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Most people did, she’d found

Either they’d watched one of Melissa’s rowing up without a father at home, or they’d read the story online on one of her ht up ale of sixteen, while her father had spent most of his ti when he could get away frohter

People rarely asked any questions about that other fah Or what had happened to theh and walked out at last, to start his ‘real’ life with Melissa and her mother

Laurel figured that at least that meant no one cared about her—least of all Melissa—so there were no photos of her on the internet, and no one could pick her out of a line-up It was bad enough that her friends knew she was related to the beautiful, famous, talented Melissa So her in the street to ask about her sister Wondering why Laurel, with all the faes she’d had, couldn’t be as beautiful, successful or brilliant as Melissa

‘So you’re also the wedding planner, right?’ Dan asked, and Laurel gave hirateful smile for the easy out

‘That’s right In fact, that’s why I’ed herfavours she wanted’ That sounded better than her real suspicions—that Melissa was just coht?

It wasn’t just the table fa

vours, of course When Melissa had first asked her to organise her wedding Laurel had felt pride swelling in her chest She’d truly believed—for about five minutes—that her sister not only trusted in her talent, but also wanted to use her wedding to reach out an olive branch between the two of them at last

Obviously that had been wishful thinking Or possibly a delusion worthy of those of Melissa’s fans rote to her asking for her hand in hed

‘She’s notit easy, huh?’ Dan asked

Laurel pasted on a sone into this business if I didn’t kno to handle them’

‘Right’

He looked her over again and she wondered what he saw A co planner, she hoped She hadn’t had as much contact with Dan over the last few months as she had with the best man or the bridesmaids But still, there’d been the invitation and the hotel bookings, and the flights and the car transfer—albeit she’d gatecrashed that She’d been pleasant and efficient the whole way, even in the face of his one-word responses, and she really hoped he recognised that

Because she knehat else he had to be thinking—what everyone thought when they looked at her through the lens of ‘being Melissa Soot the short straw in the genetic lottery

Melissa, as seen on billboards and movie screens across the world, was tall, y, blonde and beautiful She’d even been called the twenty-first-century Grace Kelly