Justine found Florian's and sat in the window drinking a sinfully delicious concoction of coffee, chocolate and cream, and listening to the four-piece orchestra playing just outside. The surroundings were still as they must have been two hundred years ago.

If she closed her eyes she could see Casanova, a tall, elegant man in powdered wig and knee breeches. In her vivid imagination, he paused a moment, smiling before he spoke.

"Can we talk for more than two minutes this time?"

His voice was familiar. Justine opened her eyes to find "Casanova" pulling up a chair beside her – in the form of Riccardo.

No wig or knee breeches. Just black jeans and a black shirt that showed tanned, muscular arms. In these sedate surroundings, his look of having just stepped off the brig of a pirate ship made him riotously out of place.

He hailed a waiter and ordered something for himself and a repeat of her order.

"You shouldn't have done that," she said urgently. "I swore I'd only allow myself one."

"I think you can afford the calories," he said with an admiring look at her tiny waist and long legs.

She was used to that kind of look, but this was different, as though he had taken in everything about her in one instant. She hoped she didn't look self-conscious.

"I'm sorry about my little deception," he said.

She gave a rueful smile.

"You don't expect to find a hotel owner collecting his own vegetables. And you were so convincing as a bargee. You swung me up onto the bank as if I weighed nothing."

He laughed and flexed his biceps theatrically. "No problem. I developed these tossing sacks of potatoes around."

She joined in his laughter, but regarded him wryly.

"I see. Women, potatoes – it's all one, huh?"

His eyes gleamed with pure mischief. "Oh, no! Not at all. Between a sack of potatoes and a woman – well, one is a lot more fun than the other."