‘It’s nice to hear you admit it.’

‘How are you liking Venice?’ he asked.

‘I love it, what little I’ve seen. Everyone’s so nice to me, and I find the factory really fascinating. I’m learning fast. I’m even developing my own ideas. Of course, I’m very amateurish. You’d have a good laugh.’

‘No, I wouldn’t laugh. We’re fellow professionals. Look, we’ve had our differences but what’s done is done. What matters is the future and if there’s anything I can do to help you, please tell me. I still want to see Antonio’s place succeed, even if it isn’t mine.’

Once she would have come back with a swift riposte, saying he wished her well only so that the firm would be in good order when he finally managed to buy it.

But the impulse died before the sincerity in his eyes and the kindness in his voice. Now she could believe that he was truly offering her his friendship.

‘Well, there is something you could explain to me,’ she said slowly. ‘What happens when the glass…?’

He nodded, then embarked on an explanation that was tailored to her understanding, yet detailed enough to be really useful. For the next hour they discussed glass-making techniques, and when they rose to go inside she felt she’d had a valuable lesson.

‘Goodnight, Helena,’ he said softly. ‘And remember, whenever you need help, I’m here.’

‘Thank you, Salvatore. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.’

He kissed her hand and departed.

Helena made her way slowly to her room, sunk in thought about the conflicting impressions that had assailed her tonight. One, above all the others, cried out for action.

She’d wondered if Salvatore was behind the bank’s demand, trying to force her to the wall. After tonight she had no doubt that the answer was yes.

When Helena’s arrival was announced Salvatore looked up with pleasure.

‘Helena, come in. I’ve been hoping you’d call.’

There had been no contact between them for two days. Now she appeared at the Palazzo Veretti, in the room he used as an office, glowing and beautiful and he rose, stretching out his hands to her.

His smile didn’t fool her, nor the way he ushered her to a chair, then sat on the desk, leaning over her solicitously. He was expecting her capitulation.

‘And here I am, with some news for you,’ she said.

She gave herself a moment to enjoy his expectant look, before saying, ‘I’ve been a bit preoccupied recently. The bank called in the loan on the factory. They actually wanted repayment in two weeks. I ask you, what can anyone do in two weeks?’

‘Not very much, I imagine,’ he said sympathetically.

‘It looked as though selling to you was my only option. Well, I’ve just been to the bank and I thought I should come to see you immediately.’

‘Very understandable,’ he observed. ‘I’m grateful for your courtesy. Did the bank manager give you a hard time?’

‘No, he was nice, but there were so many papers to sign, and I didn’t understand half of them. Never mind, it’s all done now, and I’m free, free!’

‘Well, you will be when we’ve completed the sale. Don’t worry, I’ll give you a fair price. I don’t like to think of you worrying about money.’

‘Oh, Salvatore, how kind of you to be concerned for me! But there’s no need. I’ve paid the loan off, every last penny.’ A delight in danger made her add, ‘Isn’t that wonderful?’

He put his head on one side. ‘Is this the joke of the day?’

‘I never joke about money, any more than you do, I’m sure. Here, these will convince you.’

She took out the official papers, signed, witnessed and complete, proving that Larezzo was now officially free from debt.

Salvatore’s first thought was that they were forgeries, but then his head cleared and he saw the signature of Valerio Donati, the bank manager, a signature he knew well. Everything was perfectly in order. Payment had been made in full.

His face was a careful blank as he summoned up all his reserves of control. They had never failed him before, but nothing in the past had mattered quite as much as this.

She was smiling as though this were no more than an innocent moment between friends, but he knew better. She’d come here today to flaunt her triumph, letting him delude himself that he’d won. Now she was doubtless laughing inside. Anger flared up in him but he suppressed it. How she would enjoy any sign that he was disturbed.

‘Very clever,’ he said at last. ‘I underestimated you.’

‘Now, there’s an admission!’

‘A temporary admission. It won’t last. You’ll sell in the end.’

‘Oh, will I? I’ve heard of stubbornness but this is absurd.’

‘Is it? Let’s face facts. Are you pretending that Antonio left you enough spare cash to cover this?’

‘No, he didn’t. If anything his funds were running rather low in his last months.’

‘Then you must have raised a huge bank loan.’

‘Really? Perhaps you shouldn’t jump to conclusions.’

‘I think this one is safe enough.’

‘Salvatore, you have a problem.’

‘I have a problem?’

‘Yes, you simply can’t believe anything that doesn’t suit you. It weakens your position because it means that your enemy is always one step ahead, knowing something that you don’t.’

‘The enemy being you?’

‘If you like.’

She laughed up into his face as she said it, and for a moment he was invaded by a delight so intense that it almost drove everything else from his mind. He fought it. This was no time for emotion.

‘Very well,’ he said slowly. ‘Enemies it is. But how foolish of you to cross me. It’s something I don’t allow. You’ll discover that.’

‘Oh, don’t be so serious. I’ve won this round, you’ll probably win the next one, then I’ll win the one after-’

‘And I’ll win the last one.’

‘Maybe. Shake?’

Reluctantly he took the hand she held out and held it for a moment.

‘So you’re still determined to drive me out of Venice?’ she said lightly.

The sudden tension in his grip told her all she wanted to know. He didn’t want to drive her out.

‘Perhaps,’ he said slowly. ‘Or maybe I’ll let you stay-if it suits me.’

‘It always has to be on your terms, doesn’t it?’

