Secrets & Lies Box Set Books #1-3: Secrets & Lies Series, #7

By Lexy Timms

Secrets & Lies Box Set contained the first 3 books of the S&L series by USA Today Bestselling Author, Lexy Timms

 

Book 1

Your past does not define you. It prepares you.
Everyone has a past.
But not everyone has a past like mine.
I've left the life I lived before behind. Started over in Kingston—a small town with a big heart. Nothing like the cold, hard city that I'd called my home before.
But to begin again, I had to piss off some dangerous people.
And now, she is here, too. Sarah. Intrepid new reporter at the Kingston Press, and the hottest thing on two legs that's ever walked through this town. She's set her sights on me and the past I've been running from all this time.
They say lies are just a temporary delay of the inevitable. If she finds out the truth…
Everything could come tumbling down—and she could be caught in the middle of it.

 

Book 2

There are no secrets that time does not reveal…
I knew that I wasn't going to be able to hide from my old life forever. But just as things started to feel like home in Kingston, Joe Capullo and his thugs have come looking for me—and the people I care about most.
The only way to protect my brother Luke and Sarah, the intrepid reporter I am falling for, is to go and face what I tried to leave behind.
He has a job for me. One last job. But I'm not willing to return to the roots I fought so hard to leave behind. I know I'm not that man anymore.
But what if Sarah doesn't believe me? What if I don't make it out of this last job alive?

Stop cheating on the future with your past. It's over.

 

Book 3

So dark, so deep, the secrets that you keep…

The last thing I need right now is to have to worry about the woman I love.
I'm in Nashville, trying to figure out a way to bring down Dominic Paro, and keep my uneasy truce with my old boss, Joe Capulli, under control. Sarah and my brother are back in Kingston - or at least, that's what I thought.
But soon, it becomes clear that my plan is going to have to account for more than just me. And, when a vital ally turns into a mortal enemy, I know that I am going to have to think on my feet - or risk dying on them...

Secrets & Lies Series
Book 1 - Strange Secrets
Book 2 – Evading Secrets
Book 3 – Inspiring Secrets
Book 4 – Lies and Secrets
Book 5 – Mastering Secrets
Book 6 – Alluring Secrets

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Shadow Publishing
• Release date: Dec 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393584407

Lexy Timms

"Love should be something that lasts forever, not is lost forever."  Visit USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR, LEXY TIMMS https://www.facebook.com/SavingForever *Please feel free to connect with me and share your comments. I love connecting with my readers.* Sign up for news and updates and freebies - I like spoiling my readers! http://eepurl.com/9i0vD website: www.lexytimms.com Dealing in Antique Jewelry and hanging out with her awesome hubby and three kids, Lexy Timms loves writing in her free time.  MANAGING THE BOSSES is a bestselling 10-part series dipping into the lives of Alex Reid and Jamie Connors. Can a secretary really fall for her billionaire boss?

Book preview

Strange Secrets

YOUR PAST DOES NOT define you. It prepares you.

Everyone has a past.

But not everyone has a past like mine.

I’ve left the life I lived before behind. Started over in Kingston—a small town with a big heart. Nothing like the cold, hard city that I’d called my home before.

But to begin again, I had to piss off some dangerous people.

And now, she is here, too. Sarah. Intrepid new reporter at the Kingston Press, and the hottest thing on two legs that’s ever walked through this town. She’s set her sights on me and the past I’ve been running from all this time.

They say lies are just a temporary delay of the inevitable. If she finds out the truth...

Everything could come tumbling down—and she could be caught in the middle of it.

Chapter One

Jesse

MY HANDS WERE SHAKING as I looped the knot around the bag and tied it shut, closing off the eye that peered in on the stack of cash that I had just stolen.

My hands never shook before. Well, they had when I started all of this, back before I had known just what I was doing—back when I felt like every move I made was the wrong one, back when I was sure that I’d turn a corner to find the worst of bad news looking at me from the other end of a gun.

But these days? I had no reason to let them shake. I was better than anyone else in the game, and I knew it. Everyone else did, too—everyone knew clear as day that there was no point in trying to throw down with me, or Joe in general, because they’d have to deal with the mess that I left behind when it was over.

That was how I liked it. Stay in charge, stay in control, don’t let a chink of light through to cast a glow on how all of this really made me feel. I was doing it for a reason, for my family—for Mom and for Luke. I wouldn’t have gotten involved in this world if I thought that there was any other way to guarantee their safety and their happiness. I had to make some sacrifices to be sure that they never would. And I could live with that.

