A Secret Life Read Online Free PDF

person to another. “What’s going on here?”
    Samuel ignored his arrival, pointing a finger in Joan’s direction. “That book is about my parents.”
    “Whoa.” Anthony stepped between Joan and Samuel. “We are not commenting on an accusation like that.”
    “It’s true,” said Joan.
    “Joan,” Anthony warned.
    “The premise was based on his parents’ deaths,” she said, poking her head around Anthony’s broad shoulders.
    “Joan,” he rumbled between clenched teeth.
    “But the story is fictional,” she said.
    Anthony gave a sharp nod. “There you go. The story is fictional.”
    “I’m really sorry,” Joan said to Samuel, inching around to where she could see him again.
    She’d love to be able to give him some peace of mind. Throughout the inquiry, she knew he’d insisted on his father’s innocence. But nobody had listened to a teenager. And the evidence had been pretty compelling.
    It was still pretty compelling.
    She wished it wasn’t.
    “You didn’t go over the inquiry?” asked Samuel. “The transcripts? You didn’t piece together the police report and—”
    “It’s fiction,” Anthony repeated.
    Pain flashed through Samuel’s brown eyes, but he blinked quickly, as if to banish it. “I thought—”
    “You thought wrong,” said Anthony.
    “Stop,” said Joan, putting a hand on Anthony’s arm.
    “He was innocent,” Samuel insisted.
    Joan didn’t answer. There was nothing she could say or do to help the big man. She was a fiction author, not a criminal investigator.
    Samuel glanced at all of them in turn, his voice dropping to a raw rasp. “He was innocent. ”
    “Maybe so,” Joan lied softly.
    Samuel’s lips pursed and his eyes squinted down to slits of mistrust. He knew she was humoring him.
    Then he squared his shoulders, glared once at Anthony and turned to walk out the door.
    “Lawsuit,” breathed Anthony as the door clicked shut.
    “Tabloid,” said Heather, ditching her martini glass and marching for the door.

CHAPTER THREE
    A NTHONY WAS TOO GRATEFUL to finally have Joan alone to care what Heather might do or say to Samuel.
    “That man will sue us for royalties,” he said, pulling out his cell phone, searching his memory for the direct number of the Prism legal department.
    “Then he’ll win,” Joan returned, gliding her fingers through her thick, brown hair as she moved toward the breakfast bar.
    “I don’t need you talking like that.” Anthony gave up on his memory and punched in the number of the main receptionist.
    Joan lifted her long-stemmed glass. “Talking like what?” She pivoted back toward him. “Oh, you mean telling the truth?”
    “You don’t get to decide the truth. A judge gets to decides the truth.”
    Joan scoffed at that and finished her martini. Then she promptly refilled it from the shaker.
    “Whoa.” Anthony snapped his phone shut and moved toward her. Though he could relate to the impulse, a drunk Joan would only make matters worse. “Slow it down there.”
    “It’s weak,” she said as he drew close. “The ice has melted.”
    “What is it?”
    “A cosmopolitan.”
    “There’s no such thing as a weak cosmopolitan.”
    She ignored him, draining a second drink. “You want one?”
    “No, I don’t want one.” Well, actually he did. But he was exercising restraint.
    She waved the empty glass in the air, walking around the end of the breakfast bar and into the kitchen.
    “You shouldn’t drink when you’re upset,” he pointed out.
    “Why would I be upset? Just because you’ve trashed my reputation, ruined my family and probably got me kicked out of Indigo?”
    “I’ve already told you I can fix it. If you’ll just listen—”
    “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?” She popped the silver lid off the martini shaker.
    “ I wasn’t the leak.”
    “Right.” Her voice turned sing-song. “It was some mysterious mole with the secret files. ” She poured in a few ounces of vodka and reached for the cranberry