Half an hour later, the carpet fitters arrived. And half an hour after that, Vittore Danieri showed up.
‘Bianca here?’ he asked the three women, who were pausing by the bar for a fag and a coffee.
Vittore had an authoritative way about him, like Bianca; he was big, blockish like Tito, robust and tough-looking and ugly with a hooked nose, receding black hair and bulging dark brown eyes. There was a stillness, a hardness about him – and he looked somehow polished like Tito too, in the way that rich guys did.
‘Why hasn’t he got a neck?’ they’d joked between themselves when they first set eyes on him. Vittore’s head was set low on his shoulders and it poked aggressively forward; he didn’t seem to have a neck, it was true, but then he didn’t seem to have a sense of humour either, so they maintained a show of respect in his presence.
‘Bianca’s upstairs,’ said Tanya, her eyes catching his.
She thought of it as turning on the headlights. She turned them on now, gave him full beam, eyelashes fluttering, You want some of this? She knew he was married, but she didn’t give a toss about that. Of course, she would prefer to have Tito, but Vittore would do. The family was loaded, and all the brothers – even that vain little tit Fabio who’d come down here once trying to chuck his weight about – had an aura of power that appealed to her.
‘Right,’ said Vittore, and passed by all three of them without a second glance.
‘Shit,’ said Tanya, shaking her head. ‘Am I losing it, or what?’
‘Girl, you never had it to lose,’ laughed Cora.
‘Yeah, funny,’ said Tanya, and Claire gave a smirk.
‘Come on,’ sighed Claire. ‘Work to do…’
Bianca wasn’t particularly surprised to see Vittore show up unannounced. She was thrilled that Tito had entrusted her with the start-up of Dante’s, after she had spent several years learning the business up in London; but she was under no illusions. He was expecting her to fail, to need bailing out at any moment.
She was used to this. With three older brothers, she was always the one standing on the sidelines, the one nobody consulted or enquired after, because she was a girl and in their eyes that made her something less than a man, someone less likely to get things properly done. She had kicked against it for most of her life, but it was there, always staring her in the face: the testosterone wall.
She might have been used to it, but that didn’t mean she liked it, or accepted it. In fact, it enraged her. She knew she was capable, sensible,
