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got wind of his mistake and started to backtrack. Besides, this deal would benefit her in the long run.
    ‘Hard to fight without money, and believe me, Victoria, you don’t want to lock horns with me because you will be crushed.’
    The hard cold words hit her like a punch.
    In that moment she hated him—hated his arrogance and his confidence and his power. And more than anything hated the fact that he was right. She could bluster all she wanted but there was no way she could win a fight against this multimillionaire tycoon.
    He noted the vulnerable look flickering over her young face and knew with the experience born from many a successful business deal that it was now time to reel her in. ‘Anyway, your loss. I’ll get my secretary to show you out.’
    ‘No!’ She stopped him before he could reach for the phone and he smiled at her, a light of triumph in the darkness of his eyes now.
    ‘I thought you’d see sense.’ He lifted his pen and put a red X on the calendar. ‘I have two hours free next Monday afternoon. We’ll sign the paperwork at two…get married at two-thirty.’
    Victoria said nothing. The marriage wasn’t going to happen, she reassured herself fiercely. She was just agreeing with him to buy herself time. By next week she’d have found a way out of this. There had to be a way out— there just had to be .

CHAPTER THREE
    ‘T HAT gorgeous guy is here again in the restaurant.’
    Emma put her head around the door of Victoria’s apartment, a look of excitement on her young face. ‘And he says he wants to see you.’
    Victoria didn’t need to ask her receptionist which guy she meant—she knew full well there was only one man who could cause such a flurry of excitement and she felt an immediate thrust of nervous anticipation.
    It had been two days since she had seen Antonio. Two days and two sleepless nights since she had sat in his office and played for time by agreeing to his demand to become his wife.
    Since then she’d been going over and over her accounts, looking for a means of escape. She was still sorting through the paperwork now, desperately searching for some solution. But so far she had found nothing and she was starting to feel more and more hemmed in by the stark option that had been presented to her. She either married Antonio Cavelli or she lost everything that she had ever worked for.
    Icy cold panic swept through her at the thought. She wasn’t giving up without a fight, she told herself fiercely. Her glance moved from her receptionist back to the paperwork on her desk.
    But what could she do?
    ‘He’s not here on his own,’ the receptionist continued.‘He’s got two other men with him and a woman. They are going to have coffee in the lounge area.’
    Maybe Antonio had changed his mind, she thought suddenly. Maybe he was here to see to other business. The idea made her feel much better.
    ‘Let me have a look.’ Victoria stood and went through to the hallway that linked her apartment with the restaurant. There was a small window in the doorway behind the reception desk and if she stood on tiptoe she could see Antonio Cavelli standing nonchalantly chatting with some other people.
    When she’d lain awake in the darkness of the night there had been a part of her that had wondered if she had imagined how attractive he was, how powerful he was. She’d even wondered if maybe she’d mistaken his ultimatum—got the wrong end of the stick. This couldn’t be happening for real, could it?
    But now, looking at him, she realized she hadn’t imagined anything. He was every inch the forceful, dynamic businessman in his expensive suit, his dark hair gleaming under the subdued lighting. The type of man who always got what he wanted. And, more worrying, even from this distance he seemed to exude a magnetising attractiveness that made her senses go into hyperdrive.
    Frankly he scared her to death. She dragged her gaze away from him to scan the people who accompanied him—one she