Recipe For Disaster

Her parents’ deli.

Her deli now.

The thought caught in her throat, and Bunty exhaled slowly as Alex waved back and stepped out to greet her.

Her best friend from convent school was wearing the trouser suit Bunty had helped her choose the previous September. It was summer-weight dark navy worsted, faint pink fine stripes, with a cleverly constructed narrow lapel and trouser cuffs – but fitted in at the waist so that there was no mistake that this lady had curves to be proud of..

With that suit Alex had won the promotion she had been begging for, the two-seater sports car parked outside the shop, and six weeks’ paid holiday a year.

The coral silk shirt was an inspiration for a girl who paid a fortune for caramel highlights in her brown hair, and Alex looked great, even under fluorescent streetlight on a grey January evening.

‘Hey, look at you.’ Bunty grinned and gave her a one-armed hug.

‘More to the point, look at you.’ Alex tutted and stepped back to hold Bunty at arm’s length. ‘Is this the new fashion in kitchen grunge couture that I have been hearing about? Because I have to tell you, it is not working for me.’

Then she gave an over-the-top shudder. ‘Sorry, my girl. It’s time for an intervention. You pop inside and sort through your birthday cards with Fran. I need to skip up the street and ask the two hunks who run the gym if they can run door security for us. Because you are going to look so hot tonight I’ll be beating the boys back with a stick.’

Bunty snorted a reply. ‘Security for whom? I know you, Alexandra Caitlin McGee. Those poor boys wouldn’t stand a chance. I knew that it was a mistake leaving you and Fran to organise my birthday party.’

Bunty pushed the door wide open, reached inside and switched on the main lights so that she could see across the main shop floor, and through into the long refrigerated display area, and marble counter.

‘Spoilsport,’ Alex replied through pursed lips as she followed Bunty into the deli. ‘Bernadette Caruso Brannigan! Best decision you ever made. It’s going to be great. And no, I didn’t invite all of the people I wanted because you said that you wanted it low-key.’

Bunty nodded and dumped her bag on the counter. ‘Only my idea of low-key and your low-key might not be the same thing. Please tell me that Fran was joking about hiring a male stripper. I’m not sure that Elena has a licence for performance art.’

‘What? And spoil the surprise? My lips are sealed.’

‘Hah!’ Bunty tutted out loud, automatically picked up two packs of organic fusilli, and turned back towards the display shelving and their ‘New Arrivals’ section.

At the very same second that Fran leapt out at her from inside the store room waving a flag and screaming, ‘Surprise Party! Surprise! Happy Birthday!’

Bunty screamed out loud, her arms went flailing and the fusilli exploded out of their packets like yellow worms and cascaded like a fountain over the floor.

Happy Birthday. Right.

Fabio Rossi twirled the ice cubes in his crystal tumbler before taking a long slow drink of sparkling tonic water.

He leant one elbow on the brass rail in the cocktail bar of one of the most stylish boutique hotels in London and casually glanced towards the marble and wood-panel hallway as Paolo Caruso strolled past.

From the bar, Fabio could hear Paolo pontificating loudly in very good English with two stylish ladies in smart black business suits as they made their way out to a no doubt luxurious dinner with Paolo and his son Luca.

Pale, overweight, prematurely balding, and so smug in his superiority as head of the Caruso food company, Paolo seemed to have no problem at all pimping his only son and heir to the publishers and literary agents who all wanted a piece of the action that was the latest hot Italian chef—Luca Caruso.

Professional etiquette demanded that Fabio should keep his opinion of Paolo to himself, of course, considering that the Caruso food company was his father’s biggest client.

Rossi and Rossi had taken care of the Caruso family’s legal work for over fifty years and had built a major law firm out of the connections and income that came with it.

Shame that the Caruso family did not deem the youngest of the Rossi lawyers to be worthy of their business, no matter how many times his father and brother had tried to include Fabio in company meetings over the past two years.

Fabio lowered his tumbler onto the leather coaster on the bar and ran his finger around the rim while he took a steadying breath.

He’d thought he had left his past mistakes behind him in California.

Wrong.

Apparently respectable corporations did not want their reputation tainted by association with his kind of contract lawyer.

Oh, no. All Paolo Caruso saw was the lawyer’s son who had been dumped by his sweet, wealthy wife when his poker habit had got out of hand. A rogue. A misfit. A lawyer who could not control his obsession for the thrill of the chase.

Why did they need him? His father knew the Caruso family business inside out. Rossi and Rossi. Father and eldest son. They didn’t want a liability like Fabio Rossi working on their business accounts.

Of course, there was something that Paolo didn’t know…yet.

It was true that Fabio was in London meeting up with a few prospective clients for his new law firm. But that wasn’t the only reason he had packed his bags and driven from Milan with his friend and business partner, Jerry Frobisher, yesterday morning.

His father had given him one last assignment for Rossi and Rossi before he officially left the family business and started out on his own.

A one-off situation, which was going to need his complete attention and dedication until the client’s instructions had been carried out.

He needed to stay engaged and focused and frosty.

Precisely the skills that he had tuned so meticulously in casinos around the world.

And that was exactly what he was going to deliver.

All of the hard work Fabio had done to rebuild some kind of reputation by swallowing his pride and going back to his father’s law firm had come down to this.

His chance to show that his family could depend on him to get the job done.

A chance to demonstrate what he could achieve and put the past behind him once and for all.

Like it or not, his start-up law firm needed the seal of approval that adding major clients like Caruso Foods could bring. This job might open doors that still stayed firmly closed to an ex-gambler with a reputation for being a hothead.

Fabio’s fingers tightened so firmly around the tumbler that for a second he thought the crystal would shatter from the pressure.

His past mistakes had brought him here. There was nothing he could do to change history but he had to look forward. His hard work was going to have to pull his brand-new company back from the edge and give it the professional kudos and future it needed.

The voices from the reception area faded away.

This was it. Rossi and Frobisher were on the case and the sooner he finished this last job for his dad, the sooner he could start work on his own business.

Time to rock and roll.

Fabio finished his drink, slid his designer jeans off the bar stool with a nod to the barman and minutes later strolled down the luxurious carpet outside the second-floor guest bedrooms.

A handsome, slim, fair-haired young man with a dark natural tan was deep in conversation with one of the very pretty uniformed chambermaids, his arm winding its way around her waist as she giggled in reply to a question.

Fabio coughed politely as he came up to the door and signalled to Jerry over the shoulder of the now preoccupied and still-giggling maid.