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words.
    ‘OK, so you haven’t hooked Emiliano yet, and if he’s anything like his brother he’ll probably run a mile if he thinks you’re trying to. But play your cards right, sexy sister, with that demure smile and that stand-offish attitude that always has them straining at the bit, and that big hunky beast won’t know what hit him. He might think he’s in control, but he’ll just be putty in your hands.’
    The cliché jarred, especially when it was her, Lauren, who had been like putty in Emiliano’s hands. But the things her sister kept coming out with had become more and more outrageous.
    ‘Vikki, I can’t believe—’ she started to say, only to have her reprimand curtailed by Vikki’s swift interjection.
    ‘That I still have the list?’
    ‘The list ?’ Lauren’s confusion was so complete that those two words escaped her on what sounded like an almost hysterical little laugh. But she didn’t want her sister to think that what she was saying was funny. It wasn’t funny at all.
    ‘Our list of possible candidates. Most suitable husband material. These two Italian playboys were always at the number one spot.’
    Voices outside and then the appearance of another guest looking for the rest rooms silenced whatever Lauren had been about to say. But, as soon as the woman retreated, Lauren launched into a tirade that left her sister in no doubt at all about how she felt.
    ‘If you think I condone your behaviour, Vikki, then all I can say is you’re very much mistaken, so please don’t try and include me in your unscrupulous actions. Quite frankly, I’m appalled! How you could be irresponsible enough to let yourself get pregnant when you don’t even want a baby is bad enough. But that you could do it to trap Angelo into marrying you is not only devious but downright immoral and, quite honestly, it’s beyond anything I would have believed you capable of stooping to.’
    She went on to remind her sister that their dream of marrying Italian millionaires was something they’d entertained as young adolescents and which she’d thought they had both relinquished—because she certainly had—as soon as they’d grown up!
    Her sister warned her that she was part of the very influential Cannavaro family now and begged her not to tell anyone, least of all Emiliano. ‘He could be lethal if he thought anyone was double-crossing him—or any member of his family,’ Vikki told her in a rising panic before going on to add, ‘And I do love Angelo. I really do!’
    Lauren couldn’t remember what she had said to her sister after that. Only that she’d watched unhappily as Vikki and her new husband had climbed into the taxi on the first leg of their Turkish honeymoon, with Angelo fielding bawdy comments from a number of his bachelor friends and Vikki smiling brightly through a shower of confetti, looking every bit the perfect couple on their perfect day.
    Lauren hadn’t imagined she could feel any worse than she did at that moment, in not only having quarrelled with her sister on her wedding day, but having to carry the disturbing knowledge of Vikki’s deception as well. But when she’d gone back into the hotel and virtually collided with Emiliano, striding through Reception with his briefcase and his features as grim as a rock face, she’d felt her spirits plummet to new depths as she uttered the first words that sprang to her lips.
    ‘You’re leaving?’ It had been pretty obvious that he was.
    ‘What did you expect, mia cara ?’ His tone clothed the rock face with sheer ice. ‘That I would stick around and be made a fool of as my brother has? Is that what you were hoping? Exactly how many times did you imagine you could sob out my name before I would crack and you could mark up one big beautiful tick against your list ?’
    Stunned by his coldness and by exactly what he had said, Lauren was only able to stand there and utter breathlessly, ‘You heard? ’
    ‘ Si, cara . I heard,’ he