Or at least, I had been able to. Before she had died. Before my whole world had come tumbling down.

My mother was the reason that I had gotten into this in the first place. She had never known the details of what I’d done, and I’d liked it that way—the less she knew, the better for her and for me. I was certain that she would have dragged me out by my hair if she’d discovered the truth, and it was just better for her to stay ignorant. Besides, what other choice did we have? I was older than Luke, and someone needed to step up to pay the bills.

I could remember staring at the crack in the ceiling of my bedroom, watching the water drip through from the apartment upstairs and knowing that I couldn’t keep living like this. I couldn’t put them through living like this, either—I needed to do something, anything, to change the mess that we were stuck in right now.

And so I did.

I never thought that it would get as serious as this. In all the time that I had been growing up, my mother had instilled morals in both of us—family first, then everything else. That was the excuse that I used for myself whenever I found myself doubting what I was doing—it was for my family. And family came first. Right? No matter how many times I felt like I was letting them down doing everything that I did.

Eventually, though, the guilt started to dull. It had to, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to succeed the way I had. I had started off low-level, running drugs, a go-between for clients too big to be seen on the streets themselves. Yeah, I had to deal with a few scraps here and there, but nobody really got hurt. The worst I had to deal with was a cut above my eye which I told my mother was from tripping up a step at school.

Not that I had attended my high school in a while. I had been making too much money working, and I had to admit, I got a little addicted to it. Not just to the cash, though for sure it made our lives one whole hell of a lot easier. My mother started asking questions about where it came from, but I was quick to deflect her. She didn’t need to know. She didn’t need to worry about that. I just wanted her to stay focused on getting what she needed, and then we could take it from there.

By the time I was eighteen, I was already working full-time for a few low-level thugs who were paying the bills for me, and then some. My brother was young enough that he didn’t really understand everything that I was doing, and that was the way that I wanted to keep it. I knew that he would find out eventually, but I was worried that he might find himself drawn into the same lifestyle. I wanted something better for him. Because deep down, I knew that the life that I was living wasn’t much for anyone in the long-term.

And then my mom got sick.

Really sick. Cancer sick. She had been pushing herself so hard for so long that when it hit her, it hit her so hard that it took her off her feet. She assured me that she was going to be fine with the meager health insurance that her office job provided, but I went back out on the street, working overtime to make sure that she had the very best care that she could. Back then, I was sure that she was going to beat it—I just couldn’t approach it any other way. The thought of losing her was too alien to me, too impossible. She would always be around, we would always be part of that family unit together, and we would always find a way to navigate around the problems that arose when they turned up. As long as we were all together, that was all that mattered, right?

Of course, life doesn’t play games like that. No matter how many promises you make to the universe, it’s always going to take something from you when you’re least expecting it.

She had been doing better for a while—more energy, getting up and moving around the way she used to, and I had started to lull myself into a sense of security about the whole thing. Yes, she could make it. She could survive. Luke and she and I would be able to look back on this and thank everything we had that she had come out the other side in one piece...

And then, of course, she was gone.

It happened so fast that I had hardly had time to wrap my head around it, let alone prepare Luke for the shock of losing our mother. I could still remember standing there at her funeral, feeling numb, wondering if this was ever going to change. Would I ever let myself feel something again? I didn’t know if I could. I didn’t know if I wanted to. If all I could feel was the pain of her loss, of having to live without her....

All the work that I had done hadn’t been enough to save her. And suddenly, the gloss was coming off everything that I had done. I had worked for Joe for years at that point, one of the biggest names in the city, and I had been sure that he would keep me on his payroll for the rest of my life—I could take care of shit that needed to be taken care of quickly and without much fuss, and I knew he valued that about me. It might not have been what I had imagined for myself when I was young, but it was enough.

Or at least, it had been. Before I had lost her.

And then I started to doubt it. To look at the life that I had been living and question it. I was the only family that Luke had now, and he was getting old enough to understand what I was doing. He would start to be drawn into this life, and I couldn’t allow that. Not just for his sake—but for hers. My mother’s.

It had all come boiling over in me earlier that evening. I had been in a meeting with Joe, in the mansion that he called home, and I had been listening to him talk about taking out one of his rivals like it was the most natural thing in the world. This was a man who had kids, a family, a life—and he was going to snuff him off the face of the Earth like none of it mattered.

