Last of the Summer Vines: Escape to Italy with this heartwarming, feel good summer read!

And though I was a little more dressed than yesterday, I most certainly wasn’t dressed for visitors. If I hadn’t been aware before of how the silk gown only reached mid-thigh, or the proximity of Tommaso’s body, I certainly was now. A furious blush burned my face and I wriggled to get out of his lap. But he held me fast.

This was turning into one of those scenes in a really bad farce.

‘Making house calls on a Sunday?’ Tommaso called out as Luca stepped from the car.

With an extra hard shove at his chest, I scrambled out of his lap, burningly aware that not only was I scantily clad and dishevelled, but I no doubt also reeked of smoke. While Luca looked impeccably, impossibly perfect. Not a hair mussed, shoes polished, trousers crisply pressed, as if he had indeed just stepped from the pages of GQ. Exactly the kind of man I would choose if ever I were in the market for one.

He held a bouquet of pink roses. My stomach did a strange somersault thing.

‘I brought the partnership agreement for you to sign.’ Luca smiled his usual smooth, charming grin. ‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything?’

My blush deepened. ‘No, of course not.’ Sure, I always entertained sexy men at home on a Sunday morning in my pyjamas. Not. ‘Would you like to come inside?’

Luca looked at Tommaso, and though his polite expression held steady, it no longer seemed amused or friendly. ‘I think perhaps not. I have a pen, and you can sign right here.’

He whipped out a pen from his lightweight summer jacket and held it out to Tommaso. It almost seemed like a challenge. We signed the agreement on the hood of the car, first Tommaso then me, then Luca turned his smile up a notch for me. ‘I also came to invite you to lunch.’

This was no business invitation. It was definitely a date.

No holiday romance, no holiday romance.

But as much as I chanted the mantra, my body was shouting ‘yes, please!’

As I opened my mouth to accept, Tommaso spoke for me. ‘That’s very kind of you, but we already have plans today. We’re going to lunch with the Rossis.’

I opened my mouth again, this time to protest, but Tommaso continued without pause. ‘Alberto Rossi was one of your father’s oldest friends. He’d be offended if you turned down his invitation.’

I pressed my lips tight, to stop myself from doing yet another fish impression, shot Tommaso a glance that threatened all sorts of retribution, then turned to Luca with a smile. ‘Thank you for the invitation. Another day, perhaps?’

‘Si, bella. Another day.’ He reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. I half-hoped he’d do that courtly knuckle kiss thing again. Though he didn’t need to for me to shiver at his touch. His dimpling smile flashed as he let go of my hand. ‘I will call you next time.’

He handed me the flowers and I cradled them to my chest, breathing in their sweet fragrance.

Luca was already backing out of the yard when my brain finally kicked in, and I remembered he couldn’t call because my mobile didn’t get signal here. Hand on my hip, I rounded on Tommaso. ‘What is it with you? I’m not a kid, and I don’t need you to play big brother watching over me.’

He merely shrugged. ‘Aren’t you pleased I came to tell you about the lunch invitation? If it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t have been here to rescue you.’

‘I don’t need rescuing. I am perfectly capable of rescuing myself.’ The fact that he had indeed rescued me only made me more irritable. I was no damsel in distress, and I didn’t ever plan to be. That was Geraldine’s game.

I stomped back into the house, with Tommaso’s amused voice trailing after. ‘It was my pleasure!’

There were vases in the pantry. I filled a crystal vase at the tap and set the roses into it. They were as perfect as Luca himself; pale pink, duskier at the tips of the petals, and so breathtakingly sweet.

The kitchen was less smoky now, reassuring me that the fire was indeed out, and I hadn’t set the house alight after all. Though burning the place to the ground might not be a bad place to start, even if it was under-insured.

I threw open all the windows, and the smoke began to dissipate. No harm done, except to my bruised ego.

But I was going to need Tommaso’s oven. If we were invited to lunch, I didn’t plan to go empty-handed. And I needed more clothes on. Especially if I was having lunch with some old friend of John’s rather than a sexy lawyer who was the first man to show an interest in me in way too long.

No holiday romance, I reminded myself. But I was smiling.