He raised her hand, touching it with gentle, seductive lips that sent scurries of pleasure through her.

‘Always,’ he confirmed. ‘But here-’he glanced around his office ‘-isn’t our real battlefield. It’s the other one that counts, and there-who knows who the victor will be?’

Helena laughed. ‘Shame on you. You think you’re going to win that one too?’

‘Perhaps that depends on what you call victory,’ he parried. ‘We may both enjoy finding out.’

‘That’s true. I’ll leave you now. You’ll need some time to consider your next attack. But remember what I told you. Beware the enemy-no, not enemy, opponent-’

‘That’s better,’ he agreed.

He was still holding her hand, smiling in a way that disturbed her. The warmth was stealing through her again, making her smile back-Like an idiot, she reproved herself.

‘You’re getting out of character,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘You’re supposed to be angry with me, don’t you remember?’

‘I am-very angry.’

‘You’re absolutely furious that I put one over on you.’

‘In a terrible rage.’

‘I can see. And you’re planning your revenge.’

‘Not planning it,’ he said quietly. ‘Taking it.’

On the words he drew her close and kissed her, wrapping both his arms right round her, imprisoning her own arms so that she had no choice but to stand still, defenceless against anything he wanted to do.

And what he wanted was to caress her lightly, teasingly, each whispered touch a reminder of their ‘other battlefield’ and the thrilling skirmishes still to come. She relished it as long as she could endure immobility, then broke free and took over the kiss.

‘Call that revenge?’ she demanded. ‘This is revenge.’

She returned his attack in full measure, pressing close to him while her lips made silent promises that challenged his self-control, just as he’d challenged hers. It was a battle of the Titans.

‘I must go,’ she whispered. ‘I have a lot of things to do.’

She moved towards the door, then stopped and looked back.

‘Remember my warning. Beware the opponent who knows something you don’t.’

She was gone.

That evening Salvatore called on Valerio Donati. He was always a welcome guest in the bank manager’s house, and was impatient to plan his next move. But things didn’t go as he’d expected.

‘That’s the last time I listen to you,’ Donati grumbled as they sat down to dinner. ‘Call the loan in, you said. She can’t cope, you said. In fact it was easy for her to cope, given who she is.’

‘Who is she,’ Salvatore demanded, ‘apart from Antonio’s widow?’

‘Are you saying you didn’t realise you were dealing with “Helen of Troy”?’ Donati demanded.

‘Of course he didn’t,’ his wife said. ‘Salvatore doesn’t read the fashion pages, or he’d have known that her face was everywhere before she retired. They say she was among the highest-paid models in the world. She must be worth a fortune.’

Salvatore smiled and made a polite response, but inwardly he was in turmoil, remembering Helena’s words. This was the secret that she had known and he hadn’t. She’d taunted him with it, and she’d won.

He left his hosts early and walked home through the little darkened calles, and as he went it seemed to him that Helena was with him, chuckling at how easily she’d called his bluff.

On reaching home he shut himself in his office and got on to the internet. The name ‘Helen of Troy’ brought up a host of information about her success at an early age, right up to her retirement two years earlier, after which she seemed to have vanished. There was no mention of her marriage.

Then he turned to the pictures, hundreds of them, going back years to the first shots of her as a teenager, on through her magnificent twenties, to her very last photo shoot. It was like being confronted by a dozen different women.

The first Helena was little more than a child, giving the camera a naïve, confiding glance. Then she was laughing, inviting the spectator into a happy conspiracy, modelling a revealing dress, but with a touching innocence.

As he went on he had the strange feeling that the happy spontaneity vanished quickly. Something in that baby face had changed overnight. Even through her bright, professional smiles he could sense that she’d become older, sadder, knowing. And it hadn’t happened over time, which would have been natural, but suddenly, shockingly.

A memory disturbed him: Helena studying the two pictures of his mother, the one young and happy, the other prematurely aged by misery. He’d snubbed her, refusing to discuss a subject that was unbearable to him.

He rose to his feet and paced the room restlessly, trying to drive the memories away. Every day he fought to banish them, and it was part of this woman’s awkwardness that she brought them flooding back.

He went out into the corridor and stood listening to the quiet house. He should go back and continue his research into ‘Helen of Troy’, seeking the weakness through which he could overcome her, but instead he wandered along the corridor until he came to the room that had once been his mother’s. There he stopped.

How many times had he stood here listening to her sobs from inside, longing to comfort that anguished woman, knowing that it wasn’t in his power? Somewhere along the line his pain had turned to a rage that was still with him, years after her death. It was there now, making him crash his fist helplessly against the door.

At last he returned to his office and resumed his study of his foe, starting again with the young girl, innocent, then imbued with a poignant consciousness that shouldn’t have been there for years. For a brief moment he could almost have pitied her, but the impulse died as he went on through the rest of the pictures.

Now he understood the first picture he had ever seen of her, on the beach with Antonio, her glorious shape barely covered in a tiny bikini. Instinctively he’d known that this was a ‘professional’ body, professionally honed, tended, protected, in order to be put on show and make a profit. Up to a point he’d been right.

But she wasn’t the lady of dubious morals he’d assumed. She was a successful businesswoman with a shrewd brain that told one story, while her appearance told another.

What an actress she was, sultry and sexy one moment, reserved and virginal the next! He stared hard at her face on the screen, the lips full and pouting, the half-closed eyes delivering an unmistakeable message.

Come to me-hold me-touch me-let me show what I can do for you.