I needed to get out. Now. While the certainty was still fresh in my brain. I knew where he kept the cash, and I slipped into the room under cover of night, when I knew that the rest of the staff would be asleep. They all trusted me, anyway. But after this, I knew that I was never going to be allowed back into this fold.

I managed to grab some cash. No idea how much it was. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice for a while that it was missing, and by the time he did, I would have had time to get far from here. I stuffed it into the bag, tied it tight, and texted Luke to let him know that he was to meet me outside the apartment building. I didn’t tell him why. The less he knew, the better.

My heart was pounding as I headed to my car—no, couldn’t take that, too obvious. I had to take a different one. I looked around and spotted one of Joe’s beat-up old muscle cars—it would do for now, as long as it took to get away from here. I dropped the bag to the ground and opened the door, then hotwired it, pressing the split wires together until they sparked to life and the engine purred into action below me. I slipped into the front seat, tossed the money in the back, and tore off to the back of the mansion, where I knew the gate would be open so I could hit the open road before anyone noticed that I was gone.

I could feel the house staring at me as I drove—in the mirror, I looked back to see the dark windows gaping like a cavernous face, eyes and an open mouth ready to swallow me whole if I didn’t drive fast enough. I put my foot down on the pedal and focused my gaze on the road in front of me. Get the fuck out of here. Don’t look back...

I kept driving, glancing in the rearview mirror, waiting for the glow of headlights behind me. Someone to notice that I was gone, someone coming after me to remind me that my life was back there, whether I wanted it or not. I just had to get to Luke and get us both out of here, then I would dump this car and this life and get out for good.

The roads were quiet, but my mind was racing with thoughts. I was going to get killed for this. If they caught me, if they ever found me, Joe would finish me off for this betrayal. He didn’t look kindly on those who let him down, and I had just undercut his trust in the worst way that I possibly could.

But I couldn’t keep working for a man who made my guts twist up the way he did. I couldn’t keep doing a job that I knew would have killed my mother all over again if she had found out about it. I didn’t care how much it took—I needed to get out of there once and for all. I needed to start over. And I was finally ready to do just that.

No matter what it took. I kept my eyes on the road and drove fast into the dark of that long night.

Chapter Two

Sarah

AS I STOOD OUTSIDE the Kingston Press building, that old place made of red brick and hard work, I wondered if this could really be happening.

I had dreamed of working here for as long as I could remember. I couldn’t count the number of times that I had taken a little diversion when I was coming home after school just to walk past here, to linger outside in the hopes that one of the journalists within might need someone to grab coffee for them or something. I had always known that this was the home of the job of my dreams—but that didn’t mean that I actually believed that I was ever going to work here.

When I had come back to Kingston after studying in the city for a few years, a lot of my classmates had told me that I was crazy. That there was better and more consistent work the farther you got away from my hometown. They had a point, for sure—I was certain that there were websites out there that would have had me churn out list articles about the best doughnuts in downtown Chicago or something, but that had never been my bag. It worked for some people—more power to them—but when I studied journalism, I did it because I wanted to break a story that would change the world.

Or at least Kingston. I had grown up in this historical little town just outside of New York, and I had always felt at home here. I knew plenty of people who were counting down the days till they could get out of there, the seconds till they could move on to something bigger and brighter, but there was a tie to history in these streets that always made me feel grounded.

Not to mention the fact that Kingston Press is one of the oldest journalistic establishments in the state–with the reputation to match. I’d been reading their journals since I was a kid, and even when I was away I kept up with the websites, marveling at the tight prose and the lean storytelling and the way that the reporters seemed to be able to sniff out the perfect story to keep readers coming back for more.

A place like that, of course, had some heated competition for every new role that opened up. I had a hometown advantage, but that didn’t mean that they were going to ignore the stacks of prestigious applications from out of state, from graduates just like me who had even more impressive resumes than I did. I tried not to let that get under my skin, though, after I got a call back for their latest reporting job. I sat there in the interview looking around at all of my competition, and I told myself that they didn’t stand a chance against me. It was all about positive thinking, right? A good mental attitude, that’s all I needed.

Well, that and the assurance of the people I would be working for that I knew what I was doing better than anyone else that ever would come near this place. I had worked too hard to get to where I was to even think about giving this to anyone else now, and, sure enough, after a couple of meetings with the editorial team and the hiring department, I had a shiny new contract in my inbox that offered me the position that I had been hoping for all this time.

