The third book in the Rinucci Brothers series, 2006

I’M CRAZY to leave.

The words pounded in Luke Cayman’s head as he packed his bags on the day after his brother Primo’s engagement.

I should stay and fight for her.

Yet he got into his brand new state-of-the-art sports car and headed out of Naples ‘like a bat out of hell’, as he put it.

It was a relief to get on to the autostrada, where he could let it rip, driving the two hundred miles to Rome at the top of the legal limit and making it in two and a half hours.

Once there, he checked into a five-star hotel in Parioli, the wealthiest and most elegant part of the city, and indulged himself with the best of Roman cuisine and wine, which he drank in brooding silence.

I should have stayed.

But there was Olympia’s face in his mind, as he’d last seen it, her eyes fixed blissfully on Primo, her fiancé, soon to be her husband. Who was he trying to kid? He’d never stood a chance.

He was just thinking of an early night when a hand clapped him on the shoulder and a hearty voice said, ‘You should have told me you were coming.’

Bernardo was the hotel manager, a plump, hearty man in his mid-forties. Luke had stayed here before on business trips to Rome, and they had always been on good terms.

‘It was a last-minute decision,’ Luke said, trying to sound cheerful. ‘I find myself the owner of a building in Rome and it needs my attention.’

‘Property? I thought you were in manufacturing.’

‘I am. This place was given to me in repayment of a debt.’

‘Round here?’

‘No, Trastevere.’

Bernardo raised his eyebrows. If Parioli was Rome’s most elegant area, Trastevere was its most colourful.