surface bonhomie Joe could be a very unpleasant man. Just how unpleasant she discovered during the divorce, when he drove her and Sam out of the house and gave her as little as he could get away with.
She cared nothing for the money. If it weren’t for her grandfather, she would have thought herself well rid of Joe.
After the hideously gaudy mansion in the heart of London’s West End where she’d once lived— ‘Nothing too good for my Angel!’—she now rented a small house on the edge of town, just big enough for herself, Sam and the two nurses. She’d taken it on a short-term lease, and in a few weeks she must have the Villa Tazzini ready for them all.
On the night before she left for Italy, she dropped in to Sam’s room.
‘I’ll be leaving very early tomorrow,’ she told him.
‘Why are you going away?’ he asked, puzzled.
‘Darling, I told you. I’m going to Italy, to see this house where we’re going to live. It’s my divorce settlement from Joe.’
‘Joe who?’
‘You remember Joe—my ex-husband.’
He frowned. ‘What became of Gavin?’
‘We quarrelled. Never mind all that now. We’re going to have a new home in Italy. Look, here are the pictures of it that I brought you. You’ll come and join me as soon as possible.’
He fixed her with the smile she loved, full of warmth and affection.
‘Why are you going away?’ he asked.
Vittorio Tazzini was waiting at the window, watching the street for the moment when his friend appeared. As soon as he saw Bruno he was at the door, almost pulling him inside.
‘Have you got it?’ he asked eagerly.
‘Vittorio, my friend, I’m still not sure this is wise. You’re obsessed, and that isn’t good.’
‘Obsessed! Of course I am. I’ve been cheated by two men: the first was one I called a friend, until he stole from me and vanished, forcing me to sell my home to pay his debts. His debts, Bruno, that he had persuaded me to sign for. The other was Joseph Clannan, who saw my desperation and used it to beat me down on the price. I sold for much less than the place is worth because I needed money quickly. If I could have got a fair price I’d have had enough to give me some hope for the future. I wouldn’t be penniless and living here.’ He cast a scornful look around the shabby rented room that was his home now.
Bruno regarded him with pity, which he was careful to conceal. They were both thirty-two, and had been friends since their first day at school. Nobody knew the fierce, embittered Vittorio better than his gentle friend. Nobody understood him as deeply, or feared for him more.
He was silent, watching Vittorio pace the narrow confines of the room, his tall, rangy body looking so out of place in it, after the spaciousness of the Villa Tazzini, that it was like seeing a wild animal trapped in a tiny cage. Sooner or later the animal would go mad.
Vittorio wasn’t a handsome man. His face was too harsh for that, his cheeks too gaunt, his eyes too fierce. His nose was irregular, so that people meeting him for the first time wondered if it had been broken. His wide, firm mouth suggested an unyielding nature, one that could love or hate with equal ferocity, and never forgive an injury from foe or lover alike.
Even Bruno, his closest friend, was slightly afraid of him, and pitied anyone who got on Vittorio’s wrong side.
‘Won’t you forget that man for a moment?’ he begged now.
‘How can I forget him?’ Vittorio asked savagely. ‘He forced the price down until he practically stole the estate from me! And do you know why? To impress a woman. To make her a gift of my home at the least possible expense to himself.’
‘You don’t know that,’ Bruno pleaded.
‘But I do. As I showed him round I heard him say, “My pretty lady will just love this. It’s just what she said she wanted.” All for a woman. So now I want to see that woman. You said your friends in England could send you something that would show her to me. Do you have it or not?’
‘Yes,’ Bruno said, reluctantly unwrapping the small parcel he carried. ‘This is a video of a television show called Star On My Team. It was shown last week, and they taped it for me. But I still wish you’d drop this. Hate the man if you must, but why blame her?’
‘Do you think they can be separated? Do you think I don’t know the kind of woman who puts a price on the bedroom door, and then ups the price again and again? We all know them. Give me the tape.’
Taking it, he pressed it into an ancient video recorder that stood in the corner of the room, poured two glasses of wine, and the two of them sat down to watch.
‘Here she is. The beautiful, the fabulous—Angel!’
Vittorio never took his eyes off the ravishing blonde, with her long hair, luscious make-up and a sexy pout, as she sashayed out to meet her audience.
Flaunting herself, he thought cruelly, taking in the golden figure-hugging dress and flashy jewels. A woman used to being waited on, who demands the best, and gets it.
‘Putana,’ he muttered. Prostitute.
‘That’s going too far,’ Bruno protested.
‘You think a wedding ring hides what she is?’
‘She may not be wearing it any more. My friends say there is talk of a divorce.’
‘So she demanded my home as her parting present? Is that supposed to make me feel better?’
At that moment, Angel gave her famous inane giggle. It went up the scale, growing more lush and significant with every teasing note. She put her fingertips daintily over her lips, looking from side to side as if to say, Silly me.
A perfect performance, Vittorio thought. Apparently fatuous, but actually calculated to tempt a man through his weakness. Even he had felt a faint tingle up his spine, and it served to increase his rage.
Bruno stared at Angel’s polished beauty.
‘She may be all you say,’ he mused, ‘but you can see why—’
‘Oh, yes,’ Vittorio said contemptuously. ‘You can see why!’
There was a tinkling sound as his wine glass broke in his hand, crushed by the cruel pressure of his fingers. He seemed unaware of it. His eyes were fixed on the screen, and the beautiful, provocative woman laughing as though she didn’t have a care in the world.
The journey began with a flight to Naples. It would have been easy to call the villa and ask for someone to collect her from the airport, but getting there under her own steam seemed a good way to start her new, low-profile life. Besides, Angel liked the idea of arriving unexpectedly and seeing the house as it was naturally.
It was an impulse she soon regretted. Being independent was fine if you had only a few bags. But if you were carrying all your worldly goods it was a pain in the neck to have to load them into a taxi at
