‘Hmm! All right-I’ll try it on.’

Rather annoyingly, the dress was perfect, and she longed to see Carlo’s eyes when he saw her in it.

‘Was I right, or was I right?’ Sol demanded as she paraded around the shop.

‘You were right, but-’

‘But it kills you to admit it,’ he said, giving her the grin she adored.

It was a constant surprise to her that this son of a boring, commonplace father could be so well endowed with charm. She knew his faults. He was selfish, cocky, and thought his looks and appeal meant the world was his. If the world didn’t offer, he would reach out and take, paying his debt in smiles.

But they had been companions in misfortune almost since the day of his birth. Whatever had happened, he’d been there, with his cheeky grin and his hopeful, ‘C’mon, Mum, it’s not so bad.’

There had been times when his resilience and his ability to make her laugh had been her chief strength. She’d clung to him-perhaps too much, she sometimes thought. But he’d always been there for her, and now nothing was too good for him.

‘Oh, come here!’ she said, flinging her arms wide. ‘Don’t ask me why I love you. I suppose there’s a reason.’

Carlo got through everything there was to do in his apartment in double-quick time, sorting through the mail and ruthlessly tossing most of it aside as junk. He called his mother to let her know he was back, and promised to be at the villa punctually the following evening.

‘I shall have a lady with me,’ he said cautiously.

‘Well, it’s about time,’ Hope Rinucci replied robustly.

That startled him. This wasn’t the first woman he’d taken home, so he could only assume that something in his tone had alerted Hope to the fact that this guest was different. She was the one.

He hung up, thinking affectionately that the man who could bottle a mother’s instinct and market it would be a millionaire in no time.

Having showered, he drove back to the Vallini, looking forward to the evening ahead. They had just spent over a week living closely together, but after little more than an hour away from her he found that the need to see her again was almost unbearable. At the hotel he parked the car and ran into the foyer, like a man seeking his only hope on earth.

The way to the elevators took him past the hotel boutique. He stopped, checked by a sight that sent a chill through him.

Della was there, wearing a stylish black cocktail dress that she was showing off to an extremely good-looking young man who looked to be in his early twenties. He was watching her with his head on one side, and they were laughing at each other. As Carlo stared, feeling as though something had turned him to stone, Della opened her arms wide. The young man did the same, and they embraced each other in a giant hug.

He heard her say, ‘Don’t ask me why I love you. I suppose there’s a reason.’

Carlo wanted to do a thousand things at once-to run away and hide, pretend that this had never happened, and then perhaps the clock would turn back to before he’d seen her in the arms of another man. But he also wanted to race up to them and pull them apart. He wanted to punch the man to the ground, then turn on Della and accuse her, with terrible bitterness, of breaking his heart. He wanted to do all the violent things that were not in his nature.

But he did none of them. Instead, almost without realising that he was moving, he went to stand in front of them. It was the young man who saw him first.

‘Hey, I think your friend’s here,’ he said cheerfully.

Della looked up, smiling, but making no effort to disentangle herself from the embrace.

‘Hallo, darling,’ she said. ‘You haven’t met my son, have you?’

Carlo clenched his hands. Her son! Who did she think she was kidding?

‘Very funny,’ he said coldly. ‘How old were you when you had him? Six?’

The young man roared with laughter, making Carlo dream of murder.

‘It’s your own fault for looking so young,’ he told her.

She chuckled and disengaged herself.

‘I was sixteen when Sol was born,’ she told Carlo. ‘I told you that once before.’

‘Yes, but-’ Carlo fell silent.

‘And he’s twenty-one now,’ she finished. ‘He looks older because he’s built like an ox.’

Sol grinned at this description and extended his hand. Dazed, Carlo shook it.

‘We had no idea you were coming,’ he said, appalled at how stupid the words sounded. But stupid was exactly how he felt.

‘No, I thought I’d drop in and pay my old lady an unexpected visit,’ Sol said cheerfully. ‘I thought she’d only be here for a couple of days. When she didn’t return I decided to come and see what mischief she was up to.’ His ribald glance made it clear that he’d already formed his own opinion.

Carlo decided that he could dislike Sol very much if he put his mind to it. But he forced himself to say politely, ‘I hope you’ll stay long enough to visit my family? We’re having dinner with them tomorrow night, and of course you must join us.’

