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Vivi had still to randfather Was he, sily, the kind of personality who had to get revenge on anyone ronged a ed but their youngest sister, Zoe, had only been wronged by unfortunate foster care Vivi knew she had to stand up to her grandfather for Zoe’s sake because Zoe was frail and emotionally vulnerable, subject to extreht with the olderthat the very idea of her confronting anyone struck the bolder Vivi as ridiculous

For that reason, Vivi knew that she had to stand strong She tried not to be bitter about the past, for bitterness achieved nothing At present she and Zoe were living in a srandfather and offered to them rent-free But the house felt e about and Vivi was too distrustful of her grandfather to spend theout on rent Instead she was saving that ht tire of her defiance and throw them back out into the cold

That et her awful hair straightened again, she thought ruefully, picking up a corkscrew copper curl and dropping it again with antipathy It was the hair from hell and she had been born with it and she was only content with her appearance when she could transfor across her shoulders, round her face and down her back like a rag doll’s wig, she thought irritably Not that Jude, her current boyfriend, seemed to mind

But then Jude didn’t really seeym where he worked as a martial arts teacher He was blond and laid-back, and he had a good body but she had yet to experience a desire to see that body naked Possibly their casual relationship ca else, she reflected ruefully If she hadn’t met Raffaele and been immediately attracted to him, she would’ve believed that she was really not that bothered about sex Men usually came and went in Vivi’s life without her ever particularly caring Only Raffaele had hurt her and that had coe so she tried not to dwell on his rejection

It was thanks to Raffaele that she had been forced to work in a succession ofto the very effective changing of her surname Only then had she contrived to shed the scandal that had seen her hounded out of two good jobs And all because she had taken a first job straight after graduating with her ree as a receptionist in a business that had ulti and an undercover escort agency, withas escorts on the side And as if that hadn’t proved bad enough a pop-up brothel had been operating in the back of the building as well, and it had been the police raid of that facility that had exploded the agency’s cover and led to her being captured on ca down the street to escape the whole explosive mess That photo and her name had been splashed over a notorious tabloid newspaper and in that photo she had looked ridiculously glaiven her a pile of her discarded but still gorgeous outfits to wear

Her phone buzzed and she lifted it, hoping it wasn’t Jude calling to cancel because she had been looking forward to the fil Instead a voice she had hoped never to hear again sounded in her ears That voice was deep and rich and accented with a positive purr Even Raffaele’s voice dripped sex appeal, she had once thought, but right at that htly to her ear, she couldn’t think rationally at all because that he should actually dare to contact her had not only never occurred to her but it also plunged her deep into shock

‘Vivi?’ he queried ‘It’s Raffaele We need to talk’

Vivi rang off without speaking and i to dance to her grandfather’s tune for the right price but she was not Or was she? She thought of John and Liz’s predicas owed to the couple for their kindness and care at a ti and vulnerable And then she felt sick with uncertainty while she wondered how Raffaele had got her phone number We need to talk Raffaele di Mancini, born into an Italian dukedo! Only if he had a sense of humour he had never revealed it to her