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me."
    "Excellent. Was he any good at it? What's your opinion?"
    "The man is so friggin' dangerous."
    "Ooh," Gracie cooed, "my favorite kind."
     

CHAPTER THREE
    "She's different from what we were expecting."
    "In what way?"
    Lucas looked at his mother, Jacquelyn, and paused, gathering his thoughts so he could adequately describe Faith Benjamin.
    They were in their Denver mansion, one of the city's grand old behemoths that had been built a century earlier with his great grandfather's mining fortune. Although it was beautifully designed and a historic landmark, it was also drafty and uncomfortable.
    The large windows couldn't keep out the winter cold, the furnace—added decades later—didn't adequately heat the rooms, and when it rained, the roof leaked. The family rarely spent time in it.
    His fussy sister, Brittney, preferred New York City. His lazy brother, Dustin, thrived in Los Angeles. His aloof, distant mother favored Santa Fe, while Lucas didn't really live anywhere. He liked to travel, and he enjoyed the freedom of being able to move on whenever he wished to leave.
    The four of them didn't get along. His parents' marriage had been a train wreck, filled with bitter arguments and incessant conflicts. He and his two siblings were the survivors, raised by nannies and housed at boarding schools. As a child, he'd seldom interacted with Jacquelyn. He'd seen her on holidays and short summer breaks when he was home between camps. He hardly knew Dustin and Brittney.
    Yet they'd made the trip to Denver. They were money hungry, intent on hoarding what was theirs, and only the potential loss of millions could have lured them to congregate.
    "She's just a normal person," Lucas said of Faith, aware that the portrayal was unsatisfactory.
    "There's no such thing as normal ," his mother sniffed.
    At age sixty, she was remote and brittle, thin to the point of emaciation. Her brown hair had turned to silver, her blue eyes lacked their prior vibrancy. She'd had too much cosmetic work done on her face, and the skin was stretched so tightly that her eyebrows were in a constant state of surprise.
    "I suppose," Lucas clarified, "I should have said ordinary . She's not a drug addict or alcoholic. She's smart and shrewd and pretty, and she seems to have a good head on her shoulders."
    Dustin scoffed. "You would notice that she's pretty."
    "Well, she is. Should I lie and say she's an ugly hag?"
    "Seduce her then," Dustin urged. "If she's pretty, it won't be a chore. Make her fall in love with you—that should be easy—and you can convince her to do whatever you want."
    "I don't think it would be that simple. She's wary of me, and she has her own agenda. She's too intelligent to be fooled by fake flattery."
    "Every woman can be fooled by fake flattery," Dustin insisted.
    "Not her."
    "If that's what you imagine, you should let me have a go at her."
    Dustin was twenty-eight, Lucas's younger brother, and though they were only two years apart in age, Lucas felt decades older.
    Physically, they could have been twins. They had the same height, build, and handsome facial features, but the resemblance stopped there.
    Dustin was lazy and entitled, as was Lucas, but he took it to extremes and was ruthless in his pursuit of pleasure. The notion of his inserting himself into the mess with Faith was disconcerting. The last thing Lucas needed was to have his cruel, disreputable brother involved.
    "Did you discuss the inheritance with her?" Brittney asked.
    "She won't give it back without a fight."
    "How could she expect to win against us?"
    "She contends that all of this—the marriage, the money—was Harold's idea."
    "A likely story," Brittney fumed.
    She was very thin like their mother, a perfectionist determined never to put on an extra pound. While he and Dustin were dark-haired and blue-eyed like their parents, she was blond and her eyes green. She didn't look like the rest of them.
    "Faith has two kids," Lucas said, "that she claims are