Chapter 6 (#ulink_4e986bf7-dc7e-55fc-b945-f22db7d57a7f)

Una cena senza vino è come un giorno senza sole

(A meal without wine is a day without sunshine)

Our destination wasn’t a house, as I’d expected, but a trattoria up on a hill, reached along a winding dirt road edged by trees. As Tommaso parked in the lot behind the restaurant, I cast a mortified glance down at the plastic container in my lap, containing the schiacciata cake I’d finally managed to bake in his far more modern oven. ‘I thought we were having lunch at their home?’

‘We are. This is the Rossi family farm. The land all the way down to the river has been in the family for over four hundred years. Alberto’s father still owns the land, but these days it’s Alberto who runs the farm, together with his sons. His daughter, Beatrice, runs the trattoria. It’s sort of an extension of the farmhouse.’

I had to squint to see the river, a distant gleam across the wide valley. Four hundred years? The eight years I’d lived in Wanstead were the longest I’d ever stayed in one postcode.

Tommaso guided me towards the trattoria’s entrance, his hand hovering in the curve of my back, not touching, but close enough to feel the heat of his proximity through the thin fabric of my lightweight crepe blouse.

We rounded the low redbrick building onto a terrace. The restaurant was rustic, with simple pine tables and benches, plain tablecloths, a bougainvillea-covered trellis over the terrace, and an amazing view. My breath caught.

The trattoria overlooked rolling fields, broken by patches of dark green woodland. In the sloping field beneath the terrace, sheep grazed, their soft bleating drifting up on the breeze and mingling with the sounds of human voices closer by.

From here, the river cut a silver swathe across the valley, marking the border between the fields of tawny wheat dotted with red poppies, and the wilder meadows beyond. Across the valley, nestled in a fold of hill, I could see the earthen sand-coloured walls of an abbey, its bell tower standing proud over the low-sloping russet roofs.

A tall, round man with dark hair greying at his temples hurried to greet us, a welcoming smile on his weather-beaten face. ‘John’s daughter!’ he exclaimed, wrapping me in an embrace. ‘It is such a pleasure to meet you. I have heard so much of you!’

Unused to being hugged by complete strangers, I had to force myself to relax and not flinch away.

‘Sarah, this is Alberto Rossi.’ Tommaso made the introductions, his habitually grim expression warming as he clapped Alberto on the back.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you too.’ My voice sounded as formal as if I were meeting a new client, but I couldn’t help myself. Where I came from, this kind of exuberance was reserved for people who’d known each other for years.

Awkwardly, I handed Alberto the plastic cake container. ‘I brought dessert.’

He passed it to someone else, who passed it to someone else, so he could take both my hands in his large, rough ones. ‘I am so sorry for your loss.’

I heard that over and over again as I was introduced to Alberto’s wife, his parents, his sons, his daughter Beatrice, and then an extended family of brothers and sisters and cousins. I tried to look like a grief-stricken daughter should, but I wasn’t really sure what that felt like.

‘Is this a party?’ I whispered to Tommaso, as we squeezed in on one of the long benches lining the main table. The schiacciata I’d made was large, but hardly enough to feed this crowd.

Tommaso’s chuckle was low and almost inaudible. ‘No, just a regular Rossi Sunday family lunch.’

Beatrice set out platters of antipasti and thick slices of bread – mass-produced and store-bought bread, I suspected – and one of Alberto’s sons poured the wine, a Brunello from one of the neighbouring vineyards.

The chatter and noise around the big table was overwhelming, and the Italian so quick I had no hope of keeping up. But in true Italian style, they all spoke with their bodies, keeping me hugely entertained trying to discern the topics of conversation from the body language.

I also didn’t need to understand the words to see that this was a warm and affectionate family, despite the teasing between the cousins. They were a good-looking family too. Perhaps it was in the genes. Or the local water. I should bottle some and take it home with me in case I ever did decide to start dating again.

Tommaso moved away to sit beside Daniele, Alberto’s younger son. From the gestures that accompanied the animated conversation, I decided they were discussing wine.

I wasn’t alone for long. Beatrice slipped onto the bench beside me. She was a pretty woman, perhaps only just thirty, with warm, smiling eyes and thick, dark hair that she wore tied back in a long and intricate braid. Though she’d just stepped from the kitchen, she looked fresh as a daisy, and effortlessly classy in her simple but stylish linen dress.