my job. Our client laid down some very specific instructions. Step one was to deliver the package on a specific date to a specific person.’
He nodded in her direction. ‘But there is more. I meant what I said last night. One of the Rossi legal team has to personally see you open that package and work through the contents. And until that is done I am not allowed to leave your side. Have you, by any chance, found the time to…? No?’
Bunty inhaled slowly and did the squinty-eyed thing at him. ‘No. As you can see I have a business to run and your emergency is not my problem. But if you give me your number I’ll let you know when I am good and ready. So feel free to go back to Milan or wherever your office is.’
The corner of Fabio’s mouth twitched just a little. ‘I wish I could, Miss Brannigan. But the client was very clear. And since my client paid in advance, it would be wrong of me to shirk my duty.’
‘How noble. And I really don’t want to appear rude, but things are going to get quite busy around here and you are going to be in my way.’
‘I won’t be in your way.’ He smiled, and turned sideways and slowly started to unpack his laptop computer on her kitchen table. ‘This will be just fine.’
‘Take a gold star for persistence, but you can’t be serious. You actually have to stay here until I open the package you brought all the way from Milan? Was that a nod?’ Bunty crossed her arms and shook her head in disbelief. ‘Unbelievable,’ she snapped. ‘This is blackmail. Pure and simple.’
With a shrug of her shoulders, Bunty broke eye contact, turned and went back to work, focusing on the oil and herbs in the roasting tray. ‘Well, find someone else to use that trick on, Mr Rossi, because I am not playing. Anyone who puts pressure on me to do something is going to find that it does not work.’
‘In that case,’ he said, ‘let’s set out a few game rules. As far as I am concerned, Mr Rossi is my father, chairman of Rossi and Rossi, Milan. I’m Fabio. Will you call me that, Bunty?’
She whirled around to tell him what he could do with setting rules in her kitchen, and froze. His eyes were locked onto her face with an intensity that had the power to blast any sensible thought from her mind.
The air between them was so heavy with electricity that Bunty was terrified to say anything in case one word would cause a spark.
Maria walked through, waving a thin piece of paper. ‘Hi, Bunty. Frank’s been on the phone. He wants double quantity ricotta today. That okay?’
Bunty almost recoiled as though a spring had been released that had been holding her to Fabio, and, judging from the expression on his face, she had not been the only one caught up in the moment.
She paused a second to wipe her fingers on a damp cloth and to remember how to breathe again before flicking through a bundle of order sheets hanging from a metal clipboard, then changing the quantity on one.
‘No problem. That’s sixty ricotta, thirty peppers and thirty porcini. And can you tell him that the organic salami is on offer this week? Thanks. Oh – and, Maria? This is Fabio Rossi. Better get used to seeing him around. He could be here for quite some time.’
As Fabio flicked his eyes up from the press release he was working on with Jerry for the launch of his new firm, Bunty took a bowl out of the fridge, and started flouring a huge board.
What looked to him like lumps of dough appeared from nowhere and she started to thump them with the very solid rolling pin. Hard. Her hands moved swiftly, transforming the dough into a thin oblong.
When he risked looking up again, thin strips were being passed one after another through a roller clamped to the table. One after another, fast, a production line; she twiddled with something on the roller machine then started feeding the pasta through again.
He couldn’t look away. Fascinated. Entranced. Six, seven pieces of dough become transparent strips of golden pasta. Brushes. Milk. Knives.
Bunty was focused totally on the food, oblivious to his presence. Tiny squares of filled pasta shapes appeared on a metal tray on the table between them as she worked. Ravioli. It had to be ravioli.
Fabio loved ravioli.
This woman was a magician. Transforming flour and bowls into the most amazing food. A conjuror. A specialist.
There had been very few times in Fabio’s life when he’d felt inadequate. Work and study had always come easily to him, no effort required. No challenge.
This was one of those times.
All he could do was smile and get back to work, silently loading and downloading what he needed, his fingers and eyes working through a well-established sequence. This was his world. And it had nothing to do with the microcosm that whirled around him as he sat there.
Bunty might be a genius in the kitchen but this was what he excelled at. Seeing patterns. It did not matter whether it was card tricks or book-signing dates and places and people.
Especially people.
Fabio watched as Bunty moved around, chopping and adding what smelt like herbs to pans, and wondered at the woman who dominated the space.
For the last ten years of his life he had worked in an industry built on suspicion, where every employee was a possible security risk. Every contract designed to build in get-out clauses for the clients for when things went wrong.
Then there was the poker. Casinos where he had worn sunglasses during the day, indoors, to prevent other players around the table from guessing his next move. You could hide body language with practice, you could even create a poker face, but you couldn’t hide the truth in your eyes.
Bunty Brannigan showed everything to everyone.
She was completely open. Almost raw. She had never learned the art of concealment. It had been years since he had met someone so comfortable with revealing themselves to others. So happy in their own skin. And she had no idea how rare and precious a thing that was.
Occasionally he looked up to rest his eyes and check in to what was happening around him. Maria was in and out all the time, collecting orders and spooning food into plastic containers, chatting and gossiping about customers — more ready meals, more antipasti.
A young man strolled through the back door of the kitchen carrying wide trays of white and yellow cheeses. Bunty’s laughter echoed around the room as she joked with Maria and this stranger.
He had a nod from a spotty youth in chefs’ check trousers who went away loaded with plastic containers, but apart from that they ignored him. He was invisible.
When was the last time he had sat in a family kitchen and felt so at home? Because that was the bizarre thing. He felt more relaxed sitting in a corner of this busy deli kitchen than in his own serviced apartment in Milan.
Bunty was working at the stove, stirring saucepans of such delicious-smelling food it made his mouth water.
He had been standing only metres away from her when she’d faced up to him outside the restaurant last night and even in the fading light he could see the pain and shock on her face the instant she’d picked up that package and scanned the envelope.
Jerry
