Secrets in Paris: Brooke de Láuront, #2

By Ashley Bríon

Her family's dark past hides locked away from the world but can be revealed by the holder of the key. Will Clara unveil Tryniti's secrets, or will she follow in the path of her ancestors and bury them once more?

 

Clara Reilly, a descendent of Tryniti and Sean, works for Yale University when she's forced to research her own family tree, except the information comes to a dead end. Determined to find out her family's past and reveal the dark secret they are hiding from her, Clara's journey leads to Paris.

 

She finds herself face-to-face with Jack Danton, the hardheaded and icy curator for the Musée des Archives Nationales. Before meeting Clara, Jack's sole ambition was finding his next archaeological score, but he soon finds he's in for a whirlwind ride of secrets and romance he never expected to find on the streets of Paris.

 

Deception, betrayal, and mystery await the unlikely couple in Secrets in Paris.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ashley Bríon
• Release date: Apr 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215221761

Ashley Bríon

Ashley Bríon is a 2013, 2015, and 2019 BA, MA, and MFA graduate in English and Creative Writing. Ashley has a long history of French and English heritage. She is bilingual speaking both French and English. She spends her free time gaming with her friends, acting, tap dancing, practicing yoga, and playing with her pets. Ashley embraces her love of history and different cultures through her writings, and is autistic and is a “social justice warrior” advocating for LGBTQIA+ and POC rights. Her favorite holidays are Halloween and Christmas and enjoys a cup of sake every evening. Follow her on all her socials and sign up for her monthly newsletter on her website. TikTok: @Jokergurl09 Facebook: www.facebook.com/authorashleybrion Instagram: www.instagram.com/@authorashleybrion Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/ashley-brion

Book preview

About Secrets in Paris

Clara Reilly’s family holds a dark secret that no one is willing to tell her. Determined to find out her family’s past, her journey takes her to Paris. Jack Danton is the museum curator of the Musée des Archives Nationales. When he meets Clara, he’s in for a whirlwind ride of secrets and romance he never expected on the streets of Paris.

Chapter 1

Clara Reilly stared out into the bright sky from her plush window seat in first class. She looked out and saw nothing but blue sky and a few wispy white clouds underneath the wing of the plane. 30,000 feet in the air she sipped on her mimosa while she watched one of her favorite movies on the small screen in front of her. She couldn’t concentrate and kept thinking about what her mother told her before she left the airport. Don’t meddle in things you don’t need to know.

Clara’s mother was furious she called to tell her that she was in the airport getting ready to board a plane to Paris. How dare you, her mother screamed. You have no business going to Paris. This dumb little project of yours has gone too far. What will your grandmother say when she finds out? She’ll tell your grandfather and then your ass is grass Clara Marie Reilly. Clara shuttered reliving the moment she told her mother to basically fuck off and hung up the phone. What was so damned secret about her family that she couldn’t finish her project? Her publisher and the college were breathing down her neck to finish it and it was smooth sailing until she started digging past her great-grandparents. Then it was roadblocks, hush hush, and missing records. Everything she found kept leading her back to one place: Paris. She found her father’s family had moved to the United States in the 1750s, but her mother’s family had not immigrated until the 1840s. She shifted through the pile of records on her tray in front of her. She looked at her dad’s records dating all the way back to England in the 1100’s, but her mother’s came to a dead stop during the immigration from Paris, France, then to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania through Philadelphia in 1841. Scrolling through her laptop on her lap, she came across holes and missing documents. Where did they go? she thought. Certainly, no one can just make a family’s life disappear. Whatever it was, she was going to find out in the City of Love.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We will be descending soon so please fasten your seat belts. It is one thirty-two pm local time in Paris and the temperature is sunny with a breezy temperature of seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit, twenty-four degrees Celsius. We hope you enjoyed your flight on Delta Airlines.

Clara sighed and gathered her papers into her carry-on, buckling her seat belt in a hurry. Over ten hours on this damned plane she wanted off. First class may be comfortable, but a flying death trap is still a flying death trap. As the plane started to descend, she looked back out the window at the clouds flying past her window and the ground creeping closer. That’s when she saw it. Her eyes began to water, and she had to stifle a sobbing squeal. In her view was the Eiffel Tower. It’s towering beauty of wrought iron and steel brought her to tears. As much as her mother didn’t want her to come here, visiting Paris was her dream ever since she was a child, and now she was finally here. The beauty of the architecture was enough to bring anyone to their knees. She looked past the tower and at the Notre Dame Cathedral. It still almost looked like a former shell of itself after the fire, but it was hard to tell with all the scaffolding and construction equipment. Clara took a deep breath as the plane landed. Here we go, she thought. Clara gathered up her carry-on bag and exited the plane, making her way down the ramp into the lavish terminal to find the luggage area.

"Bienvenue à Paris, France. Nous espérons que vous apprécierez votre séjour dans la Ville de L'amour." She heard over the loudspeaker and then again in English: Welcome to Paris, France. We hope you enjoy your stay in the City of Love.

Pfft, City of Love, she mumbled. It’s gonna take more than a little wine, music, and sweet talk for that to happen sweetheart.

The entire time she navigated through the terminal she couldn’t stop thinking about this big family secret. What was the big deal? Would it affect her children if she ever had many? Their careers? Money? If it didn’t actually affect the family’s livelihood, she didn’t understand what the fuss was about. Either this really was a big deal since she had to come all the way to France to find out, or it was a simple miscommunication through the years. Right...? Grabbing her luggage from the moving carousel, Clara re-checked the address of her hotel on her