made her look up to see Hope at the top of the stairs. She wasn’t looking at Evie and after a moment she walked away. It was impossible to tell how much she had heard.
Then Evie forgot everything in the rush of last-minute preparations. She spent a wonderful day among the fashion shops of Naples, returning with a black silk clinging creation that gave her a dazzling new persona, quite different from the boyish biker.
In this gown she was elegant and sophisticated. She would do Justin credit.
He knocked at her door just as she was trying to decide what jewellery to wear. She owned very little as most of her money went on the bike.
But Justin had the solution, holding up a diamond pendant and diamond earrings that were perfect with the dress.
‘You bought these for me?’ she asked in delight.
‘No, they’re from Hope. She asked me to give them to you.’
It passed across her mind briefly that he always referred to his mother as Hope, but then she was distracted by the beauty of the diamonds as she fixed the earrings into place.
‘She bought these for me?’ she asked in wonder.
‘No, I think she already had them.’
‘Put the pendant on for me,’ she begged, turning her back.
He fastened the clasp, then let his hands rest on her bare shoulders. They were warm and strong, giving her a good feeling.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have got mad at you for going out the other day. I know you’re not quite sane where motorbikes are concerned.’
‘I’ll let that insult pass,’ she told him, smiling. ‘Anyway, it was my fault too. I was cross with Ruggiero for asking your permission to take me out, and you got the backlash. I should have remembered that he’s Italian and they have more formal ideas about families.’
He dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck and she shivered with pleasure.
‘I don’t think you should do that when we’re going to the party in a few minutes,’ she said in a shaking voice.
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Perhaps it’s not very wise. I just wanted you to know-well, anyway. Shall we go downstairs?’
‘While we still can?’
‘Yes,’ he growled.
From the moment they appeared Evie knew that the evening was going to be a triumphant success. The food was laid out on long, groaning tables-Neapolitan grain pie, sauteed artichokes with baby potatoes, fruits, creams, the best wines served in fine crystal.
Hope had left nothing to chance, something which, Evie was beginning to feel, was typical of her. The young girl whose baby had been brutally stolen had grown into a woman of authority, armoured, imposing her will on life.
Times had changed. The child who once had to be hidden could now be announced to the world, and she was going to glory in it.
Justin and Mark stood by her side as a hundred guests arrived, and within an hour everyone in the room knew who he was. This might be Hope’s night, but it was also his.
When everyone had something to eat and drink Evie looked for Hope.
‘Thank you,’ she said, touching the diamonds. ‘They’re beautiful. Justin said that they were your own.’
‘Yes. They were given to me years ago by my husband. Toni knows I have given them to you, and he agrees. We hope that soon you will be one of us.’
She floated away without giving Evie a chance to confirm or deny it. That was her way. Hope Rinucci had made her wishes known. With amusement, Evie realised that she had been not so much welcomed into the family as ordered into it.
‘You look lonely,’ said a voice beside her in Italian. It was Primo.
‘No, I’m not lonely. I’ve just been talking to Hope.’
‘Has my mother told you what she’s planned for you?’ Primo asked with a grin.
‘Something like that.’
‘Don’t be annoyed with her, Evie. She has a kind heart and she wants everyone to be as happy as she is.’
‘I know that. I’m not annoyed.’
He held out his arms. ‘The music’s starting. Dance with me.’
As they waltzed he said, ‘You’re causing a sensation tonight. No man can take his eyes off you, and they all envy Justin.’
‘Stop talking nonsense,’ she told him demurely.
He laughed and they danced contentedly for a while. It was true, what he had said. All eyes were on her. Men clamoured for her hand, but she sat out the next dance, talking to Primo.
Then she saw Justin coming towards them and wondered if he would ask her to dance. But something stopped him when he was near, and he turned aside to sweep a beauty into his arms.
‘Primo, you must stop doing that,’ Evie said.
‘What am I doing?’ he asked innocently.
‘Talking to me in Italian. That’s what puts Justin off. It excludes him, you know that.’
His shrug was expressive. ‘Excludes? Do you think he feels excluded now that he has been included in so much that he never had before? He’s the hero of the hour.’
She stared. ‘You dislike him, don’t you?’
‘Why are you surprised? He’s not a man who’s easy to like.’
‘I suppose it’s-all this talk about brothers.’
‘But we’re not brothers. There’s no blood tie between us at all. He is my mother’s son-and I am not.’
The touch of bitterness in his voice was like a blindfold being torn from her eyes.
‘You’re jealous,’ she said incredulously.
‘Of course I am. Why not? Because I’m a grown man and you think such feelings are only for children?’
‘I suppose I meant something like that,’ she said wryly. ‘But it’s nonsense, of course. There’s always a small part of the child that never entirely grows up. It stays with the adult like a little ghost, haunting him and colouring all his thoughts and feelings.’
After a moment Primo nodded and said in a more sympathetic voice, ‘I see. Him too.’
‘Naturally. What do you think it was like for him, thinking himself unwanted by two mothers? You’ve nothing to feel jealous about.’
‘I’m surprised at you, Evie. You of all people should understand Italians better, for I consider myself Italian despite my English father. We’re not like the cold-blooded Anglo-Saxons. For us the family is still the centre of everything, and the mother is the centre of the family. That was true in the past, it is true now, and it always will be.
‘Hope has been the only mother I ever knew. In my childhood we were exceptionally close. For years I regarded myself as her eldest son. Then I discovered that I wasn’t. I began to wonder if our closeness had been an illusion. Was I no more than a stopgap for the son she’d lost?’
Evie made a sudden gesture. His words were so uncannily reminiscent of what Justin had said of his own adoptive parents.
‘But it was you who found him,’ Evie reminded Primo. ‘You’ve searched for years.’
‘For her sake. I wanted her to be happy. Now she is, and I am glad. But also-’ he gave a sheepish smile ‘-I am jealous.’
‘But you won’t let it spoil things, will you?’ she pleaded.
‘Of course not. Despite what I said before, he is my brother. But who says that brothers have to agree all the time?’
She slipped away from him, brooding on his words and trying to ignore a little voice in her head that said something was wrong. On the surface all was well, with Justin, as Primo had said, ‘the hero of the hour’.
And yet, she thought, troubled, and yet-
‘Is it my turn now?’
