Seduced By the Vengeful Tycoon (Seasons of Sin #2)

PROLOGUE

Though he’d never met her before, he recognised her instantly.

Even without the grainy photographs he possessed of this woman, taken several years earlier when she’d been at the height of her indulged teenaged life, he would have known that she was his enemy’s daughter.

Their eyes were the same.

Enormous, like galaxies sparkling with ice and stone, rimmed in thick black lashes. Hers though were set in a dainty, elfin mask, framed by elegantly smoothed blonde hair. His had been belligerent, surrounded by a face that had long ago given itself over to ruddiness and middle age.

Yet they were far more alike than they were different.

Benedetto had met the father’s eyes, hoping to see some remnant of humanity and decency. There’d been none.

With the background swirl of ballroom clutter and jazz music, he stared at them in her face and was besieged by disastrous emotions.

For Benedetto Arnaud hated Augustine Beauchamp with a visceral passion that could never be expunged. He hated him with every single fiber of his body. He hated him as night must surely loathe day and flame disdain water.

Staring now at Augustine’s beautiful, untouchable daughter he hated her too. She had that indefinable air of wealth and confidence that her ilk always wore like a second skin. She was princess-like in her grace, and he ached to unsettle that smug look of self-righteousness from her pretty face.

Yes, he hated her, and her father, and all they stood for.

Though she could at least be turned to usefulness.

What was that old adage? Something about revenge being best served cold.

Benedetto wasn’t sure about that. Hot, cold, he cared only that it be served at all, and that Augustine be made to suffer for his crimes.

Crimes that could never be undone; wrongs that would never be righted.

And this woman with her sylph-like body and pouting pink lips would simply be another wrong to add to the pile.

His lips lifted not into a smile exactly, but into an indication of pleasure nonetheless. He watched her take the stage and the plan began to form, as if by magic.

Revenge whispered to him and he listened, rapt and ready. Its promise was seductive; its power a bewitchment too enticing to ignore.

He had waited and fate had delivered the solution into his lap.

Finally, it was time.