Sue Moorcroft - One Summer in Italy - The most uplifting summer romance you need to read in 2018

Now Aldo opened his eyes and continued as if he hadn’t heard her questions. ‘Go to Montelibertà and drink Orvieto Classico as it’s meant to be drunk – designed for the Italian palate, not the British one.’ He paused. His breathing paused, too. Restarted. ‘If you see your Uncle Gianni, tell him I’m sorry.’

She used the heels of her hands to wipe her tears away. It was frustrating that her father was dodging her questions once again, but he was so gravely ill now that it would be unkind to press him on why he wanted to apologise to the brother he’d been estranged from for decades. ‘I will.’ She took his hand.

Aldo’s smile was so faint she almost missed it. ‘The last promise then. Be happy , Sofia. Be happy.’

‘I promise,’ she whispered.

The following year, as tourist season begins

Promises #1, #2 and #3: Don’t Mope. Do all the things single women do. Visit Montelibertà.

Sofia could see what Davide was up to. Threading between the black iron tables of Il Giardino he was deliberately brushing against Amy, apparently irresistibly drawn to her blonde-haired, blue-eyed prettiness.

Like Sofia, Amy had only been working at the hotel Casa Felice for ten days. As Davide had been away on a course, this was the first time their duties had brought them all together yet Sofia had heard Davide ask Amy for a date within ten minutes of the start of the shift. Not visibly rebuffed by her gasp of dismay and embarrassed head-shake, he’d then proceeded to behave like a Jack Russell in heat.

Sofia’s protective instincts were roused by her friend’s obvious distress. Amy was eighteen and this was her first summer job, for crying out loud! Davide was at least a decade her senior and the son of the owner. Sofia timed her next run to the kitchen hatch to coincide with Amy’s. ‘Are you OK?’ she whispered.

Amy’s eyes sparkled with angry tears as she balanced two pâté boards and an order of truffles on her tray. ‘Davide’s being a creep.’

‘He certainly is. I’m just checking you’re aware he’s Benedetta’s son—’

‘Don’t care! I’m not putting up with him rubbing his yucky “bits” on my bum.’ Amy spun on her heel with a swish of her blonde ponytail and made for a table of three middle-aged Englishwomen who’d whiled away the wait for food with a couple of bottles of prosecco.

Powerless to help, Sofia continued to run food and drink to her own tables, swinging fully laden trays up onto her flattened hand. It was hard work in the midday sun and the mercury was soaring even at the beginning of June. She watched her section, whipping out pen and pad to take orders then running the food and drink to the appropriate table. Quick, brisk, hurry. Smile, smile, smile. Take money. Clear tables; sanitise. Ignore burning feet and aching back …

‘YAH! Ungh !’

Sofia halted, sanitising spray poised as her eyes hunted out the origin of the strangled cries. In front of the corner of the bar Davide was doubled over, eyes bulging.

Nearby, a flushed Amy swung an empty tray. ‘Sorry. You startled me and my tray slipped.’ Then she loaded her next order of drinks and glided rapidly away without troubling to hide a triumphant grin.

Sofia smiled back uneasily, not missing the malevolent glare Davide directed at Amy’s rear view. ‘Keep an eye on him now,’ Sofia murmured when she contrived to make their paths converge at the bar. ‘What did you do?’ She cast a glance at Davide, who’d managed to straighten up and was taking an order from an Italian family.

‘Hit him in the ’nads with my tray. He might keep them further away from me in future.’ But the first flush of victory was obviously fading and Amy was beginning to look apprehensive as she slid four coffees onto the tray-slash-weapon.

Sofia wiped her hands on her apron and arranged her own tray so that it balanced before following in Amy’s wake. Amy was evidently given to impetuous action when threatened, but Sofia knew Davide’s type. He might not take long to strike back.

Smiling through the familiar routine of ‘Whose is the Cappuccino? And the Americano?’ with her customers, Sofia watched with a sinking sense of inevitability as Davide slunk up behind Amy at the table of the prosecco ladies just as she began the rotation of the wrist that would arc a tray full of steaming coffee cups from her shoulder to the table.

All it took was for Davide to shoot out a furtive arm.

The tray flipped off Amy’s hand … slap into the lap of one of the customers.

‘Ow, ow, ow!’ The woman leaped to her feet, dragging steaming fabric away from her legs. ‘You stupid girl! My best white linen trousers! How could you be so clumsy?’

‘I’m sorry!’ Amy, pale and shocked, glanced frantically behind her, obviously suspecting the tray had had some help in its flight. But Davide had lost no time in gliding away and was already watching from the shady doorway that led to reception.

‘Excuse me!’ Sofia plonked down the final Americano and raced between the craning guests, whipping off her apron. Reaching the unfortunate customer, she dunked the white cotton into the meltwater surrounding upended prosecco bottles in the ice bucket. ‘If you’d like to sit down I’ll put this over your legs in case you’ve been scalded. It’ll dilute the coffee, too. I know it’s not comfortable but I’m sure Casa Felice will pay for cleaning. Amy’s right to apologise, but I do think she was jostled.’

‘I was.’ Amy’s bottom lip began to quiver. ‘I’m very sorry – but the tray just seemed to leap off my hand.’

‘Oh, yes, trays are full of tricks like that,’ Mrs Coffee Trousers retorted. But then, seeing everyone staring at her, sat down and let Sofia lay the cold cloth across her thighs.

‘It’ll soon dry in this heat,’ remarked one of her companions from the comfortable position of not having been bathed in near-boiling liquid. She smiled at Amy. ‘Don’t you worry, darlin’. Worse things happen at sea.’

Sofia was just about to suggest Amy return to the bar to ask for the coffee order to be repeated when Benedetta barrelled out through the double doors of the hotel with Davide a few steps behind. Sofia’s heart dropped. Benedetta Morbidelli, an impressive mix of immaculate and statuesque, owned all of hotel Casa Felice and its café, Il Giardino. By the look of Davide’s smirk, he’d lit his mother’s blue touch paper and was now intending to watch her explode.

‘Sacked! Go, you!’ Benedetta yelled at Amy, her dark ‘updo’ quivering as she made extravagant shooing motions with her hands.

Amy’s lip quivered harder. ‘But it wasn’t my fault—’

‘Pack! Go!’ Benedetta thundered up to the table and gave Amy a little shove with her well-manicured fingertips.

‘But it wasn’t her fault,’ protested Sofia. She turned to give Davide a pointed stare, raising her voice over the sound of a motorbike arriving in the hotel car park beyond a row of flower tubs. ‘ Someone knocked her.’

‘There was a young man nearby,’ said the same prosecco lady who’d tried to calm things before.

‘ Go !’ Benedetta shouted in Amy’s face.

Amy took a frightened step back, stuttering piteously. ‘I h-haven’t got anywhere to go. I’m supposed to stay here till S-September.’

‘Look! Look what you do to my customer!’ Benedetta lifted the wetted apron off the maltreated prosecco lady’s legs.

Mrs Coffee Trousers was beginning to look discomfited. ‘You shouldn’t sack her. Even if she wasn’t jostled it was an accident and you’ve got no call to push her around, neither. You could get sued for that.’

‘I’ll pay for the cleaning,’ Amy quavered, before adding, wretchedly. ‘Once I’ve had some wages.’