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No, even if it made no sense after their day, she didn’t want them to be that.

‘I can’t have you pretending to be asleep all night,’ she teased as they walked across the terrazzo. ‘Wishing I’d get up and leave.’

‘You’re never going to let me forget that…’ he started and then paused, for those words sounded a little as if there was a future—little teases, and the games lovers played.

But he didn’t do all that.

‘Never.’ Stella smiled. Dragging out that smile was hard, but then they stopped walking and she turned to face him. ‘I do think it’s better that I go.’

‘Okay.’

‘I’ll drive you down,’ he said, ‘but I’ll kiss you goodbye here.’

It was soft and sad, their lips knowing this was their last.

‘No regrets,’ he said.

‘None.’ Her hands were on his shoulders and she stared into his eyes and managed a smile, then it widened a touch more naturally. She could never regret this day or this night.

The most wonderful birthday of her life.

Then something caught her eye and for a second she glanced up, feeling as if they were being watched.

He turned his head and followed the line of her eyes.

‘It will be the nurse closing his curtains.’ Then he turned back to her. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay…something to eat at least?’

‘I’d better not.’ Every moment she felt weaker, or rather, deeper into him, and she might fail to surface with a smile in the morning when it came to goodbye. ‘I really do need to go.’

And so she got back into his car and all too soon they were back at the hotel and neither wanted to risk one more kiss.

‘Good luck finding somewhere for your movie.’

‘Thank you, and good luck with…’ she looked at him ‘…well, all that’s ahead.’

Gabe knew the second their slice of paradise really had run out. ‘Here they are…’

‘Who?’

‘The press.’

He let out an angry hiss and Stella watched as a lot of hard cases and equipment started to be unloaded.

‘You really hate them.’

He nodded. ‘Her in particular,’ He nodded in the direction of a middle-aged woman. ‘She was young then and trying to make a name for herself. I spent three hours listening to her describe my family…’ He’d better explain. ‘The radio was on in the car. They did a live broadcast, making up salacious stories.’

‘You could hear what they were saying?’

‘Yep, I never lost consciousness. I heard them tear apart my father, saying that he’d had some financial problems, then they started on my mother, saying she might have been depressed after the baby. They just made it all up.’

No wonder he hated them so.

He didn’t ask to come to her suite, nor suggest she stay one final time. It was proving difficult too for Gabe.

He sat as she climbed out of the car, and she could feel his eyes on her as she entered the Bella Vista and refused to turn around just to see him drive away.

It was a rather puffy-eyed Stella who checked out of the hotel the next morning, and Gabe had been right—the press were everywhere, all piling into cars, preparing to camp out as close to the palazzo as possible, Pino explained as they drove away.