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same language.
    ‘Since Caterina does not speak Mandarin, I have to assume that your decision to do so is an exhibition of showing off more suited to a foolish child than an adult woman, and as such it reinforces my belief that you are not the kind of candidate who is suited to work for me,’ he said coldly.
    ‘Really? And to think I thought that it was my sex and my hormones that barred me,’ Leonora retaliated sweetly.
    ‘You’ve just underlined the reason for yourself—your immaturity,’ Alessandro told her crushingly.
    Why, why, why had she let that stupid childish desire to show she was not just as good as but better than any male goad her? Leonora asked herself grimly. She turned away from him and spoke directly to Caterina in fluent Italian, earning the reward of a delighted smile from the older woman as she explained that she was Alessandro’s housekeeper.
    Five minutes later Leonora was earning herself another approving smile from Caterina as she gazed round the guest suite to which Caterina had taken her with awed delight.
    The palazzo had obviously undergone a very sympathetic restoration and refurbishment process in the recent past, Leonora guessed as she admired the strong clean lines of the large, high-ceilinged rooms connected by a magnificent pair of open double doors. Whilst the elegance of its original plasterwork and ceiling cornicing and the beautifully panelled and carved doors had been retained, the walls had obviously been replastered, and were painted in an ivory that seemed to change colour with the light pouring in from the glass doors that led onto an ironwork girded balcony overlooking an internal courtyard garden. Silver-grey floorboards reflected more light, and the room’s mix of an antique bed with pieces of far more modern furniture gave the suite an air of being lived in rather than being a museum set-piece.
    At the touch of a remote control Caterina proudly revealed not just a flatscreen TV but a computer, a pull-out desk and a sound system discreetly hidden away behind a folding wall.
    ‘Is good, sì ?’ she asked Leonora in English, inviting praise of something of which she was obviously proud.
    ‘It is wonderful,’ Leonora agreed, telling her in Italian, ‘It is a perfect blend of past and present—a very simpatico restoration.’
    Caterina beamed. ‘This building and many others belonged to the family of Signor Alessandro’s mamma ,and so came to him and his brothers. Together they have worked to keep the family history but also to make it comfortable to live in now. Don Falcon, he sits on the council that takes care of those buildings that are owned by many of the old Florentine families, and he makes Signor Alessandro pay much money from his airline to help with the restoration work. Signor Alessandro knows that he cannot refuse his elder brother. Don Falcon has the most power because he is the eldest.’
    ‘How many brothers and sisters are there?’ Leonora asked her curiously.
    ‘No sister. They are all three boys. Signor Alessandro is the second brother.’
    The second brother—the second child, just like her. Leonora frowned. She didn’t want to find any kind of connection between them, but as a second child he must have experienced, as she had, all that it meant to be a middle child, sandwiched between the lordly eldest and the favoured baby of the family, constantly having to fight for his position and for adult attention and love, never quite as good or grown-up as his elder sibling nor allowed to get away with as much as his indulged younger sibling. She wanted instead to continue to dislike and resent him. And besides, her situation had been worse—because she had been a girl sandwiched between two brothers. As same-sex siblings Alessandro and his siblings would have been able to bond together.
    Or would he have had to compete even harder than she had done? Not that it mattered. She refused to start feeling sympathetic towards him. Look at the way he was