It had been worth the wait—the pay was good, and I knew I would be working alongside some of the most accomplished and hard-working staff in the country. Allison Vernon was the editor, and she had been running this place for years now. I was certain that she knew this town better than anyone else did, and I planned to learn everything that I could from her over the next few months. By the time the induction period was over, I was determined that I would have reason to go to the top of her pile, and there would be nobody who could come close to challenging my superiority in this place.

I pushed the glass door open and strode over to the reception desk, where a slightly bored-looking teenage girl was fiddling on her phone. I almost wanted to remind her where she was working—didn’t she know how many people would have flipped their lids if they’d had a chance to get a foot in the door at this place? She should have been grateful just to be the receptionist! But instead, I swallowed heavily and smiled at her.

Hi, I’m Sarah, I greeted her, sounding a lot less assertive than I had intended to. She looked up at me, eyed me for a moment, and then reached into the drawer under her desk and pulled out a small piece of laminated paper.

Here’s your pass, she told me, stifling a yawn as she did so. Even though I was a little annoyed at her attitude, I couldn’t help but smile when I saw my face printed just above the staff line for the Kingston Press. I was really here. This was really happening. And nobody was going to be able to take it away from me. I had finally gotten the job that I had always dreamed of, and now, I just had to make my mark on this place.

I headed to the stairs that led up to the editorial space and took them one at a time, wanting to commit every moment of this to memory. When I wrote about this in my memoirs, I wanted the readers to be able to feel this just the same way I was.

I emerged at the top of the stairs with a big-ass grin on my face and looked around the room in front of me. I had been here before, when I had been interviewing for this job, but it felt a million times better to be here now, now that I knew just what I intended to do here. I headed straight over to Allison’s office, as she had instructed me to do in the email she’d passed on about my first day here, and knocked on the door.

A moment later it opened, and I came face to face with the woman who was to be my new boss. With her crop of gray hair and the glasses that dangled from a string around her neck, she looked as though she could have belonged in any grandmotherly family portrait, but she was anything but soft.

Come in, she told me, stepping aside and gesturing for me to enter. There was a man already sitting at her desk, and he rose to his feet and extended his hand to me.

I’m Nathan, he introduced himself as I took his hand. I’m the arts reporter here.

Nice to meet you, I greeted him. Sarah—

I know who you are, he replied, and he headed for the door and raised his eyebrows at me pointedly. Good luck with your first day, Sarah.

Thanks, I muttered, watching as he headed back to work. There was an amused glint in his eye as he went, as though he knew that I was going to be in for it dealing with my new boss.

It’s good to see you again, I offered Allison.

Yes, well, I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do for us, she replied, and she eyed me for a moment from the other side of the table like she was sizing me up. It was one thing to be in an interview with her, when I knew that I only had to impress her for an hour or so, but quite another to be sitting here opposite her right now and know that I had to pull that off long-term.

I have a few ideas, I offered, and she nodded.

I’m glad to hear it, she replied. But first, I want you on regular beat. News, NIBs, stuff like that. Get a feel for your style and where you’ll be best suited.

Of course, I agreed at once. Anything you want—

Talk to Gerard in the tech department, he’ll get you set up with a profile on the computers, she continued. I send out a list of articles each morning, and people claim them throughout the day for either the website or the print release. It’s quite self-explanatory; I’m sure you don’t need me to go into it much more than that.

Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be able to work it out, I replied. My voice still sounded a little tense. How was I going to stop that? I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to keep myself under control right now, not when everything felt as though it was piling on at once. I knew that I was going to have to work hard to handle myself right now—everything could grow too much way too quickly if I wasn’t careful, and I didn’t want to fuck up what I had just walked into.

I’m glad to hear it, she replied. I won’t always be around the office, but if you have questions, most of the other staff will probably be equipped to help you with them. Right now, we need someone to cover a town meeting last night—we have the notes from another one of our reporters, but you’ll need to transcribe and come up with an angle. You think you can manage that?

Yeah, for sure, I replied at once. I got the feeling that this wasn’t a woman who took too well to being told that what she was asking for wasn’t possible.

Glad to hear it, she replied. Check your company email. They’ll be waiting for you.

She glanced at her watch. Anyway, I have a meeting to go to, she finished up. Good to meet you. I look forward to seeing your work soon.

