Seven-Year Seduction

This was the man she loved, had been in love with since her thirteenth birthday. And now he would be the man she married and spent the rest of her life with.

She couldn’t wait.

Two

Seven years later…

Beth Curtis sat at the family table on the dais, sipping from her glass of champagne, watching as the bride, groom and dozens of guests filled the dance floor.

She hated weddings.

She was happy for Nick and Karen, really she was. They had been dating since high school, and she—and everyone else in town—knew they’d marry eventually. Of course, her brother had put off proposing right up until the stick turned blue. Regardless of their reasons for finally tying the knot, though, Beth had no doubt they would make it work. They belonged together.

But she still hated weddings. Especially this one.

Bad enough she’d been roped into being the maid of honor, with all the duties that position entailed. Bad enough she’d had to fly over two thousand miles each way to come back to Crystal Springs for the bridal shower, wedding and reception planning, and now the actual event. Bad enough that Karen’s favorite colors were green and pink, and that Beth was therefore decked out in a formfitting satin sheath made up of lime and watermelon shades of each.

Oh, no, all that was bad enough. The worst, the very worst, was that she had to smile and laugh and pretend that seeing Connor Riordan again wasn’t a dagger through her heart.

She’d done a pretty good job of avoiding him since he’d taken her virginity all those years ago. Moving to Los Angeles had helped, as had not coming home to visit her parents and brother nearly as often as she might have liked.

And then Nick had decided he just had to do the right thing by marrying Karen because he’d gotten her pregnant, and Connor just had to be his best man. Which meant Beth and Connor had to see each other more than she’d have preferred. He even walked her down the aisle during the ceremony.

She took another swig of bubbling wine. It was warm and starting to lose its fizz, but she didn’t care. The alcohol content would remain the same, and right now she wanted nothing more than to go numb.

Standing in the church’s vestibule with Connor, his arm linked with hers while the soft notes of the wedding march played had been like a red-hot brand on her soul. He couldn’t have known she was in actual physical pain, of course, and he had no idea that being around him was so hard for her…or why. But that didn’t lessen the ache in the pit of her stomach or the harsh memories that ran through her head at the very mention of his name.

And now she was lucky enough to have a bird’s-eye view of him dancing cheek to cheek with his live-in girlfriend. Laura, Lori, Lisa…something like that. She was blond and perky and had boobs that bounced when she walked. Beth would bet next month’s salary that she’d been a cheerleader in high school. And that the bounce was saline- or silicone-induced.

Not that there was anything wrong with that. Beth was a California girl now; plastic surgery came with the territory. Heck, as an entertainment attorney who worked with some of Hollywood’s most beautiful stars, the majority of her clients had been nipped or tucked in one way or another.

So why was she being so judgmental of Lisa-Lori-Laura?

Simple. She was with Connor and Beth wasn’t.

Connor had apparently felt strongly enough about the L-woman to ask her to move in with him, when he hadn’t felt enough for Beth to even pick up the phone and call her after their one night together in the cab of his truck.

Jealous? Yes, she supposed she was. But more than that, she was hurt and angry. No amount of time or number of miles between them would change that.

Seven years certainly hadn’t.

Beth paused with the champagne flute halfway to her mouth. No, that wasn’t quite true. She was over him. Absolutely, positively, one hundred percent over him.

The only feelings she still harbored toward Connor were ones of resentment. Just hearing his name raised her blood pressure. Not because she missed him or wished she could be his girlfriend, but because the thought of him made her want to strangle somebody when she didn’t typically suffer from homicidal tendencies.

To some, those emotions might be welcome in relation to an ex-lover, but to her, they only served to remind her that he had had an impact on her at all. She hated that. Loathing was better than longing, but she’d prefer to be indifferent toward him.

“What are you doing hiding over here all by yourself? You should be dancing.”

Her brother’s voice came to her from over her left shoulder and she tipped her head back to look at him. Clear as a bell, steady as a surgeon… Damn, she was still sober.

“It’s not my wedding day. I’m not required to make a fool of myself.”

“Gee, thanks.” He crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out, mugging for her the way he’d done all her life. “Look, Karen’s shoes are pinching her, but I’m still in the mood to dance, so I need a new partner.”

Beth scanned the crowd and pointed toward an attractive brunette with the rim of her glass. “Ask her.”

“Are you kidding me? If I danced with anyone but my sister, my new bride would divorce me before the honeymoon.” He waggled his eyebrows. “And I’m really looking forward to that honeymoon.”

It was Beth’s turn to roll her eyes. “Please. It’s nothing new to you two, and we both know it. So will everyone else in six or seven months.”

“Shh. We’re keeping that a secret as long as we can. Now get up and dance with me, or I’ll think you aren’t happy for your big brother’s recent state of wedded bliss.”

With a sigh, she set down her empty glass and pushed to her feet. “Well, we can’t have that.”

Nick grinned as he took her hand and led her onto the crowded dance floor. Rod Stewart’s throaty version of “The Way You Look Tonight” was playing, but Beth refused to give the song’s lyrics too much thought as Nick’s arm wrapped around her and they began to sway.

“I really am happy for you, you know.”

The corners of his mouth lifted in a grin. “I know. It took me a while to get here, but I’m awfully glad I did.”

She chuckled. “If you didn’t put a ring on Karen’s finger soon, I think she was about ready to string you up. You have been dating since high school, after all.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to make sure she loved me for me and not my millions.”

Beth threw back her head and laughed. Nick was lucky he had two nickels to rub together. He and Connor owned a contracting company together and did a lot of the work themselves, but they weren’t exactly raking in the dough. Early on in their partnership, there had been months when they barely broke even; more when they were clearly in the hole.

Things were better now, but neither of them was rich by any stretch of the imagination. If Karen had truly been looking for a man with money to spare, she’d have run screaming from Nicholas years ago.

Beth, on the other hand, was doing pretty well for herself. Things had been tight when she’d first moved to L.A. The exorbitant cost of living on the West Coast, in addition to school loans that still had to be paid off, hadn’t been easy to swing for a girl who didn’t even have a job yet. She’d made ends meet at first by waitressing and temping at a few law firms.

Then she’d lucked out in finding a friend and fellow attorney who did have some cash to spare and was willing to form a partnership with her. Danny Vincent was a great guy. He came from money, so he’d been the one to foot all the start-up costs of Vincent and Curtis, but she’d done her best to pay him back by scouting out the talent, wooing new clients, and even stealing a few from other, more well-established firms.

The first few years had been backbreaking. She’d worked nonstop not only to prove herself, but to build the business so Danny never had a chance to think he’d made a mistake.

And now, they were pretty much set. They had high-profile celebrities and sports figures on their clientele list, with others waiting in line for their expertise, and the firm was operating well into the black on an annual basis.

She wore designer clothes, designer shoes, designer jewelry. A single trip to the salon cost her more than Karen probably spent on her hair in a year.

Which only served to make Beth feel even more removed from the small Ohio town where she’d been raised. She missed it sometimes…the friendly faces, the slow pace, her family. But that’s what telephones and e-mail were for. She’d grown up and moved on. She was happy with her life.

The song ended and Nick started to let her go. One of the caterers had just placed a fresh bottle of champagne on the bridal table, and she wanted to get back to refill her glass.

“You’re not running off already, are you?”

It wasn’t her brother’s voice that made her heart drop to her knees. Mentally, she closed her eyes and banged her head a couple of times against the nearest wall. But she’d been working with Hollywood big-wigs too long to let anyone see that she wasn’t calm and one hundred percent in control of her emotions.

Licking her lips to buy an extra second, she forced herself to smile and turn in the direction of the loaded question.