* * * * *
Just by luck, Brendan caught Aaron as he was closing Virginia’s bedroom door behind him, straightening his tie.
“Jesus, can’t you two even wait for the wedding night?”
Aaron smiled and glanced at Brendan’s closed door and undone tie. “You should talk.” He started to head for the stairs and Brendan grabbed his arm.
“Wait a minute. I want to ask you something. Where are you going on your honeymoon?”
“None of your business.”
Brendan didn’t take his new brother-in-law’s cold tone personally, even though his track record with brother-in-laws was about fifty-fifty by now, one good one and one homicidal maniac. As to Aaron, the guy had beaten him to a pulp once, but it wasn’t as if he held that against him. Now that he knew the admittedly tough executive better, he knew without a doubt that Aaron would lay down his life for Virginia. So he had a clean slate as far as Brendan was concerned.
But the guy was a little over-protective, which could be annoying.
“I won’t have you calling Virginia and bothering her, Brendan. We’re planning on two weeks of uninterrupted marital bliss and I don’t care if BFD and Winston Enterprises both get delisted in the interim. Nobody is bothering us.”
“Fine. Whatever. I just want to make sure you’re not going to use the Cayman house for your marital bliss.”
Aaron glanced at Brendan’s bedroom door. “You’re so predictable, pal.”
“Are you or aren’t you?”
“It’s all yours.”
Brendan hesitated, but he couldn’t help himself. “Did you see the girl I was, ah, talking to, by the way?”
“Hard to miss her.”
“Was she one of yours?”
“One of my what?”
“Guests. Do you know her?”
“Not as well as you do by now, I’d guess.”
Aaron laughed at whatever expression crossed Brendan’s face. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.” He patted him on the shoulder. “The answer is no. I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
Then Aaron headed downstairs, whistling.
Brendan didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He was both, probably. This Sophia was still an unknown quantity, then, but at least she wasn’t one of Aaron Winston’s legions of former girlfriends.
When he got back into his bedroom suite, Sophia was by the window looking down to the drive. And the Matisse, happily, was still on the wall.
He sprung his inspiration on her. “I have a great idea. Why don’t you come with me to the Caymans?”
She turned around, noticeably lacking the big smile or giddy clapping that an offer to accompany him to some vacation spot usually engendered from a girl. Especially a girl he’d just given an orgasm to.
“What’s in the Caymans?”
“A house we own. A private little beach. Sun. Sand.” He leered at her, comically. “Me.”
She turned back to the window. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
As a life-long bachelor, he was familiar with the Cosmo-girl tactic of playing hard to get, and usually it just annoyed him. It never, ever worked on him.
So normally he would not be inclined to beg some hot girl to run off with him to his beach house because she was so, er, hot. But this Sophia was a mystery. If she had anything to do with last night—which was a pretty ridiculous thought after all—he could dig into it. If she didn’t, he could dig into her.
And she was exceedingly hot.
So he tried again. “I’d really love to spend some time with you, Sophia. I know you think we went a little fast here and I’m sorry. I’d like the chance to have some more relaxing time with you. To get to know you. I don’t think being holed up in my room like teenagers during my sister’s wedding is very conducive to getting to know each other.”
She was biting her lip and looking at him doubtfully in a way that suggested she might be working up to a refusal.
“No strings attached,” he offered, surprising himself. “I promise I’ll be a perfect gentleman. If that’s what you want,” he hastily added. “There are plenty of bedrooms.”
“Okay, in that case, I accept.”
“Great. So what’s your last name?”
Her face became guarded again. He knew she didn’t like questions, but come on. Investigations aside, it was a perfectly ordinary question to a woman who’d just agreed to fly down to the Caymans with him.
So why wasn’t she answering?
Sophia could give him any one of a dozen last names, passports for all of them. But she hesitated, probably too long not to be noticed.
“What? Will I recognize it?”
“Let’s just keep this on a first-names basis only.”
Why the hell she should do that, she had no idea. It was only bound to make him suspicious.
“How can I buy you an airline ticket if I don’t know your last name?”
“I’m disappointed,” she chided, as playfully as she could. “I thought you’d have your own jet.”
“No, our CEO doesn’t approve of them, although she rides around pretty handily in Aaron’s as I’ve pointed out to her many times.”
“I’ll buy my own ticket. I’ll meet you there.”
He looked at her, a slight smile on his face. “Why don’t you want me to know who you are?”
Geez. They both knew what he really wanted, and it wasn’t any last name. His insistence was bugging her, probably because she knew she should’ve just provided a phony one right off the bat. Was she going to have to take off her top again just to get this guy off the subject? Instead, she said, “It’s not that. Let’s spend a few days together. See how it works out. Then we can share life stories if you want.”
After a moment, he nodded. Hoping she had placated him, she added, “And I’ll be sure to bring my bikini. Now where is this house of yours?”