And with that, she had chased me back out of the office and into the bustling workroom so that she could get back down to business. Nathan waved at me, and I smiled back, scanning the space in front of me as I tried to place some of the faces that I had met in the interview process, and some that I had snooped on through the website. I knew that not everyone was going to be friendly, but I could handle that—I just had to keep my head down and get to work. All they wanted from me was someone who could do their job, and I intended to prove to them that I was the best new hire they’d ever had. Nobody was going to have a chance to doubt me—not even me, and that was saying something, given the insecurity that I could be prone to, the insecurity that I tried my best to paper over with all the cockiness that I could muster.

I glanced around to find the one empty desk that I assumed was mine and sank down into the slightly hard chair in front of me. I couldn’t keep the smile off my face. Today was going to be tough, no doubt about it, and I was sure that it wouldn’t be the only hard day that I had working in a place like this. But right now, all I cared about was having finally gotten my foot through the door. I was in. And nobody was ever going to be able to take that away from me.

Next up? I had to find a story that was worthy of a paper like the Kingston Press. Something scandalous, something intriguing, something that would flip the way people in this town thought of themselves and the people around them upside down. And I was sure that I already had the most perfect place to start.

Chapter Three

Jesse

AS I STROLLED INTO the Rosewater, I felt all eyes turn to greet me. Just the same way they always did.

I took my usual spot at the bar—right at the end, farthest from the door, so I could see who was coming in and out. Force of habit, I supposed, after so long having to watch my back. I ordered a drink from the barmaid, Julie, and she fluttered her lashes and tried to chat as she served me.

Good to see you back here again, she remarked, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I feel like it’s been way too long since we saw you..."

I’m sure you’ll survive, I replied as politely as I could as she pushed the drink across the table toward me. I grabbed it and took a long sip—scotch on the rocks, with a drop of water to help it bloom, just the way I liked it. Damn, that made everything a little easier to handle.

As soon as Julie had backed off, I paused for a moment to look around the room and take in everyone who had turned out this evening—Kingston was a small enough place that I recognized the majority of the people here, even if I might not have known all of their names. And I knew for sure that they all knew who I was.

In the six years since I had moved here, I had made quite a name for myself. Most of the people who lived here had families that went back generations upon generations, but I was new, rolling into town with my teenage brother at my side and more money than I knew what to do with. I’d invested some of it, and it just continued to grow, until I had more than I would ever need to live on for the rest of my life.

Which was just the way I liked it. I didn’t want to have to work for anyone else ever again. I was my own man now, and nothing was going to change that—I ran my life, and nobody else got a say in what I chose to do with it. Long may it remain that way.

I could sense a few of the husbands out with their wives glaring at me as I sat there at the bar, sipping on my drink. I had to contain a small smirk at the thought of it—I didn’t exactly blame them, that was for sure. I knew better than to pretend that I wasn’t a source of attention for the ladies that they had married, even if I would never have done anything about it. That was way too much like trouble for my liking, and I had better things to do than waste my time with that right now.

I caught the eye of one of the housewives out for her weekly dinner date with her husband—an older woman with a mane of raven-black hair and bright blue eyes. She fluttered her lashes at me pointedly, and her husband turned to look over his shoulder and see what had caught her attention. I glanced away at once, lifting the drink to my lips so that I could disguise my smirk. I knew that I shouldn’t have enjoyed it as much as I did, but it was hard not to feel a little cocky that I was the source of so much flirtation from women who should have known better.

But then, it wasn’t like coming to the Rosewater was exactly low-key. My brother, Luke, had managed this place for a couple of years now, and he had elevated it from this kitschy, old-school place into the main thoroughfare for diners in the entire town. There had been a major redecoration last year, the place shimmering with a deep gold light that warmed the deep brown of the wood of the bar and the tables. It looked great, and I knew that my brother had every right to be proud of what he had achieved here.

Though I knew just as clearly that he had a hard time admitting that he should be proud of it, too. Even though he had worked his ass off to prove himself here, he always put himself down, talked about himself like he was nothing more than a lucky guy who happened to come from a rich family, and that was the end of it. No matter how many times I reminded him just how hard he had worked for this, he would always brush it off, find some excuse to explain it away.

Sometimes, I wondered if I had given him a complex, bringing him out here so that the two of us could hide from the life I’d had before. He had always been a neurotic kid, though he had grown out of the worst of it as he’d gotten into his twenties—was this just a hangover from that? This sureness that he was going to lose everything that he had worked so hard to achieve? I wanted to tell him that he had nothing to worry about, but that would have been a lie—he knew as well as I did that there was always a chance that this shit could catch up with me, no matter how much space I tried to put between myself and it.

