Page 9 of The Love Destroyers

Not that I have any intention of flashing him my thigh, of course.

Unless it’s to torment him.

I’ve decided I’m still angry with Seamus James, if only because I’m pissed off at the world, and he’s the latest man to have put a target on his back.

Was he right to turn me down?

Assuredly.

The last thing I needed to do was stumble down to my brother’s wedding, smelling like his brother-in-law. Or to deal with his knowing looks and comments every holiday. But he didn’t need to be such a dick about Jeffrey. I’m perfectly aware that I made a mistake. I feel the ache of that knowledge everyday. I didn’t need a reminder from a man who likes to play fast and loose with life.

Sniffing to myself, I put on some red lipstick and then leave my bedroom. Walking downstairs, I take stock of the house. My mother has agreed that I can redecorate it while I’m temporarily unemployed.

Smith House is old, much-too-large, and filled with heavy old furniture better suited to people who’ve been dead for fifty years. My childhood home has always felt weighed down by its lengthy existence—as if every rich man who’d ever owned it still haunts the halls, gasping whenever someone forgets to use a coaster.

Not anymore. Maybe I can’t reclaim my own life, but I’m going to evict every last one of their ghosts. They can go haunt the retirement home across town.

I’m smiling at the thought when I reach the bottom of the steps and turn toward the room where Rosie’s getting ready, taking note of the threadbare patches on the expensive carpet runner. I take the turn too quickly, and walk directly into a hard body that smells slightly of smoke.

He turns to look at me, raising one eyebrow, and heat flushes through my body. That only pisses me off more. So does the fact that Seamus looks pretty damn good in a suit. Better than he has any right to. He reminds me of an evil jetsetter in a James Bond movie—one who looks so good you find yourself rooting for the wrong side to win.

“What are you doing here?” I ask pointedly.

“I was invited. Your brother might have asked Declan and me to stand up with him, but my sister comes first, and she wanted to lift a glass with us before she signs her life away. What areyoudoing here?”

He knows I live here, obviously. So I’m guessing he meant that as a blow. It lands like one, dammit.

“Interior decorating,” I reply, waving a hand at the statue standing proudly at the end of the hallway. It looks like a seventy-pound baby with gout. “I was thinking of having a tag sale. I’d give you a good price if you’d like to take that off our hands.”

The thought of a tag sale pleases me, because that woulddefinitelypiss off our ancestors.

This time both of his eyebrows wing up. “You’re really going to lie down and play dead?”

It lands like a blow, but I scowl at him and remind myself of that flask, strapped to my thigh. It’s proof that I don’t lay down and play dead, dammit. Not unless I have no other option.

“I’m biding my time,” I insist. “I’m going to fight him at the hearing.”

I’m proud of the way my voice doesn’t quaver, because I know Jeffrey has connections that might come through for him. I do not.

Shaking the dark thoughts off, I prop my leg on a decorative plant stand against the wall closest to me and pull the flask out of my garter belt.

I take a swig, my leg still hoisted up, and then return the flask to its place. I’m rewarded by the look Seamus gives me—and punished by it too. Because I can tell he wants to slam me against the wall and fuck me, and even if he’s aggravating as hell, I’d really, really like him to.

But he conceals his reaction quickly and then says, “The Hello Kitty stickers were exactly what it was missing. Good call. But I question why a thirty-two-year-old woman would have them.”

“I don’t believe in age-ism.”

His whole face lifts in amusement. “No, I guess you wouldn’t.”

For about the five hundredth time, I think about what he said yesterday—about me calling mendaddy. He wouldn’t know how close that bat-swing came to home. My father, the scion of the Smith family fortune, died when I was ten. He was a cold, withholding asshole who showboated for the public but treated his family with contempt and me with absolute indifference. Not that I’m complaining. My brother was unlucky enough to have held his interest. He used to beat him to “toughen him up,” something I’d only recently found out. That revelation has only added to the weight I’ve been feeling. Logically, I know there is nothing I could have done. I was a little kid. But the knowledge that I failed to protect him or even notice what was going on makes me feel even more powerless. Useless to everyone. My brother and my father.

Maybe Seamus was right, and there’s a lost part of me that longs for the approval and interest of older, withholding men. There’s no denying the only men I’ve dated seriously are quite a bit older than me. I wasted two years I’ll never get back on Jeffrey. And before him there was Tom, one of my professors in law school, who had the courtesy to wait until after I graduated to ask me to put on my brightest red lipstick and blow him.

I hate that I did it.

I hate how good it felt to be noticed and wanted by them.

If it’s a pattern I’ve unintentionally fallen into, I’m not proud of it, and I certainly don’t appreciate being called on it.

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