Seaside Secrets Read Online Free PDF Page A

cried when Jessica and Jamie exchanged their wedding vows. Jessica looked radiant in a chiffon sheath wedding dress with a sweetheart neckline and crisscross bodice. It was the perfect combination of elegance and simplicity. Jamie couldn’t have been more handsome in his dark tux with the look of love in his eyes so thick and palpable Amy felt like a voyeur.
    The reception was half over, and so far Amy had successfully avoided saying two words to Tony. With Bella on the warpath, she was pretty sure that Tony was keeping his distance in order to save the wedding from a scene. She’d been busy keeping her distance from her father. She adored him, but he was so overprotective that she didn’t think she could stand his scrutiny on the heels of her very messed up seduction. Luckily, he’d been too busy talking with Jamie’s grandmother, Vera, and Leanna’s parents to track her down.
    She allowed herself one small peek at Tony. She was annoyed at how her stomach fluttered at the sight of him. Holy mother of hotness, did he have to look so good in that tux? His shoulders seemed impossibly broad. Tuxes weren’t supposed to fit tightly, but damn if his biceps didn’t stretch that fancy material every time he lifted his drink. His hair needed a trim. Heck, his hair always needed a trim. Amy liked the way his sandy blond hair brushed his thick lashes. She found it even more attractive that he wasn’t perfectly manicured, as was all the rage.
    She remembered all the summers their families had spent together at the Cape, the way she’d watched his body change over the years, hoping he’d notice hers. She thought of the tall and lanky boy he’d been the summer after high school and the way their young bodies had fit together like they were made for each other. She fought hard to push those intimate thoughts away again, thinking instead of the years when she’d been in college and he’d been surfing around the world, making a name for himself. He’d broadened and become muscled to heart-throbbing proportions over those years when they hadn’t seen each other much. They’d drifted apart, making it easier to allow their past to drift away, too. But her feelings had never changed. God, she loved him. She’d loved him then and she loved him now. Even if he didn’t love her back the way she wanted him to.
    “Amy.”
    Bella’s voice startled her, and when she lifted her eyes, they were all there for her. Her saviors. Her Seaside sisters. Bella, Leanna, Jenna, Jessica, and even Sky.
    “Hey.” Amy smoothed her royal-blue bridesmaid dress. Jessica had chosen short dresses that were chic enough to wear to the wedding but casual enough to wear again to a fancy dinner or out on the town. Jenna had kept her dark hair longer this summer, nearly the same length as Bella’s, Leanna’s, and Amy’s, to the middle of their backs, which would look nice in the wedding pictures.
    “Come on, gorgeous.” Bella reached for her hand. “We’re not going to sulk over surfer boy.”
    “No, I’m definitely not,” she lied.
    “Besides, your father is about ten feet behind you. I figured you needed backup.” Bella shifted her eyes over Amy’s shoulder.
    “Shit,” Amy whispered. Her mother and father had divorced when she was twelve, and while she’d split her time between the two of them during the year, after their divorce, she’d continued spending the summers with her father at the Cape. It had been her mother who’d initiated the divorce with a need to find herself, whatever that meant to her, and Amy had always felt bad for her father. She was very much a daddy’s girl before the divorce, and after, having felt bad for him, she’d tried even harder to please him.
    She felt his hand on her shoulder and smelled his Old Spice cologne before he said a word. She feigned a smile and turned. “Hi, Dad.”
    “How’s my princess?” He hugged her close, and before she could get a word out, he said, “I’m so proud of you, Amy.