‘Let’s get something straight, Mrs Brunos. I don’t want you as my number two. I want a geezer, someone in the know. I need someone with experience, acumen and bravado. I want a known face.’ All pretence of being a businessman was gone now and Donna noted the fact.

‘Well, take a good look at mine, Mr Cox, because this is the only one you’re getting.’

Alan Cox looked into the white strained face before him, and his first reaction was to bellow with rage. Alan Cox was used to women like Lally, women who wanted him so badly they automatically fell in with whatever plans he had. In his mind’s eye he had envisioned telling her the bad news, giving her a bit of lunch and getting on with what he had to do. Donna Brunos, however, had pissed over his firework, as he put it to himself, and he wasn’t happy about it. He wasn’t happy about it at all.

Swallowing down his anger, he forced a smile. ‘I don’t think you understand, love . . .’

Donna pushed her hand through her hair in a gesture of utter weariness.

‘I am not your love, Mr Cox. Please don’t patronise me with useless terms of endearment which you probably use on the telephone to faceless operators and to your waitresses. I am a grown woman, in case it had escaped your notice. I came to you because my husband looked after your wife and children, probably with far greater respect than you are according his wife. He specifically asked me to be his go-between. I have no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. I have acumen, and I have bravado. I also have a terrible feeling that I don’t like you, Mr Cox, I don’t like you at all. That feeling is growing stronger by the second.’

Alan was aware that he had been bested. A feeling so alien to him that for a few seconds he wasn’t sure what to do.

Realising this, Donna stood up. Holding out her hand, she said, ‘I’m so glad we had this little chat. Now, when you are ready to talk business, I’ll expect to hear from you. I do hope you don’t hold grudges? I find that rather a tiresome trait in older men.’ Shaking his hand, she walked stiffly out of the restaurant.

Alan Cox sat back in his seat and watched her leave. Half of him wanted to catapult from the chair and clout a heavy hand across her face. The other half wanted to laugh.

The laughter won. Alan prided himself on the fact he had never, ever raised his hand to a woman. But Georgio Brunos’s little wife had very nearly made him break that vow.