The nervous way he said “unmarried” made Renato grin. ‘In other words, you think they’re on the catch for you,’ he said. ‘Conceited oaf!’ He aimed a friendly punch at his brother’s shoulder.

‘Let’s just say that the Angolinis are butchers, and I feel as if I’m being laid out on the slab for inspection,’ Lorenzo observed gloomily.

‘Definitely you should marry one of those girls,’ Renato said, turning the screw with brotherly malice. ‘With their meat and our vegetables it’s a match made in heaven.’

‘Get lost,’ Lorenzo told him without rancour.

The boarding call came. They all rose, and Lorenzo hugged his sister-in-law eagerly. Renato gave his brother the fierce, unembarrassed embrace of one Latin male to another.

‘Behave yourself!’ he barked. ‘If you cause our mother a moment’s anxiety I’ll personally put an end to you. Now get going!’

As Lorenzo strode off, turning at the last minute to wave at them, Renato said, ‘The annoying thing is that those daughters really will lay themselves out to trap him. Too many women do. That’s his trouble.’

‘Well, you know one woman who fell for you instead,’ she reminded him, and knew, by the pressure of his hand, that she’d said what he needed to hear.

As they walked away she said, ‘You’re worried about him, aren’t you? Don’t be. He’s a good salesman.’

‘I know. I’m just bothered by the conviction that when he’s in America he’s going to go just that little bit too far.’ He slipped an arm about his wife’s shoulders. ‘But it’s too late to worry about that. Little brother’s on his own now.’

CHAPTER ONE

SNOW was on the ground and a bitter wind cut through the darkness of an early February afternoon, but New York still glittered and nothing could dim the glory of Elroys, the most glamorous, the most expensive hotel on Park Avenue.