Bunty pushed the door wide open, reached inside and switched on the main lights so that she could see across the main shop floor, and through into the long refrigerated display area, and marble counter.
‘Spoilsport,’ Alex replied through pursed lips as she followed Bunty into the deli. ‘Bernadette Caruso Brannigan! Best decision you ever made. It’s going to be great. And no, I didn’t invite all of the people I wanted because you said that you wanted it low-key.’
Bunty nodded and dumped her bag on the counter. ‘Only my idea of low-key and your low-key might not be the same thing. Please tell me that Fran was joking about hiring a male stripper. I’m not sure that Elena has a licence for performance art.’
‘What? And spoil the surprise? My lips are sealed.’
‘Hah!’ Bunty tutted out loud, automatically picked up two packs of organic fusilli, and turned back towards the display shelving and their ‘New Arrivals’ section.
At the very same second that Fran leapt out at her from inside the store room waving a flag and screaming, ‘Surprise Party! Surprise! Happy Birthday!’
Bunty screamed out loud, her arms went flailing and the fusilli exploded out of their packets like yellow worms and cascaded like a fountain over the floor.
Happy Birthday. Right.
Fabio Rossi twirled the ice cubes in his crystal tumbler before taking a long slow drink of sparkling tonic water.
He leant one elbow on the brass rail in the cocktail bar of one of the most stylish boutique hotels in London and casually glanced towards the marble and wood-panel hallway as Paolo Caruso strolled past.
From the bar, Fabio could hear Paolo pontificating loudly in very good English with two stylish ladies in smart black business suits as they made their way out to a no doubt luxurious dinner with Paolo and his son Luca.
Pale, overweight, prematurely balding, and so smug in his superiority as head of the Caruso food company, Paolo seemed to have no problem at all pimping his only son and heir to the publishers and literary agents who all wanted a piece of the action that was the latest hot Italian chef—Luca Caruso.
Professional etiquette demanded that Fabio should keep his opinion of Paolo to himself, of course, considering that the Caruso food company was his father’s biggest client.
Rossi and Rossi had taken care of the Caruso family’s legal work for over fifty years and had built a major law firm out of the connections and income that came with it.
Shame that the Caruso family did not deem the youngest of the Rossi lawyers to be worthy of their business, no matter how many times his father and brother had tried to include Fabio in company meetings over the past two years.
Fabio lowered his tumbler onto the leather coaster on the bar and ran his finger around the rim while he took a steadying breath.
He’d thought he had left his past mistakes behind him in California.
Wrong.
Apparently respectable corporations did not want their reputation tainted by association with his kind of contract lawyer.
Oh, no. All Paolo Caruso saw was the lawyer’s son who had been dumped by his sweet, wealthy wife when his poker habit had got out of hand. A rogue. A misfit. A lawyer who could not control his obsession for the thrill of the chase.
Why did they need him? His father knew the Caruso family business inside out. Rossi and Rossi. Father and eldest son. They didn’t want a liability like Fabio Rossi working on their business accounts.
Of course, there was something that Paolo didn’t know…yet.
It was true that Fabio was in London meeting up with a few prospective clients for his new law firm. But that wasn’t the only reason he had packed his bags and driven from Milan with his friend and business partner, Jerry Frobisher, yesterday morning.
His father had given him one last assignment for Rossi and Rossi before he officially left the family business and started out on his own.
A one-off situation, which was going to need his complete attention and dedication until the client’s instructions had been carried out.
He needed to stay engaged and focused and frosty.
Precisely the skills that he had tuned so meticulously in casinos around the world.
And that was exactly what he was going to deliver.
All of the hard work Fabio had done to rebuild some kind of reputation by swallowing his pride and going back to his father’s law firm had come down to this.
His chance to show that his family could depend on him to get the job done.
A chance to demonstrate what he could achieve and put the past behind him once and for all.
Like it or not, his start-up law firm needed the seal of approval that adding major clients like Caruso Foods could bring. This job might open doors that still stayed firmly closed to an ex-gambler with a reputation for being a hothead.
Fabio’s fingers tightened so firmly around the tumbler that for a second he thought the crystal would shatter from the pressure.
His past mistakes had brought him here. There was nothing he could do to change history but he had to look forward. His hard work was going to have to pull his brand-new company back from the edge and give it the professional kudos and future it needed.
The voices from the reception area faded away.
This was it. Rossi and Frobisher were on the case and the sooner he finished this last job for his dad, the sooner he could start work on his own business.
Time to rock and roll.
Fabio finished his drink, slid his designer jeans off the bar stool with a nod to the barman and minutes later strolled down the luxurious carpet outside the second-floor guest bedrooms.
A handsome, slim, fair-haired young man with a dark natural tan was deep in conversation with one of the very pretty uniformed chambermaids, his arm winding its way around her waist as she giggled in reply to a question.
Fabio coughed politely as he came up to the door and signalled to Jerry over the shoulder of the now preoccupied and still-giggling maid.
It only took him a few minutes to open up the wall safe in his bedroom, take out the first padded envelope enclosed in a black cover and slip it into a smart document wallet so he was ready and waiting when Jerry knocked on the door.
‘Right, partner.’ Jerry smiled, casually leaning like a fashion model against the door frame. ‘So tell me again what is so very important that you feel the need to make your way in rush-hour traffic through the centre of London so you can deliver a package? We have an excellent postal system, you know. Perhaps you should try it?’
Fabio took a breath and exhaled very slowly.
Why was he acting as a delivery boy for his father’s law firm? Because he owed his family for giving him a second chance after his life had crashed and burned. Owed them big time.
‘Relax. This is definitely the last assignment for my grandfather’s last private client. This package had to be hand delivered by a Rossi family lawyer between six and eight p.m. today and he knew that I was going to be in London so I agreed to help him out. They needed someone they could trust to put it in the right hands and it saves the family firm the price of the air fare.’
‘Ah. I am beginning to understand. Your father gave you a job when you needed one and now it’s payback time. Am I right?’
Fabio looked at his business partner with pity laced with exasperation. ‘Have you not been paying attention to anything I’ve told you about my family in the last few months? I knew it was dangerous putting you in charge of recruiting office receptionists. Way too many distractions.’
Jerry smiled, displaying a set