Six years. More than half a decade. That was what I had to keep reminding myself. Enough time had passed now that I didn’t need to connect with the person I had been back then. He felt different than the man I was now, as though he couldn’t possibly link with who I had become. That man was as far removed from me as it was possible to be. Nobody else recalled him, so why should I spend my time worrying about him coming back to bite me in the ass?

I sipped on my drink and took in the quiet ambience of the place, trying to ignore Julie as she attempted to flirt with me across the bar. She was cute, in a way, but she had only started this routine once she had found out the amount of cash that I was packing, and I didn’t have much interest in engaging with someone who was that materialistic.

Besides, it wasn’t like I had been looking for people to date since I had arrived here. When I moved to Kingston, I had been too nervous to let anyone get close to me, and I supposed that it had become habit more than anything else—people saw me as distant, and that worked just fine for me. Let them keep their distance. I wasn’t sure if I could handle letting someone into my life, not after everything I had been through.

Finally, Luke emerged from the kitchen—a perfectionist at the best of times, he had likely spent the last half-hour trying to make sure that a dish went out looking perfect, even though he knew what really mattered was the taste of the thing. Pushing his glasses up his nose, he made his way toward me, and I got up to give my little brother a hug. He was a head shorter than me, wiry with muscle from running around here all the time, and just by the look on his face, I could tell that he needed a drink.

I ordered a vodka-soda for him, and he joined me at the bar, letting out a sigh as he rested his head against the wood paneling behind him.

Sorry I’m late, he replied.

No reason to be, I replied. I should have known you would be, anyway.

What’s that supposed to mean? he asked as he grabbed his drink and took a long sip.

You know that you can never drag yourself away from the kitchen, I reminded him.

I guess you have a point. He grinned and shrugged. So what about you? How are things going with you?

Same old, I replied. I have that interview with the Kingston Press tomorrow, though. That should be interesting.

You’re sure that’s a good idea? he replied, furrowing his brow.

They’ve been asking me for months now, I pointed out. I think it would draw more attention if I tried to keep avoiding it than if I just went ahead and did it.

I guess so, he sighed. But...you’re not worried what they might find out?

I finished my drink and gestured to Julie for another before I replied.

They’re only going to know what I choose to tell them, I pointed out. Nothing to worry about there. It’s just a puff piece, anyway. I’m not worried about it.

And I guess you’re telling me that I shouldn’t be, either?

I nodded. Yeah, you have nothing to worry about, I replied. I’ll send you the article as soon as it comes out, and you can see for yourself. It’s not going to be a big deal at all.

Yeah, I hope not, he agreed, and he eyed me for a moment. He didn’t know too much about my past, apart from the bare minimum, and sometimes I was sure that it made him even more paranoid about what was going to come out. But I was sure as hell not going to go bending over backwards to share the truth with my brother. There was a reason I had kept all of that away from him, and I intended to stick with that as long as he would let me.

Good, I replied. So tell me, how have things been going with the restaurant?

Oh, same old, he replied with a shrug. A bunch of the wait staff have gone back to college, so we’re a little behind.

And I bet you’ve been picking up all the slack, I told him. You need to rest too, you know...

So I hear, he replied wryly, flashing me a grin. Not sure that I believe it, though...

Yeah, you never did, I agreed. And just like that, we had settled into our normal conversation. Luke was the only family that I had left, and I was the only family that he had left, and sometimes it was easy to lose sight of that—we had been through so much since we came here that I forgot how young he was, how little of the world he had seen outside Kingston. How much pain he was still carrying from the loss of our mother all those years ago.

But he had made something of himself, and I was proud of that. Even though he’d had to work against the odds to do it, he had proved himself, and he had proved that he could make it out the other side of anything the universe threw at him. He might have still doubted himself more than he should—who knew how many times I’d tried to convince him to have more confidence in himself—but eventually he would start to believe that he was worth all the effort that I had put in to getting him out of there.

As we drank, I felt at peace—maybe it was the couple of whiskeys in my system, or maybe it was something else entirely. But this place had long-since become my home, and I felt comfortable here—in Kingston, in the Rosewater. My old life was far behind me, and I planned to keep it that way. The past was in the past. Where it belonged. But me? I was right here in the present. And I intended to enjoy every second of it.

Chapter Four

Sarah

I CURSED AS I SCUTTLED off down the street, checking my watch and wondering just how much leeway Allison was going to give me.

