Sitting next to him in the car, Celia tuned in to his agitation and distress. That was easy-because she shared it. She had come to his home knowing she might meet him, thinking herself prepared. She had even congratulated herself on her well-laid plans, but they had all vanished the moment she’d heard his voice. In the surge of joy at being near him again she’d almost forgotten how carefully she had arranged everything, and for a wild moment had almost thrown herself into his arms.

But that would have been a disaster-as she’d recognised when she’d forced herself to calm down. In his arms, in his bed, she would forget the things that had driven them apart-but only for a little while. Soon it would all happen again, and the second parting would be final. At all costs she must prevent that.

She had come to Italy with a set purpose. She would reclaim him, and this time it would be for ever-or never.

Per sempre, she mused, practising her Italian. For ever. Per sempre e eternità. And if not-finita.

‘We’re just entering Naples now,’ he said at last. ‘Have you been to the Three Bells before?’

‘Yes, several times. I’ve got a favourite table in the garden, under the trees.’

As he drew up she said, ‘Thank you for the lift. There’s no need for me to trouble you any further.’

‘Don’t speak to me as though I was a stranger,’ he growled. ‘Let me escort you to the table. I won’t try to take your arm. That’s a promise.’

He spoke roughly, but she knew him well enough to hear the pain that would have escaped anybody else.

‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, also speaking roughly, to cover the fact that his unhappiness wounded her. ‘I’d like you to escort me. Then,’ she added, hastily recovering her self-possession, ‘I can buy you a drink and show off my Italian.’

‘It’s a deal.’

He opened the door for her, and there followed an awkward moment when she reached out for his hand, but it wasn’t there. Swearing, he lunged forward, trying to put things right, and stumbled over Jacko, who’d got himself into position. Celia instinctively tightened her hand on his, almost saving him from falling.

He swore again, louder this time, and with real fury.

‘I’m sorry,’ he snapped. ‘The hell with everything. I’m sorry.’

‘Let’s go and sit down,’ she said hastily.

He went ahead, followed by Jacko, with Celia walking afterwards. When they were seated at the table under the trees she was as good as her word, speaking to the waiter in Italian and ordering drinks for them both.

‘You did that very well,’ he conceded when they’d been served.

‘You’re a good teacher. I took your lessons to heart.’

‘Some of them,’ he remembered. ‘Some you tossed back in my face.’

‘Not about Italian.’

‘No, just everything else. It got so that everything I said was wrong-’

‘Only because you started every sentence with, “I’ll do that for you,” or “You shouldn’t be doing that.”’

‘And you ended up wanting to kill me,’ he remembered. ‘I suppose I’m lucky to still be alive.’

‘Yes, we were going downhill fairly fast,’ she said.

‘I’m sorry about what happened at the car. I thought I knew what you wanted, so I didn’t reach out my hand to you-’

‘But why not? You’d have assisted a sighted woman as a matter of courtesy, wouldn’t you? So why not me?’

He drew a slow breath of frustration.

‘Excuse me while I bang my head on the tree,’ he said at last.

Celia gave a sudden chuckle. ‘It’s like old times to hear you take that long breath. It always meant that you were clenching and unclenching your hands.’

Goaded, he spoke without thinking. ‘I don’t know what you’d do with eyes if you had them. You see everything without them.’

She beamed. ‘That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.’

‘Now you’re confusing me again.’

‘It’s the first time you’ve ever made a joke about my eyes,’ she explained.

‘It wasn’t exactly a joke.’

‘Pity. I thought you were improving. Anyway, don’t apologise about what happened at the car. If we’d both fallen it would have been my fault.’

‘Or your new friend’s, for moving when I wasn’t expecting him to.’

‘Don’t blame poor Jacko,’ Celia protested, instinctively reaching down to caress the dog’s head. ‘He was only doing his job.’

‘But who is he? Last time I saw you, you had Wicksy.’

‘Poor Wicksy was getting old, and it wouldn’t have been fair to bring him to a strange country. He’d earned a comfortable retirement, and that’s what he has. Remember how he liked children? There are three in his new home to make a fuss of him. I went to say goodbye before I came to Italy, and I could tell that he was happy.’

She stopped suddenly.

‘What is it?’ he asked gently.

‘As I left I could hear him playing with the children, barking with excitement, as though he’d forgotten me already. I’m glad of that, truly. I’d hate to think of him pining for me, but he was the best friend I had.’

‘And now you’re pining for him?’ Francesco supplied.

‘Yes, I am. We were such a perfect team.’

‘Aren’t you a perfect team with Jacko?’

‘It’s too soon to say. His name is short for Giacomo, and he’s a real Italian dog. He’s always lived in Naples, so he knows it well and I can trust him completely. He even understands the Neapolitan dialect.’

‘But how long will you have him? He looks quite elderly, too.’

‘He’s nine, and he might have retired when his previous owner regained his sight. But I needed a really experienced dog, so they assigned him to me for a while.’

‘Then what? Will they give you a younger one?’ Francesco asked casually.

Celia shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

He understood. Maybe then she would go home. He wished she would go home now.

He wished she would stay for ever.

He wished she had never come here.

The waiter served their drinks, and they sipped in silence for a while.

‘You’re very quiet,’ she said. ‘Did I offend you by turning up?’

‘Of course not. I’m just a little surprised.’

‘You told me so much about Naples I wanted to find out for myself. I used to look forward to coming here with you, and visiting all the places you told me about, seeing if it had all the lovely smells. You were right about that. I walk through the streets here and I can smell the cooking. Mmm!’

‘But how did you get here?’