‘Love to. Fine-I’ll be off now.’ He kissed Della’s cheek. ‘I’m in the room opposite yours. See ya! Oh-yes…’ He seemed to become aware that the staff were nervously eyeing his new shirt.

‘It’s all right,’ she told them. ‘You can put it on my bill.’

‘Bless you,’ Sol said fervently. ‘Actually, I found a few other-’

‘Put them all on my bill,’ she said, amused and resigned. ‘Now, be off-before I end up in the Poor House.’

‘Thanks!’

Halfway to the door, he stopped. ‘Um…’

‘What now?’

‘I hadn’t realised what an expensive place this is-’ He broke off significantly.

‘You’ve got a new credit card,’ she reminded him.

‘Ye-es, but-’

‘You can’t have hit the limit already. Even you.’

His response was a helpless shrug, topped off by his best winning smile. Carlo watched him closely.

‘Here,’ Della said, reaching into her bag and producing a handful of cash. ‘I’ll call the card company and underwrite a new limit.’

‘Thanks, Mum. Bye!’

He vanished.

‘I’ll be with you in a moment,’ Della said, and went into the changing room.

After a moment she emerged in her street clothes, paid her bill, and gave her room number for the dress to be delivered.

‘And the other things, for the young man?’ the assistant asked.

‘Oh, yes-deliver them to me, too.’

A brief glance at the paperwork showed Carlo that she had spent about ten times as much on Sol as on herself.

They left the boutique and headed for the coffee bar next door. Carlo seemed thoughtful, and she guessed that he now had a lot to think about.

‘Does that dress really suit me?’ she asked. ‘Or did Sol merely say so to get me to pay for his stuff?’

‘Why would he bother?’ Carlo asked wryly. ‘He knew you were a soft touch, whatever he said.’

‘Well, of course. Don’t be fooled by the fact that he looks grown-up. He’s only twenty-one, and has only just left college. Who’s going to pay his bills if I don’t?’

‘He could get a job and start paying his own way,’ Carlo suggested.

‘He will, but he had to visit his father first.’

‘Fair enough. But does it occur to him to curb his extravagance for your sake?’

‘Why should he? When he sees me book into one of the most expensive hotels in Naples he probably reckons I can afford a few shirts.’

He shrugged. It was a fair point, but he still didn’t like it.

‘Does his father help?’ he asked after a while.

‘His father has three other children by various mothers-the first one born barely a year after we broke up.’

‘So you’ve always worked to support Sol?’

‘I’m his mother.’

‘And some woman is always going to have to be,’ he pointed out, with a touch of grouchiness.

‘What a rotten thing to say!’ she flared. ‘It’s not like you.’

It was true, making him annoyed with himself.

‘Ignore me,’ he said, trying to laugh. ‘I just got a nasty shock when I first saw you together. I thought you had another guy. He looks older than he is.’

‘Twenty-one-I swear it. And I’m thirty-seven,’ she said lightly. ‘Thirty-seven!’

‘Why do you say it like that? As though you were announcing the crack of doom?’

‘We’ve never talked about my age before.’

‘Why should we? There were always more interesting things to do.’

‘But sooner or later you had to know that I was middle-aged-’

‘Middle-aged? Rubbish!’ he said, with a sharp, explosive annoyance that was rare with him. ‘Thirty-seven is nothing.’

‘I suppose it may seem so, if you’re only thirty.’

Suddenly his face softened.

‘You’re a remarkably silly woman-do you know that?’ he asked tenderly.

‘I’ve known it ever since I met you.’

‘And just what does that mean?’

‘A sensible woman would have taken one look at you and fled before you turned her whole life upside down.’

‘So why didn’t you?’ he asked curiously.

‘Maybe I didn’t mind having my life turned upside down? Maybe I wanted it? I might even have said to myself that it didn’t matter what happened later, because what we’d had would be worth it.’

He frowned. ‘But what do you think is going to happen later?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m not looking too far into the future. There’ll be some sadness there somewhere-’

‘You don’t know that-’

‘Yes, I do, because there’s always sadness.’

‘Then we’ll face it together.’

‘I mean after that,’ she said slowly. ‘When it’s over.’

He stared at her. ‘You’re talking about leaving me, aren’t you?’

‘Or you leaving me.’

‘Dio mio! You’re planning our break-up.’

‘I’m not planning it-just trying to be realistic. Seven years is quite a gap, and I know I should have told you before-’

‘Perhaps,’ he murmured. ‘But I wonder exactly when would have been the right moment.’