The next day, and Grace was feeling very fragile as she climbed inside the taxi that had arrived to take them to Portofino to visit the jeweller’s. One look at Ellis and she could see that he felt the same way too, with his Ray-Ban shades firmly in place and a pale tinge to his usually tanned face. His dark brown curls were much messier than usual too.

They had ended up staying at the powder pink villa until late in the evening, having watched the stunning sunset over the Italian Riviera and eating al fresco on the veranda. An exquisite feast prepared by a local chef of ham and mozzarella Stromboli followed by scallop and pesto linguine, then marinated cherries with mascarpone and amaretto biscuits. Many bottles of locally sourced prosecco accompanied the meal, finished off with grappa shots so strong that Grace had gasped and pressed a hand to her chest on trying one. Ellis had been spared the grappa experience as his mobile had rung, having recharged on Tom’s charger, and it had actually been Jennifer calling to talk to him. Grace had heard him say something to her about it being late here in Italy and that he’d catch up with her properly in the morning, but she must have been insistent as Ellis had wandered off to the far side of the pool for some privacy.

And then later, even through her own merry state, Grace remembered him being unusually monosyllabic in the taxi back to the hotel. Or maybe it was the hare-brained way the driver had chatted on in Italian without drawing breath and gesticulating animatedly as he tore around the hairpin bends in the road, boldly close to the cliff’s edge. Grace recalled gripping the door handle so tightly that her knuckles had still been aching when she’d climbed into bed what felt like just a few hours ago. She pulled her own shades on and sipped some more water from a bottle in her hand.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said, seeing that it was almost ten past eleven on the clock on the dashboard and they had agreed to meet outside the hotel at 11 a.m. ‘It took me longer than usual to galvanise myself into action.’

‘No worries, Grace,’ Ellis said, more formally than usual, continuing to look out of the window and away from her. She pulled the seatbelt over her shoulder and wondered what was up with him. She hadn’t seen him hungover before so maybe this was just his way, detached and quiet.

‘Are you OK?’ she checked.

‘Sure. You?’ he replied, folding his arms.

‘Yes, just about. I’m not used to late nights or grappa shots, come to think of it. But I had a great time. Did you?’ she tried again.

‘Yes. A great time.’ He didn’t expand any more than that and stayed staring out of the window. Grace, not wanting anything to spoil their last whole day here, decided not to question him further, and so instead settled back in the worn leather seat and focused on admiring the view as the driver set off. She was grateful to be on the sea-view side of the car and stared, mesmerised, at the magnificence of the rugged, rocky shoreline as the taxi zipped along the costal road, imagining herself to be Audrey Hepburn in the Galaxy chocolate advert with ‘Moon River’ playing in the background. With the timeless, pastel-coloured houses coming into view and the lack of the commercial petrol stations, Costa coffee outlets and suchlike that were on every corner in London, Grace was able to imagine being back in the Fifties and to experience the view just as Connie had done when she had travelled in the open-top car to Portofino and then on to San Fruttuoso, which she wrote so beautifully about in her diary.

On arriving in Portofino, Grace stepped out of the taxi and was delighted when the driver told them they weren’t far from the main piazzetta square, just a short walk away in fact, and where the bustle of the shops and cafés were beside the water’s edge.

‘Shall we head to the harbour first?’ Grace said, keen to see if she could find the spot where Connie had been standing in the photo that had fallen out of the back of her diary. The one where she couldn’t be sure if Connie was feeling sad or shy.

Grace had scanned it and was now searching on her mobile to find it. ‘Here it is.’ She turned her screen towards Ellis.

‘Cool. Let’s do that and I can take a picture of you in the same spot,’ he smiled, and Grace’s spirits lifted on seeing that he seemed to have perked up. He had most likely just been feeling as fragile as she had in the taxi. She couldn’t expect him to be upbeat for every second of the time they were here together. They were just two … She paused her thoughts to wonder what exactly they were, before settling on ‘friends’, then swiftly changing it to ‘colleagues’, after all, who had kind of been put together.

Moments later, and Grace was sure that she had found the same place where the black-and-white photo had been taken by the water’s edge. To her left she could see the rows of tall, narrow houses, only in real life they were warm, earthy tones of sun-faded orange and yellow, pink and white. Colourful bunting buffeted between lampposts, giving the place a special carnival atmosphere, even though it was an ordinary day for the people lucky enough to live here. The cafés and shops below, with their awnings extended and paper lanterns swaying in the warm breeze, were exactly the same all these years later. And the domed building on the cliffside, which she now knew from Google was called Divo Martino church, was in the same spot, she could see, as she lifted her phone and placed the picture of the photo up in the air beside it. So it had to be where Connie had stood. And it was glorious and marvellous and thrilling to have time-travelled almost, back to when Connie, a woman in her twenties, had been here too. But the moment was tinged with sadness because Grace couldn’t help wondering how Connie had gone from being here, surrounded by such beauty, to a sparse flat in London.

‘It’s awesome to think that Connie and Giovanni were right here,’ Ellis said, lifting his shades to get a better look at the screen of Grace’s phone. ‘I reckon Connie was just about there …’ He pointed to a spot in front of them.

‘I think so too,’ Grace beamed, her heart lifting on taking it all in, and determined to savour the experience of being here instead of dwelling on Connie’s eventual fate.

‘OK. Strike a pose and I’ll take a picture,’ he said, taking her phone from her hands. Grace had just tidied her hair and straightened her sundress when an older man wearing a black cap came along and said something in Italian to Ellis, motioning with his hands for Ellis to move next to her, presumably so he could be in the picture too. Ellis responded in Italian but the man was insistent, saying,

‘Show her you love her,’ in heavily accented English, and literally took Ellis by the arm and placed him next to Grace. ‘Bellissime,’ he declared, touching his fingertips to his lips in a kiss before majestically lifting the now open hand up to the air. Only, he still wasn’t satisfied, and motioned for Ellis to place his arm around Grace.

‘Do you mind? If only to make an old man happy,’ Ellis whispered out of the side of his mouth, treating her to a big burst of his citrusy scent as he moved in close.

‘Of course not,’ Grace replied, through a smile, and as Ellis put his arm around her and gently cupped her shoulder, she secretly allowed herself a moment to believe she was here with him as more than a colleague, or indeed a friend, because her whole body was tingling from the close proximity of his touch. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before, yet it made no sense, as her head knew that he was with Jennifer, but her body clearly hadn’t cottoned on. And she most definitely wasn’t mistaken in sensing that he felt it too, as he was drawing her in even closer now as she instinctively lifted her arm and let it move around his firm back. She could feel his taut abdominal muscles under her fingertips as they curled around his body.