‘I went home to my parents for a while, and they said it was time I explored the world a little. Dad gave me a large cheque and told me to blow it on enjoying myself.’

‘But you said you have a job here. Aren’t you supposed to be just a tourist?’

‘I’ve invested the money. I fancy myself as an entrepreneur. That’s how I’m going to enjoy myself. You taught me that.’

‘I did?’

‘You used to talk a lot about finance. It was your great interest in life. I listened and learned at the master’s feet.’

‘Is that a way of telling me that money is all I know?’

‘Don’t be so touchy. You showed me that making money could be fun, so now I’m going to double mine. Or treble it.’

‘Or lose it?’ he suggested lightly.

‘Oh, no, that won’t happen,’ she assured him.

‘How can you be so sure?’

Celia turned her head so that her clear blue eyes were facing him, so full of expression that he could almost swear she saw him.

‘Because I never lose,’ she said simply. ‘When I want something, I make sure I get it.’

‘And when you’ve finished with it you throw it out, marked “No longer needed,”’ he said quietly.

‘Francesco, do you know how bitter you sound? I wish you wouldn’t. We promised each other that we wouldn’t be bitter.’

‘Did we? I don’t remember.’

‘The day you came to collect your things,’ she reminded him. ‘We had a chat then.’

‘Oh, yes, it was all very civilised, wasn’t it? But I don’t remember that we talked things over. Five minutes over coffee and that was that.’

‘Well, there wasn’t much to talk about, was there?’

‘Except you throwing me out.’

‘I asked you not to be bitter because I didn’t want you to hate me. Still, I guess that wasn’t very realistic of me.’

‘I don’t hate you,’ he said gruffly. ‘But neither can I pretend that it didn’t happen.’

‘I don’t want to pretend that, either,’ she said with a touch of eagerness. ‘It did happen, and I’m glad of it. You left me with some of the most wonderful memories I’ll ever have, and I want to keep them. Don’t you want to?’

‘No,’ he said with sudden violence. ‘I don’t want to remember any of it. What use are memories when the reality has gone?’

She gave a little sigh. ‘I suppose you’re right. We’re agreed, then. No memories. We never met before.’

‘Why did you come here?’ he growled. ‘To have a laugh at my expense?’

‘No. Why should you say that? Why should I laugh? I can tell you’re doing very well without me.’

He shot her a look so fierce that he was actually glad she couldn’t see. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that she didn’t know what she was talking about. Unless, he thought, she’d been trying to provoke him. He only wished he knew.

‘Who’s your customer?’ he asked, for something to say. It was strange how the silences troubled him more than her.

‘He’s not really a customer. I said that so as not to bore your parents with involved explanations. We work together. His name is Sandro Danzi. He owns a firm organising trips for blind people.’

‘Is he blind himself?’ he couldn’t stop himself asking.

‘Does it matter?’ she flashed back instinctively.

‘For pity’s sake! Aren’t I even allowed to ask?’

‘Why is it always the first thing you ask?’

‘It isn’t.’

‘One of the first. As though nothing else mattered in comparison.’

It mattered, but not in the way she thought. Another blind person understood things that she understood, was potentially closer to her than he could ever be, and that excluded him.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he said, wishing he could find the words to say that he was jealous. Why couldn’t she simply understand?

Celia clenched her hands, hating herself. How often had she lashed out at him, wounding him for something that she knew he couldn’t help? But she couldn’t let down her guard. She didn’t dare. It was part of her fight not to be swallowed alive by her blindness, and it seemed the cruelest trick of fate that he should be ranged on the other side.

She sat listening. Even in the bustle of the café she could sense the silence that belonged only to him. She had never seen him, but she knew what he looked like-not the details of his face and body, but the tension of his attitude that told of misery.

‘Don’t look like that,’ she begged.

‘How do you know how I look?’ he demanded.

‘I know your silences,’ she said sadly. ‘I can always tell.’

Why was she here? she wondered. In a moment of madness she’d thrown up everything and followed him to Naples, hoping to teach him that he could love her and still let her be free. But within a few hours they were enmeshed in the old quarrel. Nothing had changed. However much it hurt, perhaps they were better apart. In a moment she would find the courage to tell him finally.

‘Are you hoping for a PR contract from Sandro Danzi?’ he asked, in the tone of a man determined to find a more pleasant subject.

‘No, I already have that. I’ve invested my money in his business, and I might go in a bit deeper.’

At Celia’s feet Jacko gave a small grunt and became alert.

‘What is it, boy?’ she asked, touching him gently.

‘He’s seen another guide dog,’ Francesco said.

The strange dog was leading a young man towards them.

‘Hey, there!’ he called.

‘Sandro!’ Celia’s face lit up. ‘This way,’ she called.

The newcomer was in his early thirties, tall and strikingly handsome, with a brilliant smile that appeared as soon as he heard her voice.

‘Go for it, boy,’ he instructed his guide, and the dog came forward confidently until he reached the table, gave Francesco an appraising look, and nudged Celia with his nose.

Francesco rose and stood back while Celia said the stranger’s name again, reaching out a hand to him.

‘Meet my friend Francesco,’ she said. ‘Can we talk English? My Italian isn’t up to a three-way conversation.’

Sandro put out a hand, which Francesco shook briefly. Sandro’s returning clasp was firm and confident, and although he had to reach behind him to find a chair he did so in the easy way of a man with no real doubts.

‘Francesco, this is Sandro,’ Celia said.

‘I’m her boss,’ Sandro said at once. ‘She does as I tell her.’

‘No way!’ Celia instantly riposted. ‘I’m his associate. I give advice, and he listens if he knows what’s good for him.’