A Secret Life

“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

ANTHONY 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 juice.

“The confidential files. Every business has to keep them.”

“Whatever.” She capped the shaker and swished it from side to side.

He rounded the breakfast bar and commandeered the shaker. “Getting drunk is not going to help.”

“Who’s getting drunk?”

He popped the lid with one thumb and dumped the martini mix down the sink.

“Hey!”

“Read my lips-”

“No, you read mine.” She mouthed a pithy curse.

“I can’t believe you just said that.” Anthony had never imagined a word like that forming in Joan’s brain, never mind coming out her mouth.

She reached for the shaker. “Believe it.”

He snagged her wrist. “Oh no, you don’t.”

“Let go of me.”

He didn’t. “We need to focus here, Joan.”

Her green eyes sparkled in the sunlight streaming through the window. “I am focused.”

“Not on cosmopolitans.”

“I was talking about the tea.”

“Well, I’m focused on how Samuel is going to sue us.”

She moved a little closer, her perfume wafting around him. “Done deal, Anthony. Samuel’s already won.”

“Because you’ll feel compelled to confess to the judge.”

“Exactly.” She compressed her lips. “I tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

Anthony paused. “Say that again.”

“Huh?”

He had an idea. It was a wonderfully simple, yet brilliant idea. “You’re going to stand up and tell a judge Bayou Betrayal is based on an Indigo murder scandal?”

“Yes, I am.”

Merry Christmas, Anthony.

His grip loosened on her wrist, and he had to fight himself to keep from turning it into a caress. This wasn’t the time to think about her soft skin, the scent of her perfume, the sweet puff of her breath or the rounded curves beneath her tailored clothes.

He took a step back. “I know how we can skip the judge part.”

“We write a big fat check?”

“You tell it all to Ned Callihan.”

Her coral lips pursed, and for a split second he imagined kissing her. It was a fleeting, intense fantasy, where he pulled her flush against him and tasted that tender mouth for the very first time.

“From the News Network?”

Anthony nodded, tamping down his inappropriate reaction.