Picture of Innocence. JACQUELINE BAIRD

it frightened her.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were an artist when we met?’

      ‘You never asked.’

      ‘I did ask why you were at the Contessa’s—you could have told me then.’

      ‘I could—but as you had just tried to have me thrown out of the building and called me a plump, brainless, badly dressed and mousy woman the day before, I didn’t think you deserved an answer.’

      ‘I’m sorry. I want to apologise for that day in my office. My comment was totally uncalled-for. I had a picture of you in my mind from the first time I saw you at my brother’s apartment in London. You were a schoolgirl in a baggy sweater and pigtails, and I didn’t really look past that.’

      ‘I thought there was something familiar about you!’ Lucy exclaimed, a long-forgotten memory surfacing of a big, dark frowning man in a dark suit once arriving at Antonio’s apartment as she was leaving.

      ‘Yes, well—now I know my view of you was totally false,’ he said, with a self-derisory smile. ‘But you caught me on a really bad day. My business lunch had gone on for far longer than it should have and I was badly delayed. I was running hopelessly late—unheard of for me. I’m not usually so.’