Great-Aunt Sophia's Lessons for Bombshells by Lisa Cach

my revenge.”
    “He’ll be a challenge. You’ll have to have him tightly caught before you deliver the death blow.”
    An image of a lovesick Declan down on one knee, proclaiming his adoration of her, filled Grace’s mind. My, you are full of surprises , she would say. I was wondering how far you’d go with a woman you once called dumpy . His face would fall, his heart crumpling liketinfoil as for the first time in his life he had his heart broken and was made to feel a fool.
    Why are you doing this to me? he’d ask.
    Because you let me , she’d say.
    And because he was a rotten bastard who deserved to have his heart trod upon. Grace had never been one to seek retribution for wrongs done to her, trying instead to take the moral high road, but it was luscious to imagine having the power to humiliate Declan. If she was honest with herself, hadn’t she only developed her “it’s better to rise above it” philosophy because she was too cowardly to take action against her enemies?
    Not only did Declan deserve such treatment, he would benefit from it. He’d learn empathy, a trait crucial to developing a strong, loving relationship with a woman. Grace didn’t believe that anyone was pure evil. Declan was callous because he hadn’t ever experienced the pain of being rejected by someone he wanted. She would be doing him—and any future women he dated—a great favor by squishing his heart.
    Grace’s delight faded at a suspicious thought. “Declan is your friend. Why would you want him hurt?”
    “Blood’s thicker than water, Grace. He hurt you, which is as good as hurting me.”
    Grace narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t think that’s it. No . . . you don’t think I’ll succeed! You don’t think I’ll ever have the power to hurt him!”
    Sophia shrugged. “The man’s a player. More talented women than you have tried and failed to capture his heart.”
    Grace propped one hand on her hip. “I thought native talent had nothing to do with it. You said you could teach me how to be the woman no man could resist. No man.”
    Sophia sighed. “Players are different. It would require too much of you.”
    “How much?”
    “Everything.”
    “You mean . . . ,” Grace trailed off, her stomach sinking.
    “He won’t fall completely for someone he can never touch. He will be intrigued by you, he will pursue you and perhaps even become obsessed with you—which is good, and necessary—but he won’t lose himself entirely without the bonding that comes with physical contact and with sex. He will eventually—not too soon, but eventually— need that, and the burst of hormones that comes with sexual release. Without that, he’ll never believe himself wholeheartedly in love; but even with sex, love is no guarantee. He is as likely to lose interest in you after sex as to bond with you.” Sophia watched her dismayed reaction, then nodded. “So you see why it’s much better that you use him for harmless practice. To sleep with a man you dislike, in the faint hope of exacting revenge . . . it’s too much, Grace. You couldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t want you to.”
    Grace felt a welter of emotions: doubt, anger, revulsion, fear, and under it all sneaking sexual arousal. She tried to smother it and focus on the possibility of revenge. It had never occurred to her that she could hurt Declan as badly, or even worse, than he had hurt her. She could humiliate him. How would that feel, to rule over him in such a way?
    She’d even be willing to concede that Aunt Sophia was right about the powers of bombshellitude, if she could use it to pierce the rhino hide of a man like Declan.
    “If I did get Declan obsessed with me,” Grace said, “and he fell for me? What if I could do that, with or without sex?”
    “My dear,” Sophia said drily, “if you can make Declan O’Brien fall in love with you, I’ll turn that twenty thousand dollars into fifty.”

CHAPTER
    10
    D eclan shut off his smart phone and stood