‘That’s right. Obviously you’ve been expecting me.’

‘Oh, yes, we’ve all known you were coming, although not exactly when. You kept that detail to yourself, so that you could catch us unawares. Very shrewd. Who knows what discoveries you might have made?’

She could see him better now, and thought she’d never come across any man who looked so hard and unyielding. There was a gaunt wariness about him, not just in his face, but in his tall, angular shape, the way he crossed his arms defensively over his chest, telling the world to keep its distance.

He might as well have warded her off with a sword, she thought.

‘I wasn’t trying to catch anyone out,’ she said, trying to remain good-tempered. ‘It was an impulse decision.’

‘And you couldn’t even have made a phone call from the airport to give Berta a chance to be ready for you? She’s your housekeeper, and a more faithful, hard-working soul never lived. She deserves better.’

Angel had a faint sense of remorse, but it was quashed in the rush of indignation. What the hell did he think gave him the right to talk to her like this?

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I presume you’re one of my staff, so let me make it clear right now that you don’t speak to me like that. Not if you want to go on working for me.’

‘Is that so? Then how fortunate that I don’t work for you, or I’d be shaking in my shoes now.’

‘Don’t be impertinent. If you’re not one of my employees, what are you doing in this room, where you most decidedly have no right to be?’

She thought he grew a little paler, the twist to his mouth a little more sardonic.

‘True,’ he said. ‘I have no right. Not any more.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘My name is Vittorio Tazzini, and I used to own this place.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘YOU?’ The word had an unflattering tone that came out before Angel could stop it.