Page 1 of Sinful Attraction

Chapter 1

Arya

“Look, sweetheart, all I’m saying is that you’d be much happier if you took the pressure off yourself, settled down, and got married. You can do this computer stuff from home in your spare time.” My mother aims her soup spoon at me across the table. “Mark my words. You’ll regret it in ten years if you don’t have any kids.”

“Mom, just because I want to be more than a housewife doesn’t mean I don’t want to have kids.” I feel my stomach clench around my half-eaten supper as she starts this same old stupid argument again.

She waves her hand dismissively over her gnocchi. “No, no, women tried to have it all, honey. They tried that in the seventies, the eighties, the nineties. It never works! If all you do is work, you’ll miss out on a family.” She takes a bite, still waving her spoon at me, swallows, and goes right on, “You need a man, not better computer equipment.”

I stare at her, trying to keep my expression polite, but I’m already getting a headache. It would be easier if Dad would do more than just nod along with her, but here we are.

We have supper late in the Castellucci household. It’s always awkward these days. Mom never stops talking about marrying me off. Dad never stops talking about how I’m spending his money frivolously setting up a family network and all this computer equipment.

But tonight, I have something to look forward to that makes all their dinner-table crap a lot more bearable. Tonight, I start the master plan that will ensure that they respect me from here on out.

It’s 10 at night when I finally get to my workstation in the room next to my bedroom. The rest of my siblings have dressing rooms there; I have our family server, my personal computer setup, and my hacking setup. My dad likes to grumble that all the electronics I have stuffed into my suite double our power bill. Well, I’m going to prove that I can use them to double our family income as well. And not just ours, but everyone’s among the Castelluccis.

My parents have considered this “computer thing” to be an expensive hobby despite the fact that I have a doctorate in it, and they go to me with every technological problem of every single family member on the West Coast. I’m their only unmarried daughter and the only one who wants a career with the family. They don’t like that. Women are supposed to be mommies and push out a big pile of baby boys while still looking good in their husbands’ arms and in their beds.

It’s such complete and utter 1950s-era bullshit. I’ve been desperate to prove myself in a way they can’t just dismiss in order to dispel their stupid ideas of who and what I should be.

I log on and check all my message services, the news, and every piece of information my web crawlers have picked up that day. I am preparing for the heist of a lifetime, something that will really impress my dad and make my family realize just how much I can really contribute. Maybe it’ll even shut my mother up for once.

Soon, I’ll impress them as much as my brothers do just by being boys.

I notice an email my filter has caught, and my thoughtful frown becomes a scowl. Michael Fucking Rossi, that pretty asshole, is trying to contact me again. I don’t know why the hell he thinks we have any kind of friendly relationship. Our families are rivals, he’s my rival, and he doesn’t have a chance in hell with me.

But he keeps asking me out while being annoyingly sexy. And the worst part is, if he wasn’t such a giant pain in the ass, I would actually be tempted.

But he is, and it’s absolutely aggravating. The guy absolutely believes he’s a better hacker than I, he’s ridiculously confident, and he’s one of those guys who are condescending without even seeming to be aware of it. Like we’re all just bit players in his grand masterpiece of an autobiographical film.

I don’t really like overconfident, hot guys. They’re too used to getting their way. Michael, with his great shoulders, wavy black hair, and Hollywood smile, definitely fits the mold. He’s probably used to having women throw themselves at him, which is why he won’t stop chasing me. I’m probably the only one who says no to him on a regular basis.

Why are guys like this?I think to myself as I close the filter folder without reading his message.If they’re in competition with you, they’re convinced they’re better just because you have boobs. And even if you’re pretty much enemies thanks to being part of rival families, they’ll try and get in your panties anyway.

I haven’t dated much, mostly thanks to the stink my parents kick up every single time it looks like I’m getting serious with someone they don’t approve of, which has been every single boyfriend I have ever let them meet. Their whole shtick is that I should find a man and settle down, but then they pull crap like this. They have since I was 16.

When I do have kids, I swear to God I will not raise them with these kinds of messed up mixed messages.It will be tough to do that when I finally do because I’ll have to explain to my kids now and then that their grandparents are kind of full of shit.

I’ll owe them that much. Otherwise, they’ll spend too much of their childhoods confused, conflicted, and wondering why their extended family doesn’t like daughters.

Life’s never been fair. But I can try to be fair, especially to kids.

One day, I’ll have a family of my own, with a man who doesn’t make me feel like I have to stop being myself to be loved.

But in the meantime, I’m going to prove my family wrong.

The assignment I have given myself is simple. All I have to do is pull an international electronic heist of billionaire industrialist Orson Stone’s next overseas transfer and enrich my family by $5 million in one go. Boom, instant family fame, instant legitimacy.

Well, maybe not instant, but it’s going to be one hell of a card to play against my parents next time they try to have the get-married-have-a-baby-you’re-wasting-your-life talk with me.

I have a plan for piercing the old bastard’s security. I have a plan for covering my tracks. I know I can pull it off and dump that moneyuntraceablyinto my family’s accounts without anyissues. I just need to time it right, keep my contingencies at hand in case anything goes wrong, finish up, and then tell Mom and Dad to check their accounts.

I can’t wait to see their faces when the project I’ve been telling them about for months actually works.

Of course, it would be even better if I could find a way to rub my success in Mike Rossi’s face, too. The guy is constantly acting like I’ve got no place on the Internet, either. Like I can’t possibly do the same job as him just as well as he does. It’s the same bullshit that I get from my parents, except he’s a little less overtly sexist about it.

Usually.

---