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right. I could never forget that face. ’
    Gino gestured impatiently. He was in no mood for the past. ‘Matt,’ he said brusquely, ‘you’ll join us.’
    It was more command than invitation.
    ‘I’m sure we’d love to,’ Matt replied easily, although he was aggravated at being treated like hired help. Still, when Gino Santangelo spoke – everyone jumped.
    ‘My date will be here in a minute with a girl for Dimitri. You want us all to join you?’
    ‘Sure. Bring Susan and whatshisname over now, and the others when they get here.’
    ‘Good idea,’ said Matt, thinking it was a lousy idea.
    As soon as he left their table Lucky said, ‘Why do you want them to come over? We have so much left to talk about.’
    ‘Why not?’ replied Gino, sitting down again. ‘You’ll like Susan Martino, she’s a lovely woman.’
    Like hell I will , thought Lucky. It was becoming increasingly clear that while she was away Gino had been at play. And this time not with some two-bit showgirl. She could tell she had lost his attention and it infuriated her.
    ‘Have you been seeing her?’ she asked lightly.
    ‘Once or twice,’ he replied, equally casual.
    Once or twice, my ass. You’ve got a hot nut the whole room can see .
    Inexplicably she felt jealous.
    Why?
    Why not?
    He was her father.
    Daddy.
    Gino.
    *   *   *
     
    The wedding invitations, hurriedly printed, invited guests to attend the wedding of Lucky Santangelo to Craven Richmond .
    Craven Richmond. Tall, skinny son of Senator Peter Richmond and his athletic wife, Betty .
    Craven Richmond. Attentive, polite, boring .
    Craven Richmond. A husband chosen by Gino for Lucky without her approval or consent .
    She dared not disobey her father. So she and Craven were married one week after her sixteenth birthday. It was a marriage doomed to failure. They honeymooned in the Bahamas. A big joke. Although Gino thought she was some hot little nympho and married her off to protect the great Santangelo name, she was actually still a virgin in the technical sense, never having done more than a lot of heavy petting. Craven, at twenty-one was totally inexperienced, and unwilling to indulge in more than three fast minutes of sex a night .
    Before their honeymoon was over Lucky took her first lover. And from then on she never looked back. How else would she have gotten through four years of being married to a man who had been paid to marry her? Yes, paid. A sad fact she had found out from Betty Richmond one day during the course of a family fight. Gino had paid Craven, and blackmailed Betty and Peter to allow it to happen .
    So, she was stuck in a loveless marriage to a man she couldn’t stand. And her future seemed bleak. They lived in a Washington apartment not five minutes from the Richmond palatial spread. Craven had no job. He spent his days playing tennis with his mother and hung around his father’s campaign headquarters getting in everyone’s way. Lucky filled her days with shopping, reading, and drifting up and down the freeways in her red Ferrari – a wedding present from big daddy. It was not the way she wished to spend her life .
    Once, she had indicated to Gino that she wanted to follow him into the family business, but he had looked at her as if she were mad, and said that only boys went into business, girls got married, stayed home, and had babies .
    She felt trapped in a life Gino had forced upon her. She hated him with a passion. Yet she desperately wanted to please him .
    Staying married pleased him .
    Fucking around pleased her .
    So she did .
    A lot .
    Until one day, four years into her marriage, came the phone call summoning her to New York. Gino wanted to see her, and for once without Craven. She was delighted. Anything to get away, and it had been months since she’d seen her father – maybe he was missing her .
    In New York she discovered that Dario had also been sent for. The brother she had once been so close to was now a secretive stranger. He attended