He sat in the front, leaving them together in the back, just sitting, holding hands, not speaking through the roar of the engine, simply content in their discovery. As they sped across the water he wondered where the future led. He had only to glance at the faces of the mother and child in the back to know that each of them had all they wanted.
At last the boat came to a halt in the Fondamenta Soranzo.
'You need to be here tonight,' he said in answer to Julia's look of surprise.
While waiting for Julia's arrival he'd already called Gemma to say that Rosa was safe, so they arrived to find the apartment empty, Gemma having taken Carlo shopping.
Vincenzo assigned himself the role of cook and waiter, plying them with breakfast while they looked at each other in their new light.
'Why did you go away?' Rosa asked sadly. 'You left me, and you never wrote or sent cards, and Papa said you were dead-' Her voice shook.
Until this moment Julia had never quite decided how much she would tell Rosa when the time came. To speak of prison and her father's betrayal seemed terrible. But now she saw that the child was carrying a burden that crushed her, the belief that her mother had callously abandoned her.
'I had no choice, darling,' she said softly. 'They put me in prison for something I didn't do, and then your father took you away. I didn't know where you were, but I never stopped loving you, and as soon as I could I came looking for you.'
She knew she'd judged right when she saw the load lift from Rosa's face. Her mother had not, after all, walked away from her. Nothing really mattered beside that.
Rosa noticed Vincenzo carrying Julia's things upstairs.
'Are you coming to live with us now?' she asked, thrilled.
'I'll be here tonight, and we can talk all we want. After that-'
After that-what? She sought Vincenzo's face for some sign of what he was feeling, but his features revealed nothing.
'You can have my room,' he said.
'That's very kind of you, but you-'
'I'll be fine.' He almost snapped out the words. 'It's time I was getting to work. I've neglected it a bit recently.'
'I'm sorry about what I did,' Rosa told him. 'I mean, running off. But you see-'
'Yes, I do see,' he said, ruffling her hair. 'But we were very worried about you. I'm so glad you're safe. Now I must go.'
They didn't see him for the rest of the day. For Julia it was a happy time, spent with her daughter, exchanging memories, feeling the bonds assert themselves.
'I always knew there was something about you,' Rosa confided. 'I didn't know what, but I knew you weren't just anyone.'
Vincenzo telephoned to say that he'd contacted Rosa's school and arranged for her to have a few days off for them to be together. But he hung up before Julia could thank him.
Late that night she waited up for him to return. There were so many things that she wanted to say to him too, if only he would be here. She resisted the thought that there was something ominous in his choosing to be absent.
As the hours passed she went to bed and lay awake, listening, longing for him. Now her heart reached out to him as never before as she understood the full extent of his generosity. He'd known from the start that he would lose Rosa as he had lost almost everything else. But he had put no barriers between them. On the contrary he'd done all he could to help the two of them rediscover each other, whatever the cost to himself.
She wanted to see him, hold him, and pour out her feelings now that the road was clear for them at last.
Eventually she heard the front door, then his footsteps. Throwing on a dressing gown, she went out to see him, and found him making up the sofa.
'You can't sleep there,' she said aghast. 'It isn't long enough for you.'
'It'll do for tonight.'
'But tomorrow-' Surely there was some way to say that his bed was big enough for two, if they squeezed in tightly. But why did it need saying?
'I've made arrangements for tomorrow. There's a tiny hotel just opposite. I've taken a room there.'
'A hotel?' she echoed, aghast.
'It's just on the other side of the canal. You can see it from here.'
'But when will I see you?'
'I'm not the one you need to see.'
'What about all the things we need to talk about?'
'Such as?'
There was no encouragement in his manner and so, instead of what she wanted to say, she blurted out, 'Money.'
His face seemed to close against her. 'Go ahead. Talk about money.'
'Now I've got my compensation I can invest some money in our hotel. And I've got the name of an Italian firm that goes in for this sort of thing. My lawyer in England has some international connections and he says these people are very good, completely trustworthy. Here.'
She handed him a scrap of paper, and he studied it before saying briefly, 'I've heard of them. They have a good reputation. Have you been in touch?'
'Certainly not. This is your show.'
'Really?'
'I only obtained their name,' she said indignantly. 'You said yourself that you're the world's worst businessman.'
'All right, all right.' He held up his hands as if fending off a swarm of bees.
It was going all wrong. Why didn't he take her into his arms and make everything perfect? Why couldn't he apparently see that now they were free to love each other? Unless he didn't want to see it.
'You'd better get back to bed,' he said. 'I'll sleep pretty well here. Goodnight.'
'Goodnight,' she said despondently, turning away to the door.
'Julia.'
'Yes?' She turned back, heart beating with hope.
'Thanks for all you've done-about the money and the hotel and everything. Goodnight.'
'Goodnight,' she said again, and closed the door behind her.
Vincenzo listened to her go into his room, cursing under his breath, wondering what was suddenly wrong with him.
Why should such an apparently simple thing have become so hard? She stirred his blood and his heart more than any woman had ever done, including his faithless fiancee. And what could be more natural than to ask her to be his wife?
But the words had frozen in him because he couldn't dismiss the picture of her face when she'd said it was better to use people than trust them. He closed his eyes, trying to blot out the memory, but it was replaced by another one: Julia saying, 'I'll do what I have to-whatever that might be.'
And if he could obliterate her voice and her expression, there was another memory that could never be dismissed because he could still feel it in his flesh: their first night together when she had loved him with wanton abandon, taking him on, challenging, demanding, giving, with a desire that was as fierce as it was dazzling.
Only afterwards, when he knew her story, had the niggling questions come.
Me? Or was I just the man in her bed when her need was great?
'Better to use people…' She had said it.
He wanted to shout a denial, to say she wasn't like that. But, as she'd so often told him, he knew nothing of her true self: as little, perhaps, as she did herself.
Today she had reclaimed her daughter's heart, but there were still matters to be sorted out. Not just living arrangements, but the child's attachment to himself and her baby brother.
For Julia, their marriage would make solid, practical sense. If he proposed now, she would say yes but he wouldn't know why. They would set up home with the children, the perfect picture of a happy family.
And he would never be quite certain of her or her love, as long as he lived.
The next day Vincenzo discovered the reason for Julia's numerous heavy suitcases. Somehow, in a mere two days, and in between dealing with lawyers, she'd found the time to buy up half the clothes shops in London.
Her hair had been cut short, brushed back and styled elegantly against her head. She no longer felt any need to hide her face from the world, or anybody in it.
She had drawn a line between her past and her future, and her transformation had rocked him onto the back foot. If he hadn't known what to say to her before, he was totally at sea now.