SeductiveIntent (2 page)

“And the thief wasn’t waiting for me when I got home. She
was sitting on top of me when I woke up. With a gun to my head, by the way.”

“Oh, dear. Would you like me to call the police?”

Brendan looked around. His wallet was on the dresser as
usual and nothing, in the bedroom anyway, seemed out of place. “She was asking
about a safe. Maybe she didn’t really take anything. Does anything look
missing?”

“Not that I’ve noticed, but I didn’t do an inventory against
an insurance roster or some such thing.”

Brendan made a snap decision. “Forget it.” He didn’t relish
telling anybody that a woman had held a gun to his head and then, what? He
didn’t really know. He supposed she, or more probably an accomplice, had hit
him with something. At least they didn’t shoot him. “I would like to know how
she managed to get in, though. That was a little unsettling.”

“I know a man who may be able to help.”

Since Mandrake had notoriously bad taste in men—Exhibit A being
the Italian boyfriend—Brendan hesitated.

“He’s a private investigator I met at a party a few years
back. He’s good. He could evaluate your security measures.”

“He’s a friend of yours?”

“More like a friend of a friend kind of thing.”

“Okay. Give him a call. See if he can come over this
morning.”

When the man, W.S. Kendon—Sam, he’d said to call him—showed
up an hour later, he seemed competent enough. “They came in through the
balcony,” he said after inspecting the apartment.

“They? Why do you think there was more than one of them?”

“Scuff marks up here.” He gestured to the outside of the
building above the doorwall. “They climbed something, probably something as
simple as a rope, back up to the roof. See those slight marks? Probably caused
by scuffs of the toes of a shoe gaining purchase as they climbed. The distance
between them suggests they were made by two climbers.”

Brendan looked down to Manhattan seventy stories below.
“Everybody has balconies,” he grumbled.

“Yes, but it would be dangerous to climb from one to
another. Really only the top one, the penthouse balcony, is safe enough to
climb onto because you need to just be unseen the short distance down from the
roof. That’s why a lot of penthouse apartments don’t have balconies.”

“They sold that as a plus.”

“Yeah, well, it is a plus. Most burglars these days don’t
bother to climb into an expensive apartment like this. They’d figure the
security precautions would keep them away.”

“Which, thanks for reminding me, they didn’t.”

“Disabled somehow, would be my guess. I can look at the
control panel if you like.”

“No, never mind. I’ll just have an armed guard posted from
now on.”

Kendon laughed. “It’s not as bad as all that. There are some
things you can do.”

Not one to get into the details on most things, Brendan
nodded. “Fine. Just go over them with Mandrake. Mandrake,” he addressed the
butler, “give Sam here whatever he needs to assure me I don’t have to worry
about this again.”

Mandrake, probably happy for something to do, nodded
enthusiastically.

“You said they were looking for a safe,” Kendan said. “I
take it you don’t have one?”

“No. Not here.”

“Do you know if they were looking for anything specific?”

“No idea. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go to my
sister’s wedding.”

* * * * *

Sophia put down her earphones and Arthur did the same. “That
Kendon guy’ll find the bugs in no time.”

Arthur shrugged. “No big deal. They did their work. All I
wanted to confirm is that he didn’t have a safe or hiding place there we
somehow missed.”

“And that he didn’t know what we were looking for.”

Arthur nodded. “That too.”

“Which isn’t hard,” she added, “since I don’t know what
we’re looking for.”

Arthur smiled his mild smile and ignored the hint.

“Go get your party clothes on, my dear. We’re going to a
wedding.”

* * * * *

Aaron Winston, Virginia Beckett’s fiancé—soon to be
husband—hadn’t wanted a bachelor’s party, so Brendan had very little to do as
best man but make sure he didn’t lose the ring, which he managed not to do. He
patted the pocket of his tux. As the only brother of the bride, he also got to
walk her down the aisle since their parents had passed away years before. With
five sisters, however, he wasn’t especially anxious to show up at Bransport—the
Becketts’ Connecticut estate and the site of the wedding—too much in advance of
the festivities, his aching head aside. He knew the house would be in a tizzy,
as they say. Actually, his head was feeling better—it just felt as if he was
getting a relapse when he sauntered into the bride’s bedroom ten minutes before
the wedding was scheduled to start and registered the sound of five Beckett
women, and a niece or two as well, all talking at the same time.

