After the first realization of how she had been duped, a cold sanity had descended on her and she looked into Kit Miller – aka Tony Mobley – with a ruthless eye. She knew where his haunts were, soon she knew where he lived, where he drank, what he did with his time. She studied him as if he were an insect under a microscope. And when she finally turned up at Sheila’s restaurant one lunchtime and he was standing at the bar, her expression of surprise and dismay was a work of art.
‘Oh!’ she said, as if amazed to see him. He wasn’t the only one who could lie convincingly.
‘Jesus – Bianca!’ said Kit. He was struck anew by how beautiful she was, he was so damned pleased to see her and amazed that she’d come in here. ‘Hi,’ he said, and moved in for a kiss.
Bianca stopped him with a hand on his chest. ‘You didn’t call,’ she said.
‘Yes I did. You’d left for London, Cora said. She wouldn’t give me your number.’
He was looking around now, and Bianca could almost read his mind. Someone might come up and call him Kit. He took her arm.
‘Let’s go outside, I want to talk to you.’
Bianca let him lead her out onto the pavement.
Kit couldn’t stop staring at her. She looked fucking beautiful.
‘I want to talk to you, too,’ said Bianca. ‘I saw you in Vito’s the other night.’
‘You what? I didn’t see you. What were you doing there?’
‘My family owns that club. And Fellows, and Goldie’s too.’
He’d been so delighted to see her, and it would all be OK, he would explain the deception over the name, it was nothing, he would apologize… but now what was she saying? Kit felt a chill sink from his brain into his gut. It settled there, spreading out cold tentacles. She was saying…
‘I’m Bianca Danieri.’
Kit could feel his mouth opening, but for several seconds no sound came out. Then he managed to speak. ‘Wait, I…’
‘I’m Bianca Danieri,’ she repeated, her turquoise eyes ice-cold as they looked into his. ‘And you… you’re not Tony Mobley. You’re Kit Miller.’
Shit, shit, shit, thought Kit.
‘But you’re… fuck it, you’re not Italian.’ His throat suddenly felt parched, raw. This couldn’t be happening, this was a disaster. She was a Danieri. And she knew he’d lied to her, she knew who he was, what he was.
‘I was adopted,’ said Bianca. ‘I’ve got three older brothers…’ She hesitated, and tears sprang into her eyes. ‘No, two. Vittore and Fabio. We lost Tito.’ Her eyes held Kit’s. ‘Someone killed him.’
There were people pushing past them on the pavement. Kit drew Bianca to one side, and she flinched when he touched her.
‘We have to talk about this,’ he said.
‘What? About the fact that you cheated me, lied to me, and that you might be the one who took my brother from me?’
‘I can explain.’
‘No you can’t.’
‘I can.’ Kit pulled her into his arms. She resisted for a moment, then let him kiss her.
What Kit knew he should do now was leave Bianca the fuck alone, not pursue this, not rub the salt even deeper into the wounds. The decent thing at this stage would be to walk away.
But he couldn’t walk away from Bianca. Danieri or not, he wanted her.
‘Look, my car’s over there. Come home with me. Let’s talk, properly.’
Bianca thought that she couldn’t hate herself more than she hated herself right now. She had the willpower of a louse. Before they were even in the door of Kit’s house they were kissing, touching, crawling all over each other, stripping each other’s clothes off in their haste to be skin to skin again, no barriers between them. This was what she remembered best about him, making love with him, and she wanted it; she wanted to block out the truth, forget it, and for a while she let herself do that, enjoyed the lie, lived it.
As for Kit, he had never felt anything like this before in his entire life; not with Gilda, not with anyone. It was beyond cruel that the fates had played this joke on him; that she was Tito’s kin, his family.
Later, when they lay together on his bed, he said:
‘Let’s take off somewhere. Like Bermuda – they got pink sand there, can you believe that? Pink sand and tiger sharks, I heard. How about it?’
Somewhere all this won’t follow us, somewhere I can make you forget.
Kit propped himself up on one arm and stared down at her. Jesus, she was beautiful with her silver-blonde hair and her white skin. He loved looking at her. ‘I don’t mean a holiday. I mean, permanent.’
‘What?’ She looked at his face. He was serious. And was she serious, doing this again? Falling into bed with him, knowing what he was, how he’d lied? ‘I can’t do that. Mama’s still in mourning. I have to stay.’
‘Come on. Let’s do it.’
‘I can’t, don’t ask me.’ She was staring at him, smoothing her hands over his hard muscular chest. Thinking that she hated him, she should hate him, and she should feel ashamed, but… ‘My family…’
‘They mean a lot to you,’ he said.
‘I lost Tito. I can’t lose them all.’
Kit was quiet for a moment. ‘You loved him very much, didn’t you, your eldest brother?’
‘Very much,’ she said. ‘So much.’
‘He made a fuss of you, his little sis?’
‘He was the only one who did.’ Bianca sniffed and blinked back a tear. ‘He used to take me shooting, you know. He said if I was going to be a true daughter of the Camorra, I would have to learn. There was a farmer who let us shoot on his fields, keep the rabbits down. Tito was a great shot, and he taught me too.’
‘Go on.’ This hurt, hearing about her and Tito, but despite himself he was fascinated.
‘One day… I had a rabbit in my sights; I knew I could kill it, take it home for the pot. “Go on,” he said. “Shoot.” And I looked at this rabbit. Was it a boy rabbit, with a family waiting at home? Was it a mother rabbit, with babies in the burrow, and would those babies starve to death if I killed their mother?’
‘So did you shoot it?’
She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do it. I let off the shot so that Tito wouldn’t realize I’d bottled it – but I pulled to the left and missed.’
Talking about Tito was like tearing at an open wound. Bianca swung her legs over the edge of the bed, started gathering her clothes.
‘Hey…’ said Kit.
‘No, don’t…’ She was pulling on her blouse and when he reached for her she shrugged him aside. ‘I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be doing this. This is wrong.’
‘No it’s not. Let’s have dinner.’ He named a time and a date at a restaurant where neither his crew not Vittore’s held sway. Neutral ground.
‘I can’t,’ she said, pulling on her skirt, picking up tights, bra, pants, scuffing on shoes.
‘I’ll be there,’ said Kit.
She didn’t answer, just hurried from the bedroom.
Kit lay back, his heart sinking as he heard her go down the stairs. Then the front door slammed shut. He listened to the ticking of the clock beside his bed, the seconds passing, the minutes hurtling ever onward, the hours speeding swiftly by.
She’d loved Tito.
She loved him still.
He was going to lose her.
60
‘You know what I heard?’ asked Vittore of his younger brother Fabio when the two of them were alone upstairs in Fellows nightclub after closing.
Vittore was counting the night’s takings, sorting the twenties and the tens into neat regular piles. His left hand was bandaged.
‘No, what?’ asked Fabio, relaxed after an evening’s drinking. He yawned. He was shattered. Had to get home, get some sleep. Maria was turning out to be very demanding. ‘What happened to that?’ he asked, indicating Vittore’s hand.