Secrets of You Read Online Free PDF

owned. And because it was a game to see if he could do it. The hell of it was, the longer he did without the extravagance, the less he missed it. He’d spent the last two years traveling the country on his Harley, taking photos, living in small towns…and he’d never felt more alive…except when he’d been with Arianna. But what she’d done, erased her past and created an image that left others behind? That was cold and desperate.
    “So, if what you say is true and you broke things off to protect her, what happened? The threat is suddenly over?”
    Ash met Quinn’s pointed stare. “You could say that.”
    “Or you could tell me how you know the threat’s over.”
    Damn lawyer. They always wanted the details. “My brother’s wife found out what he did and now she’s threatened to divorce him if he doesn’t make things right for me and Arianna.”
    “Tough woman.” And then, “Look, I’m sorry for how this went down, and I’m sorry to hear about your brother’s issues, but Arianna’s happy. It took almost a year of therapy to get her to a decent place in her life. I don’t care who she was or what she did. She’s my friend and I won’t let anyone hurt her again, especially you.”
    “Just give me a chance.” He hated begging, especially to Quinn Burnes. “Let me come clean about who I really am. I’ll tell her I had second thoughts and got scared.”
    Those silver eyes turned deadly. “Oh, a lie built on a lie. How refreshing.”
    “I’m not going to tell her the real reason I left. If there’s any hope for us, she’ll have to own up to it.” Ash shrugged and pretended he wouldn’t accept her any other way, which was just one more lie. She could pretend she was a descendant of the Rockefellers and he’d let it go, but he didn’t want it that way, knew it would remain a wedge between them. “I want her to trust me enough to tell me about the baby, the money, all of it.”
    “Good luck with that,” Quinn said this as though he thought Ash had an insurmountable task ahead of him, beginning and ending with impossible. “I’ve known her a lot of years and she’s never once mentioned a family or a hometown.”
    Well, that was something Ash knew about. Soon after the breakup, he’d made a trip to the town, asked a few questions, but not too many, and learned that nobody talked about the girl who left them, and if they did, they sure as hell didn’t tell a stranger. He’d identified the Sorensens on that first trip: mother, father, sister, two granddaughters, but never approached them until the second trip, a few months later. That’s when he and Edgar Sorensen formed an unusual friendship of sorts, sitting in the garage amidst lawn equipment and a torn-down 1962 Ford F150 pickup. They drank beer, talked motors and Harleys, and let the companionable silence of acceptance and unacknowledged loss settle between them. “The town’s called Endicotte.”
    “ Endicotte,” Burnes repeated, and then, “Here’s the deal. You get one shot, but if she refuses you, that’s it. You leave.”
    Ash cleared his throat and forced back the spurt of fear shooting through his gut. He’d given up hope of a life with her when he left over two years ago, but now his brother had gifted him with a second chance. He intended to win Arianna back, and this time, it would be without the lies between them.”
    ***
    She’d only agreed to meet Ash because of Quinn. He’d asked her to hear Ash out. Odd, coming from the man who had wanted to hunt down her ex-fiancé and find a way to make him pay for ripping her heart in half. Of course, she’d stopped him. She did give him permission to investigate Ash Revelin once the man had disappeared with no more than a four-sentence note. Funny thing was, there was no Ash Revelin.
    Maybe this last piece was God’s way of punishing her for her past. She wasn’t who she said she was…but then neither was Ash. All the days and nights of wondering what had really happened,