Las Vegas: Seduction: The Heiress's 2-Week Affair. Marie Ferrarella

adversaries, thanks to the efforts of both their fathers. Until Ricky’s birth five years ago, Uncle Michael enjoyed rubbing her father’s nose in the fact that he had only females in his family while he, Michael, had fathered two strong, strapping sons: Conner and Michael Jr. The implication was not lost on her. To Uncle Michael, women were second-class citizens.

      She remembered always feeling as if the family gatherings they had were merely excuses for some sort of competitive comparison. Birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving, it didn’t matter. The agenda was always the same. Each brother tried to top the other, and neither was above using their offspring and pitting them against one another like some human form of cockfighting.

      Time and again, she could remember being played against Conner and his brother. The competition turned more serious as they grew up. Then it was accomplishment against accomplishment, career against career. More than once, the criminals she had arrested wound up being put back on the street, thanks to the efforts of Conner and her uncle.