The Helen Bianchin Collection. Helen Bianchin

must phone and see if she has the ribbon ready.’ She gathered cups and saucers together onto the tray while Gianna set some almond biscuits onto a plate.

      ‘The men won’t touch them, but if I don’t put a plate down with something Luigi will complain.’ She lifted a hand and let it fall to her side. ‘Yet when I produce it, he’ll say they don’t want biscuits with coffee.’ Her humour was wry. ‘Men. Who can understand them?’ She cast a practised eye over the tray. ‘We have everything. Let’s join them, shall we?’

      All three men were grouped together in front of the television engrossed in a televised, soccer match.

      Luigi was intent on berating the goal keeper for presumably missing the ball, Aysha determined, and her father appeared equally irate.

      ‘Turn off the set,’ Gianna instructed Luigi as she placed the tray down onto a coffee table. ‘We have guests.’

      ‘Nonsense,’ he grumbled. ‘They’re family, not guests.’

      ‘It is impossible to talk with you yelling at the players.’ She cast him a stern glance. ‘Besides, you are taping it. When you replay you can yell all you like. Now we sit down and have coffee.’

      ‘La moglie.’ He raised his eyes heavenward.

      ‘Dio madonna. A man is not boss in his own house any more?’

      It was a familiar by-play, and one Aysha had heard many times over the years. Her father played a similar verbal game whenever Gianna and Luigi visited.

      Her eyes sought Carlo’s, and she glimpsed the faint humorous gleam evident as they waited silently for Gianna to take up the figurative ball.

      ‘Of course you are the boss. You need me to tell you this?’

      Luigi cast the tray an accusing glance. ‘You brought biscuits? What for? We don’t need biscuits with coffee. It spoils the taste of the grappa.’

      ‘Teresa and Aysha don’t have grappa,’ she admonished. ‘You don’t think maybe we might like biscuits?’

      ‘After cannoli you eat biscuits? You won’t sleep with indigestion.’

      ‘I won’t sleep anyway. After grappa you snore.’

      ‘I don’t snore.’

      ‘How do you know? Do you listen to yourself?’

      Luigi spread his hands in an expansive gesture. ‘Ah, Mamma, give it up, huh? We are with friends. You cooked a good dinner. Now it is time to relax.’ He held out a beckoning hand to Aysha. ‘Come here, ma tesora.’

      She crossed to his side and rested against the arm he curved round her waist.

      ‘When are you going to invite us to dinner at the new house?’

      ‘After they get back from the honeymoon,’ Gianna declared firmly. ‘Not before. It will bring bad luck.’

      Luigi didn’t take any notice. ‘Soon there will be bambini. Maybe already there is one started, huh, and you didn’t tell us?’

      ‘You talk too much,’ his wife chastised. ‘Didn’t you hear Aysha say she intends to wait a couple of years? Aysha, don’t listen to him.’

      ‘Ah, grandchildren. You have a boy first, to kick the soccer ball. Then a girl. The brother can look after his sister.’

      ‘Two boys,’ Giuseppe insisted, joining the conversation. ‘Then they can play together.’

      ‘Girls,’ Aysha declared solemnly. ‘They’re smarter, and besides they get to help me in the house.’

      ‘A boy and a girl.’

      ‘If you two vecchios have finished planning our children,’ Carlo intruded mildly as he extricated Aysha from his father’s clasp. ‘I’m going to take Aysha home.’

      ‘Vecchios? You call us old men?’ Giuseppe demanded, a split second ahead of Luigi’s query,

      ‘What are you doing going home? It’s early.’

      ‘Why do you think they’re going home?’ Gianna disputed. ‘They’re young. They want to, make love.’

      ‘Perhaps we should fool them and stay,’ Aysha suggested in an audible aside, and Carlo shook his head.

      ‘It wouldn’t make any difference.’

      ‘But I haven’t had my coffee.’

      ‘You don’t need the caffeine.’

      ‘Making decisions for me?’

      ‘Looking out for you,’ Carlo corrected gently. ‘A few hours ago you had a headache. Unless I’m wrong, you’re still nursing one.’

      So he deserved full marks for observation. Without a further word she turned towards Luigi and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, then she followed suit with her father before crossing to Teresa and Gianna.

      Saying goodbye stretched out to ten minutes, then they made it to the car, and seconds later Carlo eased the Mercedes through the gates and out onto the road.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      ‘YOU threw me to the lions.’

      ‘Wrong century, cara,’ he informed her wryly. ‘And the so-called lions are pussy cats at heart.’

      ‘Teresa doesn’t always sheath her claws.’ It was an observation, not a condemnation. ‘There are occasions when being the only chick in the nest is a tremendous burden.’

      ‘Only if you allow it to be.’

      The headache seemed to intensify, and she closed her eyes. ‘Intent on playing amateur psychologist, Carlo?’

      ‘Friend.’

      Ah, now there’s a descriptive allocation, Aysha reflected. Friend. It had a affectionate feel to it, but affection was a poor substitute for love. The all-encompassing kind that prompted men to kill and die for it.

      She lapsed into silence as the car headed down towards Double Bay.

      ‘How’s the headache?’

      It had become a persistent ache behind one eye that held the promise of flaring into a migraine unless she took painkillers very soon. ‘There,’ she informed succinctly, and closed her eyes against the glare of oncoming headlights.

      Carlo didn’t offer another word during the drive to Clontarf, for which she was grateful, and she reached for the door-clasp as soon as the car drew to a halt outside the main entrance to the house.

      Aysha turned to thank him, only to have the words die in her throat at his bleak expression.

      ‘Don’t even think about uttering a word,’ he warned.

      ‘Don’t tell me,’ she dismissed wearily. ‘You’re intent on playing nurse.’

      His silence was an eloquent testament of his intention, and she slid from the car and mounted the few steps to the front door.

      Within minutes he’d located painkillers and was handing them to her together with a tumbler of water.

      ‘Take them.’

      She swallowed both tablets, then spared him a dark glance. ‘Yessir.’

      ‘Don’t be sassy,’ he said gently.

      Damn him. She didn’t need for him to be considerate. Macho she could handle. His gentleness simply undid her completely.

      Aysha knew she should object as he took hold of her hand and led her to one of the cushioned sofas, then pulled her down onto his lap, but it felt so good her murmur of protest never found voice.

      Just close your eyes and enjoy,