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the previous evening had come sharply back to Lauren’s mind and, with them, the worries she had been harbouring about her sister.
    ‘Vikki...What is it? You are happy, aren’t you?’
    Her sister swung round, obviously startled to see her there.
    ‘Of course I am,’ she said, and her face was instantly lit by a radiant smile. ‘It’s just junior starting to kick. Why would you imagine otherwise?’
    ‘It’s just that it’s all so sudden,’ Lauren recalled saying. ‘This wedding. The baby. I mean...are you absolutely sure? ’
    ‘Believe me. I know what I’m doing,’ Vikki stressed.
    ‘It’s just that you’ve never been too keen on the prospect of motherhood...’ Lauren remembered how often her sister had positively rebelled against it.
    ‘Not just for motherhood’s sake, no, I haven’t. But I can learn to be maternal. And what better way than with a handsome and exceedingly rich husband beside me?’ She giggled and the voluminous hair bounced against her flushed porcelain features like golden candyfloss.
    ‘I just think I would have been happier if you’d waited a little while longer before starting a family. Got to know each other a bit better. Enjoyed a year or two of just being there for each other.’
    ‘For heaven’s sake, Lauren! That’s so old-fashioned! But then you always were. And naïve, if you don’t take umbrage from my saying so.’
    ‘Naïve?’ It hurt Lauren to think that she and her sister weren’t able to see eye to eye, even on that day of all days.
    ‘You don’t think that all this...’ an expansive gesture of her arm indicated the lavish wedding celebrations ‘...would have happened if I hadn’t forced Angelo’s hand and engineered this pregnancy, do you?’ She laughed out loud at Lauren’s silent disbelief. ‘Don’t look so shocked, sister dear. After all, you can hardly claim to be any different, can you? I saw the way you were cosying up to that big, big brother of his last night, and the way the two of you disappeared after you went out onto the terrace. Did you manage to talk him into bed?’
    ‘Vikki!’
    ‘No, don’t tell me. I can see you did. I’ll bet he’s a real super stud between the sheets!’
    Lauren could still remember the embarrassed indignation she’d felt at Vikki’s remark, which made her cheeks burn with flaming colour.
    ‘Wow! That good, eh?’ Vikki enthused. ‘A bit hotter than that lascivious old banker I thought you were trying to land yourself with last night,’ she went on when Lauren was still trying to come to terms with how devious her sister seemed to have become, ‘until, of course, you saw the opportunity to set your cap at some serious money. I’m proud of you, sis. I really am. I didn’t think you’d have the courage to play for such high stakes as Emiliano Cannavaro, but your street cred’s really gone up in my estimation. Play your cards right and you could have it all there. Wealth. Position and—from the look of you—some stupendous sex as well.’
    ‘Vikki!’ Lauren found her voice at last, but she wasn’t prepared to discuss what had happened between her and Angelo’s brother. ‘We’re not discussing me. It’s you I’m concerned for. What did you mean about engineering your pregnancy? Surely you didn’t...’
    ‘Leave off the Pill and get pregnant on purpose? How else did you imagine I was going to get that confirmed playboy bachelor to propose? Five months ago, when we got back together after that last break-up, I made up my mind that things were going to be different. Such a rich, handsome package seldom comes a girl’s way more than once in a lifetime, and I was determined not to let it slip through my fingers again. But don’t you see...’ her tone was emphatic, excited, animated ‘...if you’ve hit it off with his dynamo of a brother, it’s all working out as we planned.’
    Lauren frowned, so appalled and perplexed by what Vikki was saying that she was dumbfounded, lost for