I couldn’t fucking believe it—my third day on the job, and I was going to be late. And not just the kind of late that could be dismissed with a smile and an apologetic shrug—the kind of late that was going to land me in trouble with the woman I wanted to impress right now.

It wasn’t my fault, though. I wasn’t sure if she would believe me when I told her, but it truly hadn’t been my intention to roll up so late this morning. I had left my apartment on time, hopped in the elevator so I could take a quick look over some notes—and that’s when it creaked to a halt, and I realized that nobody was coming to get me out.

It took a full twenty minutes of me slamming on the inside of the door and yelling at the top of my lungs for someone to notice that I was actually in there, and then another ten minutes for the mechanic to get the thing moving once more—and now I was a half-hour late to work, and I knew that I was going to get in a hell of a lot of trouble for this. I had wanted this first week to be perfect, but I was sure that Allison was going to have something to say about my excuse—that living in a ratty old apartment building that hadn’t had any major renovations since the eighties had gotten me trapped in an elevator. I should have gotten a note from the mechanic or something...

Oh, shit! I exclaimed as I found myself slamming straight into someone else. Oh, great, just what I needed, something else to get in my way—I tried to find my feet again, but the heel of one of my boots had skidded out from under me, and my bag had fallen off my shoulder, and a second later, I watched helplessly as the papers that I had been carrying flew all over the damp street.

Fuck, I muttered. Fuck, fuck, fuck...

I dropped to my knees to gather the stuff that I had just lost, not even bothering to look up and see who had done this to me. I didn’t have time for that. Besides, if I did, I knew that I was going to flip my lid, and the last thing I needed was to have to find this person and apologize later once my temper had cooled off a little.

I’m so sorry, a man’s voice announced from above me. I should have seen you there. I wasn’t looking where I was going. Here, let me help...

Before I could say anything, he had knelt down in front of me to try and give me a hand with the papers that had gone flying everywhere. Honestly, I was still irritated enough that I was ready to give him a piece of my mind—but when I looked up and saw who I was dealing with, all of that just seemed to slip from my mind.

Because the person I had crashed into was about the last one on Earth that I had expected to see right now. Jesse. Jesse Miller. As in yes, the Jesse Miller, Kingston’s infamous philanthropist and general town enigma. And he was smiling at me with an apologetic look in his eyes that made something in me soften, even though I knew that I had every right to come out swinging and be mad as hell at him right now.

Oh, uh, I burbled. I had seen him before, of course I had, mostly when I was out with my friends and they leaned over and lowered their voices and shared all the things that they had heard about him over the years—where he had come from, where he’d gotten his money from, just who might be sharing his bed for the time being. But getting a close-up view of him like this, when I had been least expecting it, was something of a shock, and I didn’t know what to do with it.

He was handsome, for sure—his dark, slightly overgrown hair was slicked back from his face, showing off a pair of gray-blue eyes that seemed laced through with a kindness that caught me off-guard. His smile was broad and genuine, and, even under the heavy jacket that he was wearing, I could see the width of his chest and shoulders, the strength that was barely contained by the clothes he had on.

I realized that I was just staring at him, having almost forgotten all the papers that he had sent scattering around us, and I busied myself with collecting them. I could feel a heat to my cheeks, and I didn’t know why—I was better than this, wasn’t I? He was just a guy. A handsome one, sure, more handsome than most of the men that lived in this little town, but that didn’t mean that I was going to get tongue-tied in front of him, did it?

Here, I think that’s the last of them, he told me as he grabbed the now slightly-damp papers from the ground below us, straightened them, then handed them over to me. I’m sorry for knocking into you.

It’s okay, I replied, and I meant it. Honestly, this was the closest I had ever gotten to him, and there was something a little exciting about being so close to someone who had such an air of mystery about them.

You work near here? he asked me. I knew that I should have been getting out of there, to make up some more time so that I didn’t turn up too late to my job, but I was far too flattered that he seemed willing to share his company with someone like me right now.

I nodded. Yeah, I work at Kingston Press, I replied. Well, I just started work there. I doubt I’ll be there much longer, though—I’m totally late this morning.

And I’m sure I haven’t helped, he replied, raising his eyebrows apologetically. I noticed that he was wearing a pair of black leather gloves—I hadn’t spotted them before, but there was something commanding about them that made me feel a little weak around the knees. I wondered, vaguely, just what it was that had brought a man like this to a place like Kingston. He didn’t strike me as the type who would be drawn to a town like this one. Something about him spoke to more experience, more life, more excitement than this place had to offer, and I couldn’t figure out quite why.

