Will Melissa Kite’s former Italian waiter boyfriend stir up trouble again?

‘Piccolo problemo.’ Luigi, the hotel manager, delivered the fateful news as he served me my first lemon soda of the holiday on his sun-drenched terrace. Francesco, an old flame, had discovered that my mother and I were booked in at the hotel this week and had rung to inquire about the date of our arrival.

‘I say maybe you come this week, maybe next, I don’t know,’ said Luigi, smiling enigmatically. He never approved of my liaison with a local. It was several years ago now.

My family had been regular visitors to the small Italian resort for a long time when, one summer, after calling off my wedding and other rushes of blood to the head, I started dating Francesco, a waiter from a nearby town with no very astonishing prospects. Luigi locked me out of the hotel when I was late back after my first night out with him. He was right, of course.