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

‘ Wages ?’ Benedetta began shouting again at Amy, this time in Italian, that she would get no wages, she must go this very minute and pack her bags, then leave Casa Felice and never return.

The English tourists were obviously not following shrieked Italian but they all blinked as Benedetta shoved Amy again, presumably to encourage her to her room to pack. Amy, not understanding, began to cry.

Sofia lifted her voice. ‘Maybe we could discuss this indoors in private, Benedetta?’ When ignored, she repeated the suggestion in Italian.

Benedetta turned her wrath down a notch, perhaps seeing in Sofia an experienced hand. ‘She’s too young for this job. I need to get someone new from the website,’ she explained in the same language.

Sofia took a deep breath. ‘Actually, it was Davide. He made a nuisance of himself and when Amy put a stop to it he got his revenge by bumping her tray. I’m afraid I saw him do it.’

Davide stopped smirking and began to protest ‘Eh, eh!’ as Italian-speaking customers turned to gaze reproachfully at him.

‘What’s that you’re saying?’ demanded Mrs Coffee Trousers.

Sofia, despite a growing feeling that crossing the excitable Benedetta might result in her soon joining Amy in clearing her room, repeated her accusation in English. The English-speaking customers swivelled suspicious gazes towards Davide too.

‘No!’ remonstrated Benedetta with an air of injured reproach. ‘Not Davide.’

Then a man appeared beside the group, raking back fair hair damp with perspiration. In his thirties, he carried a red crash helmet and a black biker jacket, his lower half encased in protective gear. ‘She’s right. I saw this waiter do it.’ He turned a fierce glare on Davide. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, getting this young girl in bother and then grinning about it.’

‘Eh, eh!’ protested Davide again. ‘She dropped it. She is clumsy. It’s not my fault.’

‘She did not drop it!’ Sofia glanced at Biker Man, hopeful that this English tourist would continue to support her. ‘You’ve been brushing your … the front of your trousers against her and when she hit you with her tray, you got your revenge. And you went in and told tales to your mother.’ For Benedetta’s benefit, she repeated her allegation in Italian. Biker Man nodded, arms folded, interposing at intervals, ‘That’s absolutely right!’ even at the Italian bits.

Benedetta, visibly dismayed by the way things were going, dropped her voice to a confidential murmur. ‘We talk indoors, Amy.’ Rounding on Davide she snapped at him in Italian to give Mrs Coffee Trousers and her coterie their drinks on the house in lieu of paying the cleaning bill and then take over Amy’s tables as well as his own.

She made to usher Amy inside but Biker Man began to follow. ‘I’m here to check into the hotel, but I won’t be doing so until I have your assurance that this young girl still has a job.’

Sofia felt her mouth drop open. Biker Man was certainly taking his support of Amy seriously. What was it about blondes? Men all seemed to act like fools where they were concerned.

Benedetta hurriedly backtracked to pat Amy’s arm and turn her in the direction of her tables. ‘You stay. It’s OK. You work. I ’pologise for my son.’ She turned a smile on Biker Man. ‘You are a hotel guest? Welcome to Casa Felice. Please follow me.’ Glaring at Davide as she passed, she ushered Biker Man towards the cool interior of the hotel.

Just before he disappeared, the man turned and gave Sofia a grin and a wink.

She gazed after him, lips parting in astonishment.

A scowling Davide silently cleared up the mess of spilled coffee and broken crockery and Sofia gave Amy’s arm a quick pat. ‘How about you pop and get these lovely ladies cake to go with their fresh coffees. Signora Morbidelli said it was on the house.’

‘That’s very good of you,’ the prosecco ladies said to Sofia, and ‘Isn’t that good of her?’ to each other.

‘ Thank you,’ Amy whispered as they both headed to the bar. She was clinging to Sofia’s arm as if she were even younger than her eighteen years. ‘I don’t know what I would’ve done if she’d sacked me. That man turned up just at the right time.’

‘Yes, it was lucky the guest saw everything.’ Sofia placed a slight emphasis on the word guest , but decided that now was not the time to point out more clearly that the residents of the hotel were always referred to respectfully. ‘If you want to clear tables for a bit I can take orders from your section until you’re feeling better.’ Or feeling a bit less Jekyll and Hyde. She would never have suspected Amy of being capable of swinging so rapidly from sweet and mild to angry and vengeful if she hadn’t witnessed it.

A few minutes later, encountering Davide at the kitchen hatch, Sofia treated him to her widest smile. ‘Shall we forget that all happened and just be friends?’

Davide spat out a word Aldo had told Sofia never to use, prompting the dad of a nearby Italian family to berate him for his language.

‘So that’s a “no” then.’ Sofia turned briskly and headed off towards a new table of red-faced, sweaty tourists to fulfil their urgent requests for cold drinks.

Levi left the storm in a teacup behind him and followed the woman indoors to the reception desk, bemused by her speedy change of mood – only seconds ago she’d been bandying about threats of the sack but now she was beaming benevolently as she indicated the well-groomed young woman behind the reception desk. ‘My daughter Aurora will be delighted to check you in.’

Aurora, looking to be in her twenties and oozing Italian chic – or whatever the Italian for chic was – smiled at Levi as if nothing would give her greater pleasure. ‘May I take your name?’

‘Levi Gunn.’ He was glad the personnel at the hotel spoke English as he’d had no opportunity to brush up on even a few Italian phrases before rushing off on this trip. While Aurora took him through the check-in process, he planted his Joe Rocket textile jacket and unpleasantly sweaty crash helmet on the desk. The armour in both jacket and his bike pants was essential for the road but less suitable for the blazing sun at a journey’s end. At his last stop-off, near Verona, he’d wrung his T-shirt out in cold water before putting it on beneath his bike jacket, but he still felt like a steamed fish.

Or was he just hot with anger at the scene he’d witnessed? His instinct to help the sobbing girl had seized him like a giant hand. Supporting the protests of the other waitress had done the trick. The blonde waitress’s job seemed saved and the dark-haired one had smiled at him, even though her eyes had been alive with curiosity.

Aurora finished tapping at her computer keyboard and took a printout from the printer tray. ‘You have room 303, which has a balcony looking over the town of Montelibertà. Hotel residents have use of the terrace at the rear of the hotel, with a fantastic view across the valley and of other peaks in the Umbrian mountains. The terrace leads from the dining room on the lower level and many guests choose to take their breakfast there.’

‘Sounds great. I like to paint landscapes so the terrace sounds wonderful.’

Aurora smiled as she turned the printout towards him and passed him a pen. ‘You will find many beautiful views to paint here. Please, if you need information or recommendations, let me know. Casa Felice is a family concern. My mother expects us all to work hard at pleasing our guests.’

‘I’m sure she always puts the guests first,’ Levi said dryly, thinking again of the crying waitress. Once he’d been given a key card he reluctantly closed his ears to the call of a frosty beer in Il Giardino and clumped across the small lobby in his biking boots, back out into the sun that blazed down on his fair English head. In the car park his Ducati Diavel, black with a red sub-frame and flashes, still radiated heat from the long trek across England, France, Germany, Austria and Italy in three days of hard riding. He didn’t hang around as he transferred tightly rolled underwear, T-shirts and shorts out of his panniers, the nearest things to luggage compartments on a bike, and into the cotton sack he kept for the purpose. All the while, he kept an eye on Il Giardino and the staff weaving their way between busy tables.