Page 1 of The Love Destroyers

CHAPTER ONE

EMMA

My brother Anthony is getting married tomorrow, on New Year’s Eve. He seems to really like his fiancée, so I decide to do him a favor and slip out of the rehearsal dinner for some fresh—i.e. arctic—December air. I don’t want to destroy his happy buzz by saying any of the things running through my head.

Like,love is for suckers.

Or,are you sure about this? You’re both great, but everything you know about each other would fit onto a one-sided sheet of paper. With large font. Five-inch margins.

It’s all true, but you wouldn’t know it to look at them. They’ve been giving each other heart eyes over the appetizers. It’s enough to make a person lose their appetite.

I head out through the back of the restaurant, because my mother would havesomething to sayif she caught me, but almost immediately regret it. It’s dark, cold, and there’s an oversized dumpster that smells like the carton of takeout I accidentally left at the back of my refrigerator for a month last summer. It had grown a colony of mold that probably hosted lifeforms more intelligent than my ex-boss.

Let it never be said I’m afraid of a challenge. Scrunching my nose, I turn the corner, nearly trip over an evergreen shrubcovered in suspiciously colored snow, and keep on walking until the smell dissipates. Then I lean against the rough brick wall and suck in a couple of deep breaths. A chill seeps in through my coat, and I feel a bit better—for about two seconds. Because I hear heavy footsteps turning the corner from the trash area.

I bristle and reach into my purse for my pepper spray. If some weird guy was masturbating behind the dumpster, waiting for an unsuspecting woman to come along, he’s going to learn that I don’t know the meaning of unsuspecting.

You know what? I almost hope Happy Feet back there is a pervert on a mission of sin, because it would feel immensely gratifying to whale on someone who deserves it.

A dark figure—tall and rangy—comes into view, and the air puffs out of my lungs. There’s not much of a moon tonight, but there’s enough ambient light streaming through the windows of the restaurant for me to recognize him.

Seamus James.

My brother’s soon-to-be brother-in-law. He nods to me without saying anything, and for a second, I think he’s going to walk right past me—his long legs carrying him off into the night, the devil only knows where. Then he stops beside me, about six inches separating us. He says nothing as he leans against the brick wall beside me.

I angle my neck slightly to look up at him. My future sister-in-law, Rosie, is almost painfully adorable, from her blond hair, streaked with purple, to her sunshine personality that’s cast light on all of my brother’s dark places. Her eldest brother, Declan, is a thoughtful, silent hulk of a man who makes his living as a landscaper. And then here’s this middle brother…

Seamus is the kind of guy who looks like he’d be the cause for a divorce—with a haircut like Fonzie’s, a perpetual leather jacket, and tattoos you can sometimes see a hint of through his clothes. In other words, he’s a man who’s trouble and hasdecided to advertise it. He’s a bit sleazy. He reminds me of the Marlboro man on a case of old cigarettes.

As if he can hear my thought and wants to underline the likeness for me, he pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

I snort.

“Something funny?” he says, lifting his eyebrows as he sticks the end of the cigarette in his mouth. Goddammit, that shouldn’t be hot.

He pulls a silver lighter from his pocket and lifts it, flicking it to life with his thumb. The dancing flame illuminates his face for half a second—his eyes are a flinty brown, surrounded by eyelashes that make him almost pretty.

I clear my throat pointedly, and he grins as he blows smoke away from me.

“I can still smell it,” I point out.

“Want me to go away?” he asks, his voice deep and husky.

“If I said yes, would you?”

He gives me a sidelong glance, his body still precisely half a foot away from me against the wall. I suppress a shiver, not wanting him to see weakness.

“Care to find out?” he asks.

It sounds an awful lot like a challenge, and I’m a woman who finds it hard to walk away from challenges. At the same time, I don’t necessarily want to be alone out here, stuck in unhappy thought spirals.

“What do you give their chances?” I ask, knowing he’ll understand exactly what I mean.

My brother needed someone to marry him by New Year’s so he could fulfill the demands of his trust fund. Strange? Assuredly. But my father enjoyed controlling all of us when he was alive, so it’s in character that he decided to give everyone one final heart attack from beyond the grave. My brother was supposed to marry another woman—an awful, conniving golddigger—but she dumped him a couple of months ago, leaving him with only two months to find a wife. Hence his decision to marry a woman he barely knows. It’s beyond lucky, and somewhat beyond belief, that he managed to fall in love under those circumstances.

Sweet but, like I said, also kind of sickening.

Seamus laughs, low in his throat, then takes another drag from his cigarette, blowing the plume of smoke away from me, so at least he’s not a total dickhead. “You’re the former divorce attorney, aren’t you?”

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