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A couple of hours later and groomed to within an inch of her life, those tumultuous emotions and sensations carefully tamped down, Belle scrutinised her reflection with a sharply critical gaze It was a beautiful dress and her youngest sister would have told her that she looked like a princess in it because Lucia, in common with their late th, the goas bare at the shoulder and ure at breast and hip Did she look just a little too busty? She hitched the bodice and then alht about it that Cristo would enjoy the view

Betsy rang Cristo as he eed from the shower in his own rooely detached from his sister-in-law and her problems It occurred to him that he had never lusted after Nik’s wife the way he did after his own and heif some internal censor button had somehow prevented it or whether indeed she didn’t appeal to him quite that much on that more basic level, which struck him as an extraordinary possibility

He was still listening to Betsy recount the latest hostile moves his brother had made in the divorce battle when Belle came downstairs and his mind went totally blank because Belle looked fantastic and he couldn’t think of anything else He ended the call with an apologetic mutter

‘Who were you talking to?’ Belle asked, her attention locked to the unusually distracted expression on his lean dark features

‘Betsy’

‘Nik’s wife?’

Cristo struggled not to sound defensive ‘We’re friends’

‘That must be aard,’ Belle reot married?’

Cristo tensed, ataut at the corner of his shapely mouth ‘No It happened because of the way they broke up’

Like a bloodhound on the trail, Belle was in no mood to settle for less than she wanted to know ‘And why did they break up?’

‘For very private reasons But so I let slip when I should have kept quiet and minded my own business contributed to it’ Cristo frauilt in a harsh undertone ‘I’m sorry I can’t tell you more but I caused a lot of trouble by once carelessly revealing a secret which Nik had shared with ret it’

Belle wanted to drag the whole truth out of him there and then because all her suspicious antennae were noaking up to full alert Exactly what did his ‘friendship’ with Betsy Ravelli entail?

Outside the li?’ she asked to fill the strained silence, which confirood reason why Cristo was quite so wary and uncoed wife Was she being fanciful in being so suspicious? Was his reaction siht have contributed to the breakdown of the couple’s e? But if that was true, why did he carry a photo of Betsy in his wallet? That lent an all too personal dimension to the relationship that could only make Belle feel troubled

‘We’re going to Assisi There’s a very special restaurant there,’ Cristo imparted, relieved she had dropped the touchy subject of Nik’s e breakdown

‘Assisi…as in the birthplace of St Francis?’