* * * * *
Arthur scanned the bottles, clarets only in the row he was perusing for the particular vintage requested by one of the Beckett twins. A flighty little girl, she initially had startled him with the request due to nothing other than her imperiousness in delivering it. This household, despite its obvious luxury and the inevitable tension that accompanied festivities such as a wedding, had turned out to be quite casual. The staff brought in for the wedding, himself included for his own purposes, were gently dealt with by a part-time housekeeper who seemed to consider herself one of the family and oddly had no airs on account of it. The Beckett siblings themselves, who had all arrived last night, all but the brother as he well knew, were extremely cordial as well. Arthur had done enough cons playing a servant to realize that this kind of hospitality from employers was rare.
So when this twin, one of the Ms as he thought of them, demanded an extremely fine vintage of claret be brought up to her, he was surprised by the haughty tone, even as he masked his reaction of course. But then she laughed and added, “That was just for your benefit. I’m underage and if my brother catches me, I want you to be blameless. You can tell him I ordered you to do it and what could you do?”
Arthur smiled neutrally and agreed to get the bottle, although clearly this M was not unaccustomed to sneaking into the wine cellar herself. She practically pointed him to the row he would find the bottle in, not that he cared. Underage drinking was the least of his problems right now.
The door to the wine cellar that he had left open to let the light in slammed shut.
“Have you found it?”
Sadly, he recognized the voice even in the total blackness and it was not the sexy little twin looking for her bottle of wine. Unerringly feeling along the wall for the light switch, he flicked it on. He was very good at getting on in the dark, but this particular person was more dangerous than most and he was not inclined to carry out a conversation, or whatever she had in mind, in the dark.
“Hello, Vinita.” She was dressed to the nines for the occasion.
“Don’t call me that.”
It
certainly wasn’t the name she went by now, a rather prominent name in fact belying her humble roots, which was the point of the current exercise he and Sophia were engaged in. But she would always be that gutter rat bitch Vinita to him.
“I didn’t realize you were on the guest list, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. All the young and beautiful. And rich.”
“Cut the small talk. I take it since you’re serving drinks here you think it might be here. Why the hell didn’t you just break in and search the place?”
“Break in? With the timetable you gave me and people here all week sprucing the place up for the wedding? Believe me, it’s easier to hide in plain sight than sneak in and hope to not be discovered by any one of the number of people who were staying here.”
“Well, you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you? You’ve spent your whole life hiding.”
“I thought you didn’t want any small talk. Speaking of which, however, what’s the big rush suddenly? A few weeks ago, we had all the time in the world. Now, you’re pressing for it, like, yesterday. Why?”
“None of your fucking business.” Vinita’s impeccably made-up face hardened as she spat out the vulgarity, and suddenly she didn’t look so young, as he knew she wasn’t.
“Well, we didn’t find it in Beckett’s apartment and I haven’t seen anything obvious around here.”
“What about your girl?”
“Don’t worry. She’s on it.” He turned back to the row of claret, selecting the requested bottle.
“That’s not what I want to hear, Arthur. I want to hear she’s got it.”
“She will. If Beckett has it, she’ll find out. She’s never failed me before.”
“Make sure that she doesn’t.”
She didn’t even have to say the “or else” out loud. Arthur heard it, loud and clear, anyway.
By the time Vinita had slithered away and he brought the bottle upstairs, the M twin was nowhere to be found. Good excuse to go looking around, then. He didn’t have to do anything as crass as feel around walls or search behind pieces of furniture. He was good enough to just cast a practiced eye around as, bottle in hand, the perfect prop, he went looking. For the M twin of course and for what he was really looking for in the process.
He was in a little room he believed the Beckett family referred to as the green room, although predictably there was no green to be found, when he heard a voice behind him without actually hearing anyone enter.
“Hi there.”
“My, you’re getting good,” he noted softly, turning around.
“Or you’re getting careless.”
“Maybe both, but at least they’re happening at the same time and your ascent can help cancel out my decline.”
“That’ll be the day.”
Sophia had her shoes in one hand, presumably aiding in her effort at stealth, but it looked natural enough to just register as a beautiful girl tired of her high heels and tipsy enough to take matters into her own hands. He took care to close the door behind her anyway.
“Did you find anything?”
“No. I still don’t understand why we can’t just come back at night and do a proper search, though.”
“I told you. We don’t have time to wait for the house to empty out after all this. Family will be around for a few days as things go back to normal. We’re on a tight time frame.”
“Not that you told me why, of course,” she commented sulkily.
“No, but we’re going to have to go back to our original plan.”
“Before you got whatever mysterious instructions you got.”
“Yes.” Sophia didn’t know about Vinita. God willing, she never would.
“I thought you said we didn’t have enough time for the original plan. Jesus, you’re on a seesaw these days, Arthur.”
“Since it wasn’t in Beckett’s apartment and doesn’t seem to be here, we can’t just go searching every piece of real estate the Becketts own. That could take us months. Hence we’re back to square one and the original plan. You cozy up to him and see what you can get out of him—on an expedited basis of course. No time for subtlety.”
“Well, whatever. Fine. He’s interested.”
“Big surprise,” Arthur muttered.
“And he’s not exactly into subtle, as you well know.”
