In the Italian's Sights. Helen Brooks

said passionately, ‘and I could never love anyone else. It is foolish to make us wait. I tell Vittorio this but he will not listen. He has the heart of ice, not of fire.’

      After a while both girls settled down for a siesta in the shade of the trees, the chirruping of birds and the lazy hum of bees in the surrounding vegetation the only sound disturbing the warm scented air. Cherry could hardly believe she’d told a virtual stranger about Liam and Angela, but then maybe it was because Sophia was a stranger that it had proved so easy. That and these incredibly beautiful and surreal surroundings.

      This whole interlude felt like a step out of time, she thought drowsily in the moments before sleep overcame her. It was as though she had been transported to another dimension—a dimension ruled by a dark and autocratic overlord with a heart of stone.