“Brendan! You rat, showing up at the last minute like this.”

Brendan kissed his oldest sister, Allie, the most motherly
of the Beckett sisters. “I didn’t want to interrupt your pre-wedding heart to
heart with Virginia. Did you fill her in on what happens on her wedding night?”

Their nineteen-year-old twin sisters, Mindy and Missy,
guffawed. “Everybody knows all Aaron and Virginia do is have sex!” one of them
said, while the other chimed in, “And with a hunk like Aaron, who can blame
Virginia?”

“That’s enough, girls,” Allie said reprovingly. “Nora, could
you go see that everybody gets seated? Since Brendan’s here now, we can start
right on time.”

“Good thing, too,” Nora responded on her way out, “since
Aaron promised to tear our sweet little brother here from limb to limb if he
had to wait one extra second for his bride.”

Brendan grinned at the threat, approaching the bride, who
was straightening her veil. “Gorgeous,” he said, kissing her on the cheek. It
was an unusual show of affection for the two of them, seeing as how they worked
side by side at Beckett Family Delicacies and shows of affection between a CEO
and her executive vice president were usually eschewed. “Mom and Dad would’ve
been so proud.”

“Please!” Virginia laughed. “They probably would’ve just
been amazed I’m taking time out for a honeymoon.”

Virginia was a workaholic, a problem Brendan most definitely
did not suffer from.

“A secret honeymoon!” Missy approved with a clap of her
hands. “It’s so exciting. You really don’t know where Aaron plans to take you?”

“Not a clue. But as long as he’s with me, I don’t care where
it is.”

“Ah, true love,” Allie sighed, as she straightened the sash
at the back of Virginia’s dress. “Ain’t it grand?”

“You should talk!” Allie and her husband were very happily
married. Their other sister, Nora, not so much. Actually, not any since the
divorce. Brendan wondered how today was going to go for her.

“Well, I’ll take the girls down.” Allie took her daughters,
one blonde and one redheaded, each by one hand.

“Good luck, Auntie Gin!” they sang as they went out.

“You two come too,” Allie ordered her twin sisters. “You
should be waiting to walk down the aisle. When you hear the music from the open
window, guys,” she instructed Virginia and Brendan, “that’s your cue. And keep
this door shut in case Aaron gets away from me before I hustle him outside and
tries to see Virginia in her wedding dress again before the ceremony.”

It was an outdoor wedding, rows and rows of open air seating
and a tent nearby for the reception. The day had cooperated—sunny and warm for
May—which was a good thing, since Virginia and Aaron had not always had it so
smooth. At each other’s throats for the first part of their “relationship”,
they were then stalked and threatened with death after that.

It had been a relatively smooth year since then, though, and
the couple was so crazy about each other that it was no surprise to anybody
about this wedding. The only surprise was that Virginia had managed to hold
Aaron off as long as she did, until after annual reports and proxy statements
were filed and her calendar cleared. Aaron was CEO of his own company, much
bigger than BFD, but he had a looser definition of taking time off than his
wife-to-be.

“Did Aaron see you in your dress, Virginia? That’s bad luck,
you know.”

“Have a little more faith in your sisters than that,
Brendan. They tag-teamed him, holding him off. Bad luck, we don’t need.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He rubbed the bump on the back
of his head without thinking and Virginia saw it.

“You okay?”

Dropping his hand quickly, he registered that the music was
starting below. Virginia didn’t need to hear about any burglary on her wedding
day. She’d had enough drama of her own. It would only worry her, big sister
that she was when all was said and done.

“I’m fine. I just have a little hangover.” He held his arm
out to her and she took it.

“What’s your excuse for that? Aaron didn’t even have a
bachelor party. I happen to know that for a fact since he was with me last
night.”

“How untraditional of both of you. I had to carry the
tradition of the party on in his honor,” he lied. Looking to the back of her
dress, he asked, “There’s no train or anything to carry?”

“No, it’s fastened up. Allie will unfasten it at the last
minute before we walk down the aisle.”

“Sounds like a plan. Shall we?” He opened her bedroom door.