“Good. But we need more than interested at this point. I want him all over you and telling you what we need to know.”
She slipped her shoes back on, a purchase that had cost them a small fortune. But appearances were a reality, as they both knew. If Sophia was going to fit into this crowd, she had to look as if she could, which meant no scrimping on the outfit. Too bad the fact that it was an outdoor wedding meant they couldn’t return the shoes later. Oh well, at least maybe they could return the dress.
“He’s asked me to their house in the Caymans.”
“Bingo. The perfect venue for cozying up.” Although that meant a Caribbean wardrobe, which didn’t come cheap either. “So what are you doing here? Get out going and start packing what you can. I’ll pick up some additional things on my way home.” By now, of course, he knew Sophia’s size perfectly.
“Home.” The roll of her eyes said it all, but he didn’t invite a comment anyway.
Apropos of absolutely nothing, she asked, “So, are we related or what?”
She’d never asked it outright like that.
“Why would you bring that up now?”
“No reason particularly. Maybe it’s all this happy family Beckett stuff going on around us. Maybe I just want to know if I have any family and I’ve had enough champagne to ask.”
“Not too much champagne, I hope.”
“Don’t worry. Are we? Related?”
“Wouldn’t I have mentioned that if we were?”
“We both know the answer to that.”
He smiled at her fondly. Or as fond as he got in any case.
She went on. “And you’ve never expressed any sexual interest in me whatsoever. I always assumed that was because we were related somehow.”
“I could be gay.”
“I should know whether that’s true or not since we’ve lived together more or less my entire life.” She looked him straight in the eyes, his own outfitted with brown-colored contacts for the occasion, though they’d stuck with her own true eye color. That blue-green color was so gorgeous, he couldn’t resist the impulse. Getting sentimental, probably.
“It’s telling that I don’t, though, Arthur.”
“Wah, wah, wah,” he said softly. “Save the sob story for him. Not the true one of course.”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him again, though she didn’t have to. Sophia was every inch the pro he’d taught her to be. Whichever way that cut.
“So are you? Gay, I mean.”
“When I have to be.”
“Which is probably literally true.”
“Go on. Get out of here. You have a plane to catch, I’m assuming.”
“On our own dime, you’ll be sorry to hear.”
“Well, clearly, I haven’t taught you well enough.”
“You have, but maybe there are some things I’m not willing to learn.”
“Save it for him.”
“Don’t worry,” she said softly, taking her leave. “I will.”
When she opened the door, an M twin was there, startling them both.
“Oh, there you are,” the girl said. “Is that my bottle of wine?”
Good thing the doors in this old place were so sturdy. Solid oak. Hard to hear through. Though of course it might be hard to explain why the door was closed.
“Excuse me,” Sophia said, moving past the twin.
“Yes, miss.” He handed the bottle over.
Lucky for him, she didn’t even ask as Sophia disappeared.
* * * * *
Brendan gazed out at the ocean. The view from this second-story balcony of the beach house was probably his favorite in the whole world. The house had been his paren
ts and now all six Beckett offspring owned it equally, just as they did Bransport. But unlike the Connecticut estate, the Cayman Islands house was too far away to get much use. In fact, he was the only one who ever bothered to even go there on a regular basis. Virginia was always too busy with work and their two older sisters with their families. Mindy and Missy thought it was boring. “I mean, what is there to do but sit on the beach and swim? That’s no fun. Nobody’s there.”
But Brendan loved it. The peace. The serenity. The breathtaking natural beauty of the sea and sun. He’d never even brought a woman here before, feeling as if that would somehow spoil it.
So what was the hot goddess sprawled out on the sand below him right now doing here?
Sophia spied him and waved, pulling the top of her bikini up a little as she did so. Though the sun was blinding, she’d turned down the beach umbrella he’d offered her after she had settled into her separate room, as promised. He hoped for the sake of her soft skin that she had sunscreen on. Suddenly, the image of rubbing the lotion along her body took hold.
He waved back. “I’ll be right down,” he called. “Just let me change into my trunks.”
By the time he made it down, bottle of sunscreen in hand, Sophia had donned a big floppy hat and a cover-up that—unfortunately—covered up. The wide owl sunglasses she had on, all that luxurious hair bundled up in her hat, completed the picture. He didn’t know what it was a picture of, but it wasn’t the wildly sexy woman in the bikini he’d looked down on from the balcony.
Plopping down next to her on the jumbo towel, he fingered the terry cloth trailing over her bent knees. “What’s this?”
“The sun’s too hot.”
“It’s like that in the Caribbean. That’s what sunscreen is for.” He wagged the bottle at her.
“Oh, thanks. I’ll put some on my shins since this wrap isn’t long enough to cover those.”
When she reached for the bottle, he whipped it out of her reach. “No, no, none of that. I brought the sunscreen out. I get to put it on.”
Hard to read her expression under all that armor, but she just settled back on her elbows, gazing out to the ocean. “Sure. Just let me know when you’re done with it.”
“Oh no. I’m not putting it on me. I already put mine on inside. I’m putting it on you.”
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