Irresistible You by Victoria Connelly

if he turns out to have a mother like Irma Taccani?’
    ‘Good point,’ Rosanna conceded. ‘But you have to go through these things – if you’re making a lifelong commitment to someone, you can’t get away with not meeting his family.’
    ‘I just don’t see the point in rushing. We just want to be us at the moment - is that so dreadful?’
    Rosanna chewed her lip. ‘Is he Catholic?’
    ‘Rosanna!’
    ‘Well, is he?’
    ‘No! But neither am I.’
    Rosanna tutted. ‘What a way to talk! You show such little respect.’
    There was a moment’s silence.
    ‘I thought you’d be pleased.’
    Rosanna shifted uneasily on the sofa. She didn’t look at all pleased; she looked as if she’d just discovered a porcupine in her knickers.
    ‘Look!’ she said, ‘I have to go and meet a client and, when I come back, I want you to have thought long and hard about this, Elena. This is a life-changing decision, you know? You don’t just get engaged on a whim. I know you! I know what you’re like with men but you can’t treat them just as you want. There has to be respect and truth and love.’
    Elena sat perfectly still and perfectly silent. She didn’t dare say anything, not when Rosanna was this worked up, but, boy, was Rosanna going to be furious with her when she found out the truth - that she had not only committed herself to one man but to three . What would she say then? Elena wondered, dread filling her heart.
    With a sigh the north wind would have been proud of, Rosanna got up.
    ‘Right. I’m going now. I want you to sit here and think about what you’ve just told me. Really think! ’ she said, waving her hand just like their mama used to wave her wooden spoon at her.
    Elena’s mouth dropped at her words as she watched Rosanna spring up from the sofa, and she couldn’t think of anything to say in response so she simply watched as Rosanna swung her handbag over her shoulder and left the house. What a nightmare, she thought. Who did she think she was to talk to her like that? She’d forgotten how completely overbearing her sister could be.
    Elena got up from the sofa and walked through to the kitchen. It was a relief to have the apartment to herself for a while. She looked out of the kitchen window onto a communal garden which was overlooked by other apartments where washing hung out of windows to dry in the bright spring sunshine. An old woman’s hand shook a duster out into the garden but, other than her and cat-child, who Rosanna had let outside, there wasn’t a soul around. It was so unlike her flat in London which looked out onto a high street that never slept. She loved the peace of Venice. The water seemed to absorb sound and some of the back streets seemed to be in a permanent siesta. It was just what she needed.
    Elena closed her eyes to absorb the silence around her. There hadn’t been many moments like this for a while. Life had been rather noisy. Her head had slowly been filled up with so much stuff that her thoughts had had nowhere to go but round and round in circles. Mark. Reuben. Prof. Three very special men who deserved nothing but one hundred percent of her attention. But they weren’t getting that, were they?
    There has to be respect and truth and love.
    Rosanna’s words swam in front of her again. She was right, wasn’t she? Elena hadn’t really thought this through at all. There was love, of course - her own interpretation of it which was obviously something different from her sister’s - but respect and truth? Her three engagement rings showed nothing but her contempt for each of her fiancés. She had taken their tokens of love knowing that they were pledging themselves to her and her alone and, now that she thought about it, she could see how wrong it all was.
    The funny thing was , it hadn’t seemed wrong at the time. She’d thought that, by having three fiancés, she was giving more love and not less but she was sure Mark, Prof and Reuben wouldn’t see it like that. But that