Reunited with Her Italian Ex. Lucy Gordon

on the place.’

      ‘His ballroom has to be seen to be believed,’ Giorgio told her.

      ‘Ballroom,’ she echoed. ‘Romeo and Juliet met in a ballroom.’ She turned to Mario. ‘Does your hotel have a ballroom?’

      ‘No. None of the other hotels do.’

      ‘Then that gives me an idea. Can we return to the hotel now? I need to get to work.’

      ‘Aren’t we going on to Romeo’s house?’ Giorgio asked.

      ‘I’ll do that tomorrow. Today, I have urgent things to do.

      ‘Could you please provide me with a list of every member of the Comunità, and their hotels? Then I can check their locations and assess their requirements.’

      ‘I’ll see to it as soon as we arrive.’

      As they walked back to the car, Giorgio murmured to Mario, ‘A woman who knows her own mind. Perhaps we should beware.’

      ‘There’s no perhaps about it,’ Mario replied grimly.

      On the way back to the hotel Natasha took out her notebook and wrote in it swiftly and fiercely. Ideas were coming to her in cascades and she needed to capture them fast. This was the part of any project that she liked best. So absorbed did she become that she was unaware of the journey, and looked up suddenly when the car stopped.

      ‘We’re here,’ Mario said. He’d been watching her silently.

      ‘I need something to eat,’ Giorgio declared. ‘Suppose we meet downstairs in half an hour, for a feast?’

      ‘Not me, thank you,’ Natasha said. ‘Perhaps you could send something up to my room?’

      ‘But we could all celebrate together,’ Giorgio protested.

      ‘We can celebrate when I’ve made a success of this job. Let’s hope that happens.’

      ‘It’ll happen,’ Giorgio said. ‘You’re going to be just fantastic, isn’t she, Mario?’

      ‘No doubt of it,’ he said bleakly.

      ‘You’re very kind, both of you. Now, excuse me, gentlemen.’

      Giving them both a polite smile, she headed for the lift.

      Upstairs, she plunged into work, making more notes about the morning before things went out of her head. She was so immersed in her work that at first she didn’t hear the knock on the door. It had to be repeated louder to capture her attention.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said, pulling it open, ‘I got so—’ She checked herself at the sight of Mario standing there with a trolley of food.

      ‘Your meal, signorina,’ he said.

      She stared at the sight of the food. Someone had taken a lot of trouble preparing this meal, which Mario laid out for her with care.

      ‘Giorgio told the kitchen to produce their best, to make sure you stay with us,’ he said. ‘So you have chicory risotto, followed by tiramisù, with Prosecco.’

      Her favourite wine. How many times had he ordered it for her in Venice? And he had remembered.