No, but I can forgive you, I replied. I checked my phone. Shit. Nearly eight-thirty. I needed to get a move on. And yet...

Maybe I can make it up to you, he offered. For a split second, I thought that he was going to ask me out on a date, but I shoved that thought to the back of my mind. Don’t be stupid. This guy could have had anyone at all that he wanted in this town, and the chances of him settling for someone like me were next to nil.

How so?

I have an interview at Kingston Press this Friday, he explained. Perhaps I could do it with you instead of Allison.

My jaw dropped.

You don’t have to—

Maybe I want to, he replied, flashing me another smile. My knees got a little weak when he looked at me like that. How could I say no to him when he talked to me with such confidence, as though he already knew what was best for me?

I mean, that would be awesome, I blurted out. I couldn’t imagine how much of a boost that would be to my career—I hadn’t even thought about getting to talk to someone like him for my first interview. I’d already accepted that I’d likely be conducting conversations with the captain of the high school football team if I was lucky, but a chance to talk with someone like Jesse? Yeah, that would be incredible. And if he requested it specifically, there wasn’t much Allison could do about it, was there?

You really don’t have to, I continued. Why the hell was I talking myself out of this before I had even started? I needed to calm myself down. I needed to go along with this and make it sound as though I had already done twenty interviews with people of his stature before, or he was going to take it back because he didn’t want to blow his chance with the local press.

I know how hard it can be when you’re trying to get started in a new career, he replied calmly. I think you could probably use all the help you could get, right?

Yeah, but—

Then I’ll see you Friday, he replied. If you haven’t lost your job for being late today, that is.

If I do, I’ll blame it on you, I warned him, and he chuckled and just looked at me for a moment—and then, finally, he turned on his heel and started off down the street away from me.

As soon as he was facing away, I fist-pumped in the cool morning air. Holy shit! Had that really just happened? He might have been just doing it out of sympathy, but he had no idea how much an interview with him might boost my career. And if he asked for me, that would just show everyone I was working with that I was someone to look out for. They might not have known it yet, but I was going to kick the ass of everyone in that office, make it so they could hardly believe that they had never heard of me before now...

That was, of course, if Allison didn’t can me for turning up late with no good reason. I needed to get to the office sooner rather than later and hope that some of the goodwill that had gotten me hired would keep carrying over just a little while longer. I was only a half-hour late, and when they found out who I had run into, I was sure that they would understand why I’d felt the need to stop and talk for a while. Who wouldn’t have taken the chance to chat him up if they got it? Any good reporter would have been anxious to find out everything they could about a man as mysterious as that—and when he just so happened to look as good as he did, well...

I stuffed my papers back into my bag and started to sprint toward the office. But even though I knew that I was going to have some explaining to do when I got there, I couldn’t keep the smile off my face as I went. I had just managed to score a major win, even if it had come at the cost of my punctuality that morning. And to think, I had been cursing out that elevator earlier—now I could see that it was just doing me a favor. Making sure that I ran into Jesse—could I call him by his first name now? Like we were friends?

I had no idea. But what I did know for sure was that I couldn’t get the image of his leather-gloved hands out of my head—and I couldn’t stop wondering just how they would have felt pressed against my skin.

Chapter Five

Jesse

I SWEAR, RUNNING INTO that girl this morning had me all kinds of distracted—and I was having a hard time clearing my head of everything that had been put there when she looked up at me with those green eyes and her jaw had dropped.

But I was supposed to be at work. That was where I had been headed after spending a quiet morning eating breakfast and reading up on the news from last night—well, and checking out what kind of vibe the Kingston Press gave off before my interview there at the end of the week.

Though I got the feeling that I had a lot less to worry about now that I had bumped into the woman who was going to conduct the interview. She’d seemed totally grateful that I had been willing to shift the interviewer from her editor to her, but honestly, I figured that it would likely work out better for me that way—I knew she would be much easier to handle than her formidable editor, who might hit me with some of the hard questions that I didn’t want to answer.

Part of the reason that I had come into the office today, actually, was to try and give myself plenty to discuss at that meeting that had nothing to do with my past. I knew that she would still likely hit me with a few questions about it, but I was sure I would be able to deflect them and turn the piece into something more focused on what good I was doing around the town since I arrived.

It had been a busy morning—the end of the summer always brought about a new wave of people with ideas that they were looking to get funded, and my assistant, George, filtered them well enough that the ones who came through the door were almost entirely winners. I had approved three