Massimo was singing in the house, his voice echoing off marble floors, his favourite aria from La Traviata, ‘Di quell’amor, quell’amor ch’è palpito, Dell’universo, dell ’universo intero . . .’ Victoria put her book face down on the ground, took a vicious drag on her cigarette and flicked the butt into the pool. Let someone else tidy that up. She had thinking to do.

It started well enough, business-class flights to Milan, a nice hotel . . . But why a hotel, when Milan was the Rivelli family seat, with at least one house in Corso Magenta? Massimo had never actually itemised his properties, but occasionally he let these pieces of information drop into conversation, and Victoria assiduously followed them up on the internet, even going so far as to zoom in on Google Earth to see where she might one day be living . . . Corso Magenta was right by the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, home of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, a nice destination for an evening stroll . . . And there had been mention of a place in the Brera district, a penthouse in Largo Treves, where visiting designers and suppliers were put up, where Rivelli sometimes entertained (when, presumably, he didn’t want details to get back to his family). Victoria would have been quite happy there; she didn’t expect to be installed in the main house just yet. There was, after all, Massimo’s apparently immortal mother to consider. At eighty-six, she still terrified her son, and he would go to any lengths to avoid her disapproval. And la Mamma, Victoria assumed, was accommodated in Corso Magenta.

But a hotel in Milan was still in Milan, and it was with high hopes that Victoria stepped into the waiting car at the airport. She had dressed carefully, in a fawn wool suit, silk stockings, black patent leather heels that could be slipped off during the flight, a Gucci bag that Massimo had brought back from a recent Milan show. Her hair was loose. She looked sexy, but businesslike.

Which was just as well, as Massimo had proceeded to treat her like a PA for the next three days. She guessed something was wrong when he mentioned – not to her, but to a business associate who asked him about the family – that everyone was out of town, on holiday in Umbria, as usual at this time of year. Victoria’s heart sank; she had only been allowed into the country because Massimo knew that Mamma, and any associated aunts, cousins and nieces, would not be around to speculate and gossip. But still, chin up – she was there, she was near the holy of holies, and it was a big step forward.

What she’d hoped would be a few days of shopping, lunching and strolling arm-in-arm around Milan, listening to stories of Massimo’s childhood – a surefire sign that a man had matrimonial intentions – turned out to be a packed schedule of meetings with reps, visits to mills, and tedious lunches at which Victoria was obliged to take notes. She did at least set foot inside Rivelli Srl, the mighty factory that created all the clothes for which he was famous, and the wealth that she enjoyed – and she was thrilled to see the machinists’ floor, with hundreds of women hunched over sewing machines, the clackety-clack of the needles, the hum of engines, the glitter of beads and the strange mist of fibres in the air . . . But after the factory tour, Victoria was made to wait in a meeting room while Massimo went into conference with his board of directors, with only a pile of Vogues for company. She saw a rather beautiful dress by Roberto Cavalli, sky blue silk, tightly ruched up the front, which she would go and get at the Cavalli store on via della Spiga, just to punish Massimo . . .