* * * * *

Sophia watched Brendan Beckett out of the corner of her
eye—like she’d been watching him for weeks. Trained from an early age to read a
person’s clothes as an indication of their potential as a mark, Sophia had been
confused from the get go about this man. His clothes said wealthy. No doubt
about that. Whether in jeans or a bathing suit or a tuxedo, as he was now,
Brendan Beckett dressed as only a rich man could dress. A really rich man. But
his clothes couldn’t tell her much otherwise. They weren’t as flamboyant as a
playboy’s or as staid as the scion’s of an old family, both of which roles he
undeniably otherwise fit quite nicely. She couldn’t follow the pattern of his
dress to seek out his strengths and weaknesses like she could for most people.
Like she’d been taught to do.

And that was only the beginning of how Brendan Beckett
confused her. He was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous, of course—in his late
twenties, six feet four, muscled but lean, with sun-kissed blond hair, blue
eyes and dark black lashes of all things. She’d initially pegged him as no more
than a pretty boy, a lightweight intellectually. He’d graduated Ivy League,
just like his older sister Virginia, but without the cum laude, let alone
summa, she’d managed, and he worked at the family company with only the most
casual of interest.

But then her surveillance of him uncovered that he read
incessantly—in private or surreptitiously on his iPad—anything and everything
from the classics to poetry to existential philosophy, all without even
bragging about it to anyone. On the contrary, he seemed to be hiding it. And he
wrote beautifully. Then when his sister had to give up the reins of the company
last year when someone had been trying to kill her, Brendan stepped in and ran
things just fine in her absence. It was almost as if he were playing the part
of wastrel.

Not that he didn’t revel in some of the aspects of that
characterization. He did actually sleep around quite a lot. At first,
contradictory as it might seem, Sophia suspected his apparent promiscuity might
mask doubts about his own masculinity. She wondered if he might even be gay,
but abandoned that theory early on, after the parade of models and actresses
and socialites gave identical testament as to his prowess in bed and she
witnessed it once, quite by accident, herself.

Shoot. She’d meant to get out of Brendan Beckett’s hotel
room before he got back. If their mark found her, Arthur would just kill her. A
quick scan of the history on his iPad internet browser had turned up nothing
incriminating or useful, although the sites he’d perused had surprised her. No
porn, but rather an unsettling amount of poetry sites and an assortment of
novels that would make a local library proud. She’d found a journal as well,
not online as she would’ve expected, but an old-fashioned leather bound one.
But paging through that was just as unhelpful. It wasn’t a diary that might
have chronicled his daily movements and perhaps led them to what they were
looking for, but instead a notebook of some kind with verses and random
thoughts. As if that could possibly help.

When she’d heard the card key being inserted in the door,
she thought at first it must be the maid come to make up the room, deviating
apparently from her usual route since that would’ve given Sophia another half
hour or so. So she’d slipped into the closet, watching through the slatted
door. It wasn’t the maid. It was him. And he wasn’t alone.

“Come here, you infuriating boy.”

Sophia tore her eyes away from the vision of Brendan Beckett
shrugging out of a tee shirt and bearing his muscular chest. The woman who
purred her instructions to the “boy” didn’t look much older than he did. But
something about the carefully coiffed blonde hair, French manicure and toned
and tanned body barely covered by a bikini suggested that the illusion of youth
may have been bought and paid for.

“Jesus, Kim, you’re greedy. First you couldn’t wait to at
least let me get a swim in and now you’re too impatient to even let me undress.
Take a pill or something.”

His hands went to the waistband of his bathing trunks and
Sophia held her breath.

“I did take a pill, darling. As soon as I got up. And it
made me horny.”

“Where’s your regular boy-toy?”

“Still asleep and not anywhere near as talented with his
cock as you are.”

“Gee, I’m flattered.” He pushed his trunks off just as the
woman untied the top of her string bikini. The tan covered her whole body, it
turned out. And her breasts didn’t sag in the slightest bit, thanks to either
surgery or silicone or some combination of the two. Since Sophia didn’t have
those advantages and still had a double-D cup, she found herself a little
jealous of that at least. Not to mention this woman was about to go to bed with
one hot guy. She was a little jealous of that too.