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‘Then she wastes her time.’

Geo nodded. ‘I do believe Donatella would marry me on my deathbed just to get her hands on the title.’

‘I don’t doubt it,’ Gabe agreed, trying to steer him from talk of titles and future wives that would never happen. ‘But you were never going to marry again— Nonna was the love of your life.’

‘Oh, she was,’ he sighed fondly. ‘You don’t remember her, do you?’

‘I was three when she died,’ Gabe, ever practical and not drawn to sentiment, pointed out.

‘You must remember something?’

Gabe tried, he really did. ‘She wore a long dress for the May ball…’

‘That’s not a memory,’ he huffed. ‘That’s from a photo. Surely you remember something of her?’

Gabe tried to think. It was one of his grandfather’s frequent requests, but he was unable to conjure up a memory that simply didn’t exist.

‘I am glad for her that she died when she did.’ Geo was labile this morning. ‘That she didn’t have to suffer their loss.’

‘Don’t think of that now.’

‘I never stop thinking of it.’ He weakly thumped the bed, the agony still present, almost a quarter of a century on. ‘Losing them was hard enough, but then the filthy press saying my son killed his family…’

‘Hey,’ Gabe intervened, and in a rare display of affection he took the old man’s hand, startled at how frail it felt beneath his, feeling the bones and sinew as he attempted to pull away, but Gabe held on and finally his proud grandfather accepted his touch. ‘They were proven wrong. We know the truth.’

‘Do we? Were they fighting, Gabe?’

‘I’ve told you many times, no.’

‘I know, and the coroner said the same, but there is much you don’t tell me.’

‘Because I don’t remember much.’

‘Or are you just trying to spare my feelings, to protect their memory?’

‘I was ten when it happened. I was in no mind to spare anyone’s feelings. They were happy, singing to a song on the radio…’

‘What song?’

‘I can’t remember.’

‘It was instant—’ Geo begged for the same reassurance he always did ‘—for all of them?’

‘Yes, it was instant.’ Gabe briefly pressed his fingers into his eyes. He dared not go there, simply could not relive it.

‘I didn’t hear what you said.’

‘Yes!’ he almost shouted.

No.

Not quite.

But, that their deaths had all been instant, was his grandfather’s one solace and anyway those moments were not ones he wanted to share.

He just hoped to God he’d done things right.

‘Your parents were so happy,’ Geo wept. ‘They had a wonderful marriage.’