The Seductress (Bad Girls #2)

Prologue

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Ashley

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I hate seeing him with her. The sly, smarmy bitch, she makes my stomach curdle. It just burns me the fuck up sitting here watching them, while the rest of my family smile and laugh with each other like everything was peachy fucking keen. They all know what she is, and yet, they’d sit here at this man’s table and pretend.

I never thought I could be this disappointed in my parents. The parents who’d taught me to have values and morals. And yet, here they are, knowing what they do and acting as if it’s nothing. There’s no way she could’ve fooled them, even I could see through her shit and I didn’t know her as well as they do.

Then there was him, the new soon to be husband, victim number three. Though he didn’t fit the description of anyone’s idea of a victim. That’s what makes this all so confusing I guess, and what had me in the dilemma I’m in now. Do I say something or not? And more importantly, why would I? I think I knew the answer to that one all too well. It was throbbing away between my thighs. Damn, but he’s hot. And deserves so much better than my bitch of an aunt, who if history serves, was up to no good with him .

I was sure he had no idea. The guy was totally clueless if you ask me. No way someone like him would fall for the real her, the one that wasn’t in attendance today. He just didn’t strike me as the type, and even if she weren’t up to her usual old tricks with him, that personality of hers would send any sane man running for the hills.

I watched her now as she made her rounds across the room and wished that I could call her out for the fake bitch that she was, it was burning a hole in my tongue not to; but I knew that it wouldn’t go over well, with the family, especially not today.

We were having Thanksgiving at his farm because of course queen bitch wanted to show off her good fortune and rub it in the rest of our faces. This was no ordinary farm in the Tennessee countryside by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s what she’d called it so facetiously as she’d bragged to the rest of us about her hooked fish’s many homes across the state.

The house, for lack of a better word, is ginormous. The driveway alone is as long as a country lane, lined with majestic trees on either side with a huge mini-lake out front. I understood it was so with most of his homes. The long drives and the lakes seemed to be a thing with him. This place boasted ten bedrooms, each with its own bathroom suite and who knows what else. I’d barely seen a portion of it when we arrived yesterday, since it would take an entire week to see the whole place .

I heard her braying laugh and looked in her direction again, something I’d been avoiding ever since I woke up here this morning. Jen is my mother’s younger sister, who is only about ten years my senior. I’d met her only once before when I was too young to remember, since she still lived in the north with the rest of mom’s family. Mom had followed dad here from college after they got married and never looked back.

She’d never had much to say about her younger sister, not when I was a kid anyway, and what little I did learn was only in passing. But then Jen had moved here a few years ago and I got to know the real her. I now knew that my aunt was a scheming manipulative shit, who was very good at pretending when others were around.

I’m also sure that mom was aware of her true nature, as was everyone else in the room, except her intended victim. But they were either hoping that this time was different, or they’d been hoodwinked by her lies once again and that was the reason for their silence. As the youngest one in the room, I seemed to be the only one who didn’t believe that shit for a second.

I know my dad wasn’t comfortable with the situation either. I can always tell when he’s distressed and he was giving off those vibes even now in the midst of the forced gaiety. My eyes drifted slowly to the man of the hour, Simon Thorpe. My heart did that strange flip thing again in my chest, just as it had been doing since I met him yesterday for the first time.

I wonder if I would be so worried about what my aunt was up to had my first sight of him not changed my world and turned everything upside down? Why couldn’t he have been as cold and unfeeling as her, so that I could look the other way? Had he been a stuff shirt maybe I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. But unless he was as skilled an actor as she, he was warm and kind, and he also had the most amazing eyes, the color of violets almost; and that fucking hair. I’d never seen a man with such perfect hair. He sure didn’t look like the average good ole boy, at least not the ones I was accustomed to. But when he opened his mouth, he was all Tennessee .

He was polished and sophisticated with a light of mischief in his eyes when he smiled, that worked to make my heart beat faster whenever he did it. Just then his eyes caught mine and I looked away quickly so as not to be caught staring again. Sweet mercy I wanted to jump him. Just take him down to the marble floor and have wild animal sex like they do in the movies. Too bad he was going to marry the witch.

I wished not for the first time since last night, that there was a way to put an end to this shit without incurring the wrath of my family, but I didn’t see how. Still, I don’t think I could live with him being married to her, having to watch them together over the years, feeling the way I do; what a mess .

I held my peace and tried to make myself disappear as the day wore on, but every so often I’d take a quick peek, only to find his eyes with mine. I think even then I knew that some way somehow, I was going to make him mine. I just didn’t see how with my eighteen year old inexperienced mind.