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‘Once Mancini ain because naturally the man who referred to you in those ter you if you were aerworandfather selected the phrase with distaste ‘Obviously, a rich, extreround would never consider such a wife’

‘I’d soonerback at the older man in furious disbelief ‘But the real truth is that I don’t want to marry anyone!’

‘Winnie is happy,’ he reedly

‘My sister’s a people pleaser and I’m not!’ Vivi countered with spirit ‘I love her to death but what’s all right for her isn’t all right for et ether arrangement for the sake of appearances and status!’

‘I can’t believe you’d want to keep Mancini!’ Sta onto hisat a particularly tough bone

Refusing to rise to that bait, Vivi tossed her head ‘I can’t believe you’re such a miser that you couldn’t saveunreasonable conditions to your generosity! We’re supposed to be family but you don’t behave like family are supposed to behave But then ould I know about that, never really having had that experience?’ sheinto an aard silence

‘You are my family and I will always look after you,’ Stam intoned stubbornly

‘Looking afterme offhowever brieflyto that Mancini rat! And how could you possibly persuade him to marry me anyway?’ she derave than agree to marry a woman he believes to have been a prostitute’

In his old-fashioned way, Stahed, ‘I have what you could call an irresistible proposition to lay before Mancini, which will persuade him’

‘I don’t care if you’re offering him the moon as an induceust of anger that ht as polar stars against her porcelain skin ‘Having anything to do with hi!’

‘No,’ Staly ‘This time around, all the poill be in your hands, Vivi Don’t you want that experience? Don’t you want to see the man who insulted you forced to eat his oords?’

No, Vivi could live without revenge, she conceded as she e as she never saw Raffaele di Mancini again in this lifetime, she would be happy He was a reet and leave buried She had become very fond of Arianna and, no doubt at Raffaele’s behest, Arianna had immediately dumped their friendship as well And then there had been her see relationship with Raffaele hirily Just a stupid kiss, just one stupid kiss, even a teenager would have known not to get unduly excited by soated herself

But then Vivi knew that she tended to be more vulnerable with men than other more experienced and emotionally secure women Vivi had not known security until she was fourteen and living with her final set of foster parents, the kindly John and Liz, who had reunited the three sisters within their home Before John and Liz, there had been a series of unsuitable foster homes where Vivi had been bullied, verbally abused and, on several occasions, sexually threatened

Winnie, Vivi and Zoe had lost their parents in a car accident At the age of twenty-three, Vivi barely reest son, who had been estranged frorandchildren existed until they had contacted hi his financial help when their foster parents were facing the repossession of their ho for troubled children He had welcoreat enthusias the that they all marry men of his choice to raise their status