‘I’ll bet you’re never lost for words,’ she said, addressing the screen. ‘Just looking at you, I know that. You can talk the hind legs off a donkey, which probably helped you get some of those fine-sounding qualifications.’

Then she stopped and stared. She could have sworn he’d winked at her.

‘Enough of that,’ she reproved him sternly. ‘I know your kind. My second husband was just like you. Talk about charm! The trouble was, charm was all Gerry had-unless you include a genius for spending other people’s money.’

She poured herself a drink and leaned back, contemplating the face with reluctant pleasure.

‘Am I being unreasonable?’ she asked him. ‘Am I against you just because other people are for you? I know I’m a bit contrary. At least, folk claim that I am. They say I’m difficult, awkward, stubborn-and that’s just my friends talking. But I’ve got a good life. I have a career that gives me all I want, and I’m immune to male attraction-well, sort of immune. Most of the time. You do nothing for me. Nothing at all.’

But he didn’t believe her. She could see that in his face.

She gazed at him. He gazed back. What came next hovered inevitably in the air between them.

‘So I guess,’ she said slowly, ‘there’s no reason why I can’t set up a meeting and look you over.’

‘This place looks as though a bomb had hit it,’ Hope Rinucci observed.

She was surveying her home: first the main room, then the dining room, then the terrace overlooking the Bay of Naples with a distant view of Vesuvius.

‘Two bombs,’ she added, viewing the disarray.

But she did not speak with disapproval, more like satisfaction. The previous evening there had been a party, and in Hope’s opinion a party that didn’t leave the surroundings looking shattered was no party at all.