It wasn’t so far from the truth, he thought. But it had never troubled him before.

He checked the messages on his cellphone and the words, Call your mother, appeared on the screen. Grinning, he called Hope Rinucci, his adoptive mother, and the only one he had known.

‘Hi, Mamma. Yes, I got here safely. Everything’s fine.’

‘Have you met Signora Pepino yet?’

‘I’ve barely arrived. I’ve had a meal, that’s all. Let me settle in before I confront her. I need all my courage.’

His mother’s exasperated voice reached him down the line. ‘Don’t pretend you’re afraid of her.’

‘I am. I’m shaking in my shoes, I swear it.’

‘You’ll go to hell for telling lies, and serve you right.’

He chuckled. She always made him feel better.

In his mind he could see her in the Villa Rinucci, high up on the hill. She liked to take phone calls on the terrace, looking out over the Bay of Naples, the most glorious view in the world, according to her. It would be dark now, with only the twinkling lights breaking through the black velvet, but the beauty was still there.

‘Are you exhausted after all the festivities?’ he asked.

‘I’ve no time for that. I’m planning the party for Primo and Olympia’s engagement.’

‘I thought we had that last night.’

‘No, that was just the tail end of Justin’s wedding,’ she said, naming her first son. ‘One wedding begets another, and naturally we toasted Primo and Olympia, but they’ll want a proper engagement celebration of their own.’

‘And if they don’t they’re going to get it anyway,’ he said with wry fondness.

‘Well, you can’t expect me to pass up the chance of a party,’ she said reasonably.

‘It would never occur to me that you’d pass up the chance of a party,’ he said truthfully. ‘And after that, there’s the wedding, unless Olympia’s mother has some mad idea of organising it herself.’

‘Oh, no, we discussed that last night, and she quite agrees with me.’