SeductiveIntent Read Online Free PDF Page A

their blonde hair and
perfect skin. Matching older versions, one in black oddly, sat in the front
row, both smiling, assorted children in ages ranging from middle school to high
school surrounding them. Those must be the older sisters and nieces and
nephews.
    The groom’s attendants consisted of Brendan and a bookish
man with curly brown hair and perpetually slipping glasses, who kept whispering
to Brendan like a naughty school boy in class until the groom scowled over at
him and he stopped.
    Where the groom’s family was, Sophia didn’t know. She
supposed the gray-haired older woman on the other side of the aisle belonged to
him. The rest of the crowd could be anybody. Since this was a wedding of
business titans, as the press had dubbed it, they were probably all colleagues
or customers or whatever business titans had. Maybe they were all just minions.
    Before Sophia knew it, the couple was being pronounced man
and wife and walking down the aisle arm and arm, smiling so genuinely it was
kind of sickening to watch.
    Well, never mind. Now was the time for the action to begin.

Chapter Two
     
    Brendan was happy for Virginia. He really was. She was
beaming as she danced with her new husband. She hadn’t even asked him what the
latest projections were, a relief since they happened to be lousy.
    “Are you having another?”
    He glanced sideways at his older sister, Nora. Choosing to
wear black to a wedding could be considered chic, but since Nora’s husband had
just been incarcerated for trying to kill the bride, it was probably more than
a fashion statement. More like a comment on the institution of marriage as a
whole.
    Brendan downed his champagne in one gulp. “Yep.”
    Nora frowned. She had been a heavy drinker once herself, but
her husband’s descent into drug-induced crime seemed to have scared her sober.
He exchanged his empty glass for a full one care of a passing waiter and downed
that too.
    “No date, Brendan?”
    “No. You know I think it’s a bad idea to bring a girl to a
family wedding. Gives her dangerous ideas about Beckett money and the
happily-ever-afters that go with it.”
    “Yes. I suppose so.”
    The crack in his sister’s voice made him feel like a shit.
“I’m sorry, Nora. I didn’t mean—”
    “It’s all right. I can’t go through the rest of my life with
everybody tip-toeing around me. Just take my advice, little brother, and never
marry a pretty face without finding out what’s underneath.”
    “No worry on that score. I don’t intend to get married.”
    “Even better,” Nora muttered.
    “What are you two looking so down about?” Mindy popped up at
his elbow, a glass of champagne casually in hand. He divested her of it, as was
their usual practice.
    “You’re not twenty-one yet, squirt.”
    His pretty little sister huffed. “Why don’t you relax your
big brother act for one night, Brendan? It’s Virginia’s wedding, for heaven’s
sake. What do you think, Nora?”
    Nora smiled wistfully at their sister, not much older than
her oldest child, who Brendan couldn’t help but notice didn’t appear to be
speaking to his mother. The little snot. He’d give his nephew a good talking-to
if he didn’t know the poor kid was going through hell now. Even a no-good
father was better than a no-good father behind bars.
    Nora was chatting with Mindy now, an arm around her shoulder
casually. He might have thought that the twins would annoy Nora at this
juncture in her life, with their carefree failure to recognize the enormity of
what had just happened. To the twins, somebody trying to kill their one sister
and the husband of their other sister ending up behind bars were just blips in
a life full of college and socializing.
    But if anything, Nora seemed to cherish the normalcy in her
relationship with the twins.
    Mason Lockbridge, a friend of his and Virginia’s from
college, approached them and nudged Brendan off to the side.
    “Hey, who is that?”
    Brendan followed the direction