1

“Sophie?”

Matteo’s voice rouses me from the light slumber into which the monotonous sound of the car engine had lulled me. I bolt upright. It takes me a moment to get my bearings, and then I realise, to my surprise, that we’re surrounded by heavy traffic. When I shut my eyes, we were still cruising along the M20 from Dover to London — so I must have been out for quite a while. I can’t usually sleep like that on a journey, and I was way too nervous this time. But the long stretch of road behind us has clearly taken its toll on me.

“I’m sorry, I …,” my voice is hoarse. I have to clear my throat before I can carry on speaking. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” I hastily sit up, run a hand through my long, dark hair in an attempt to give it some semblance of order, and readjust my dress. But I still feel dishevelled and a little disconcerted.I hope I wasn’t snoring, I think, slightly horrified. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Matteo looks over from the driver’s seat and smiles in amusement, and my heart contracts with longing. Which it shouldn’t. But I just can’t help myself.

“What do you think I’m doing right now?” he says, and I curse my sleepy brain for not having thought of a more intelligent question. “According to the GPS, we’re not far from your auction house. And you wanted to let your father know when we’d be there.”

“Oh.” I’ve only just begun to pay attention to our surroundings and, to my surprise, I realise that we’re already on the South Circular. It’s only another twenty minutes at most from here to Kensington. So it probably would be a good idea to warn Dad, since he’s going to be surprised. He definitely won’t be expecting us so soon.

After all, it’s over two thousand miles from Rome to London — a considerable distance that I wasn’t expecting us to cover in just one and a half days. But Matte