought to get some night photos in town and I’ve an early start tomorrow.’ She asked instead for the bill and only Gabe saw the waiter’s blink of surprise, especially when she took out her wallet. ‘I’ll get this.’

‘There’s really no need.’

The understatement of the century.

The waiter remained. Luigi the barman was looking over.

Oh, she made him smile.

‘No, I’d like to. I really am sorry about this morning. I really didn’t mean to invade your grandfather’s privacy, and as a token I’d like to get dinner.’ She met his eyes. ‘If it makes you feel better, it will be on expenses.’

‘Stella,’ he said, ‘I have an account here, it is already sorted.’ He nodded to the waiter to leave. ‘As well as that, it might be better if you didn’t let Sir Charles know about our conversation.’

‘But he’ll be thrilled to know that I spoke to you.’

‘Or he’ll be disappointed that you didn’t clinch the deal.’

‘There was never going to be a deal,’ she pointed out and then paused, understanding that Sir Charles might think she had let go of a great opportunity. ‘You’re right.’

‘So it might be better to keep our dinner off the record.’

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘We never met.’

He nodded. ‘This never happened.’

‘Well, it’s been nice not meeting you,’ she said as she stood, about to leave, and Gabe was about to let her do just that, but there was something about her. About the way she hadn’t known who he was, the offer to get dinner…

Quite simply, she melted him a touch and, God knew, he preferred her sweet company this evening than the darkness of his own.

‘Would you like me to walk with you? Show you around?’

She turned, blinking in surprise, and she thought for a moment and then nodded. ‘Very much.’

Chapter Three

WE NEVER MET.

This never happened.

Both were thinking of their words as they took a very slow walk into town.

‘Do you get home a lot?’ she asked, the breeze light on her arms, the taste of salt vague but in the air.

‘More so lately—’ he nodded ‘—with my grandfather being unwell.’ He halted, unused to speaking so openly with anyone, but there was something about the gentleness of her enquiry that did not feel like an interrogation, more of a conversation. ‘I don’t like coming back.’

‘Are you happier in Milan?’

He didn’t answer at first, then shrugged a touch as he walked. ‘It’s not one of my goals to be happy,’ he said, and it was no real explanation, but more than anyone else had ever received. ‘But yes, it is harder being here.’

They took steps down towards the church, the drop of the cliffs so sheer, with just a rail guard and, midway, a stone statue, a man in robes, holding his arms to the skies.

‘Sant Lavia,’ she read the inscription and did her best to translate it. ‘Fell without plea?’

‘Yes, they say the seas calmed once they had claimed him. That was in the fourth century.’

‘Wow! So, what about the Rinaldis?’ she asked, staring up at the palazzo. ‘Your family?’

‘They came to prominence in the sixteenth century, so a lot more recently…’