A Clash with Cannavaro. Elizabeth Power
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to know each other a bit better. Enjoyed a year or two of just being there for each other.’
‘For heaven’s sake, Lauren! That’s so old-fashioned! But then you always were. And naïve, if you don’t take umbrage from my saying so.’
‘Naïve?’ It hurt Lauren to think that she and her sister weren’t able to see eye to eye, even on that day of all days.
‘You don’t think that all this...’ an expansive gesture of her arm indicated the lavish wedding celebrations ‘...would have happened if I hadn’t forced Angelo’s hand and engineered this pregnancy, do you?’ She laughed out loud at Lauren’s silent disbelief. ‘Don’t look so shocked, sister dear. After all, you can hardly claim to be any different, can you? I saw the way you were cosying up to that big, big brother of his last night, and the way the two of you disappeared after you went out onto the terrace. Did you manage to talk him into bed?’
‘Vikki!’
‘No, don’t tell me. I can see you did. I’ll bet he’s a real super stud between the sheets!’
Lauren could still remember the embarrassed indignation she’d felt at Vikki’s remark, which made her cheeks burn with flaming colour.
‘Wow! That good, eh?’ Vikki enthused. ‘A bit hotter than that lascivious old banker I thought you were trying to land yourself with last night,’ she went on when Lauren was still trying to come to terms with how devious her sister seemed to have become, ‘until, of course, you saw the opportunity to set your cap at some serious money. I’m proud of you, sis. I really am. I didn’t think you’d have the courage to play for such high stakes as Emiliano Cannavaro, but your street cred’s really gone up in my estimation. Play your cards right and you could have it all there. Wealth. Position and—from the look of you—some stupendous sex as well.’
‘Vikki!’ Lauren found her voice at last, but she wasn’t prepared to discuss what had happened between her and Angelo’s brother. ‘We’re not discussing me. It’s you I’m concerned for. What did you mean about engineering your pregnancy? Surely you didn’t...’
‘Leave off the Pill and get pregnant on purpose? How else did you imagine I was going to get that confirmed playboy bachelor to propose? Five months ago, when we got back together after that last break-up, I made up my mind that things were going to be different. Such a rich, handsome package seldom comes a girl’s way more than once in a lifetime, and I was determined not to let it slip through my fingers again. But don’t you see...’ her tone was emphatic, excited, animated ‘...if you’ve hit it off with his dynamo of a brother, it’s all working out as we planned.’
Lauren frowned, so appalled and perplexed by what Vikki was saying that she was dumbfounded, lost for words.
‘OK, so you haven’t hooked Emiliano yet, and if he’s anything like his brother he’ll probably run a mile if he thinks you’re trying to. But play your cards right, sexy sister, with that demure smile and that stand-offish attitude that always has them straining at the bit, and that big hunky beast won’t know what hit him. He might think he’s in control, but he’ll just be putty in your hands.’
The cliché jarred, especially when it was her, Lauren, who had been like putty in Emiliano’s hands. But the things her sister kept coming out with had become more and more outrageous.
‘Vikki, I can’t believe—’ she started to say, only to have her reprimand curtailed by Vikki’s swift interjection.
‘That I still have the list?’
‘The list?’ Lauren’s confusion was so complete that those two words escaped her on what sounded like an almost hysterical little laugh. But she didn’t want her sister to think that what she was saying was funny. It wasn’t funny at all.
‘Our list of possible candidates. Most suitable husband material. These two Italian playboys were always at the number one spot.’
Voices outside and then the appearance of another guest looking for the rest rooms silenced whatever Lauren had been about to say. But, as soon as the woman retreated, Lauren launched into a tirade that left her sister in no doubt at all about how she felt.
‘If you think I condone your behaviour, Vikki, then all I can say is you’re very much mistaken, so please don’t try and include me in your unscrupulous actions. Quite frankly, I’m appalled! How you could be irresponsible enough to let yourself get pregnant when you don’t even want a baby is bad enough. But that you could do it to trap Angelo into marrying you is not only devious but downright immoral and, quite honestly, it’s beyond anything I would have believed you capable of stooping to.’
She went on to remind her sister that their dream of marrying Italian millionaires was something they’d entertained as young adolescents and which she’d thought they had both relinquished—because she certainly had—as soon as they’d grown up!
Her sister warned her that she was part of the very influential Cannavaro family now and begged her not to tell anyone, least of all Emiliano. ‘He could be lethal if he thought anyone was double-crossing him—or any member of his family,’ Vikki told her in a rising panic before going on to add, ‘And I do love Angelo. I really do!’
Lauren couldn’t remember what she had said to her sister after that. Only that she’d watched unhappily as Vikki and her new husband had climbed into the taxi on the first leg of their Turkish honeymoon, with Angelo fielding bawdy comments from a number of his bachelor friends and Vikki smiling brightly through a shower of confetti, looking every bit the perfect couple on their perfect day.
Lauren hadn’t imagined she could feel any worse than she did at that moment, in not only having quarrelled with her sister on her wedding day, but having to carry the disturbing knowledge of Vikki’s deception as well. But when she’d gone back into the hotel and virtually collided with Emiliano, striding through Reception with his briefcase and his features as grim as a rock face, she’d felt her spirits plummet to new depths as she uttered the first words that sprang to her lips.
‘You’re leaving?’ It had been pretty obvious that he was.
‘What did you expect, mia cara?’ His tone clothed the rock face with sheer ice. ‘That I would stick around and be made a fool of as my brother has? Is that what you were hoping? Exactly how many times did you imagine you could sob out my name before I would crack and you could mark up one big beautiful tick against your list?’
Stunned by his coldness and by exactly what he had said, Lauren was only able to stand there and utter breathlessly, ‘You heard?’
‘Si, cara. I heard,’ he rasped.
‘How?’ It was all she could say, hurting not just from that scene with her sister, but from Emiliano’s harsh and very inaccurate conclusion.
‘I don’t really think I need to tell you,’ he said grimly. ‘I came to find you to ask if you would have dinner with me tonight, and all I can say now is that I am very glad I did. If I hadn’t, who knows what sort of sucker you might still have been taking me for, but, thanks to the conversation I overheard between you and your opportunistic sibling, I was able to see quite clearly what game you were playing.’
‘It wasn’t a game.’ Dear heaven! she despaired. How could he even think so?
‘Emiliano!’ Desperate to make him understand, she called after him as he made to depart. ‘How could you believe I could be party to anything that Vikki said?’
‘Very easily.’ He’d stopped, but his tone was inexorable. ‘If I remember correctly, you sounded no less than positively amused.’
She tried to protest—tried to pinpoint what might have given him reason to think she was amused by anything that had transpired during that scene with her sister, but she couldn’t think straight, let alone remember.
‘If you recall, I didn’t exactly fall over myself to get you to notice me—talk to me,’ she reminded him lamely. ‘And I certainly didn’t give you the come-on once