His Secrets Read Free Page A

this mattered, and already it’s haunting us again.
    “Chris.”
    I turn at Sara’s voice to find her in front of me, and damn it, she is naked and gorgeous, her long brown hair draped over her pale shoulders, her bare breasts high and the pretty pink of her nipples puckered. All I want to do is take her back to bed, and bury myself and the demons of my past inside her. But I can’t. Not now. Maybe not ever.
    “Chris, damn it, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
    I scrub my jaw. “Amber.”
    She pales and crosses her arms in front of her, already withdrawing. “Amber?”
    “She’s with Isabel, and Tristan can’t get her to listen to reason.”
    “As in Isabel is—”
    “Beating her. Yes.”
    Her brow furrows, worry etched in her chocolate-brown eyes. “And so Tristan called you to come rescue her? I didn’t think he wanted you near her.”
    “Amber’s playing a head game with me and Tristan. I have no doubt that she intentionally went to Isabel tonight, knowing I’m leaving, and knowing that Isabel’s a vicious bitch. She’ll lash out at Amber to try to gain a reaction from me. It’s what she’s always done.”
    Sara’s hand goes to her throat. “And Amber will take a brutal beating to get your attention?”
    “Yes.”
    “I’ll get dressed.”
    She turns away and I shackle her arm, pulling her to me. “You aren’t going.”
    “Yes, I am, Chris.”
    “I don’t want you involved in this, and I damn sure don’t want you in Isabel’s club.”
    “I know what to expect.”
    “You think you know, baby. You don’t.”
    Her eyes widen. “What does that mean?”
    I lower my gaze and fight this inner war of what’s too much and what’s not enough—all that I’ve fought since meeting Sara. She touches my jaw, silently willing me to look at her, and when I do, I face the facts. I was relieved when I didn’t melt down at my parents’ place. I convinced myself it was over. I convinced myself that I’d told her where I’d been, and that we could go forward. But I was lying to us both.
    “Chris,” she pleads. “You tell me to talk to you—I’m begging you to do the same to me.”
    “It means,” I say tightly, “that you think you know what I’m about, Sara, but you don’t really see me.”
    I see how she struggles to swallow, see the fear in her eyes; fear I feel in my gut. “Isn’t that what I’m here for? To really see you, and to find us? If going with you tonight does that for us, then I need to be there, Chris. I have to be there. You have to let me in all the way.”
    Her words dive right into that hellhole in my soul. She’s right. I brought her here for a reason, and I let that reason get swept aside. I even proposed, knowing I’d let it happen. That’s how damn selfish I am when it comes to Sara. I want her, but I don’t truly have her.
    “Get dressed,” I say, before I lose the will to do it.
    The momentary bewilderment in her eyes is replaced by understanding and she disappears into her closet. I yank a black Harley T-shirt from a hanger and pull it on, grabbing hold of the control that both she and I need me to have tonight. She’s been through hell these past two weeks, and I’m about to add to it. Dylan died and I shut her out. Rebecca is dead. Ella is missing. She’s been pickpocketed and accused of murder, and she was emotionally bruised and beaten by Amber, who’d played on Sara’s fear of letting someone else get hurt.
    I see every action Sara has taken since arriving in Paris as a desperate need for the control she trusts to no one else but me, and I need to deserve that trust. If I let us leave this place with the lie that we’ve faced all there is to face from my past, I don’t deserve her trust at all. I owe her the chance to decide if this is what she really wants. And if she decides to walk away from me, I somehow have to let her.
    Turning away from the closet, I find Sara dressed in a loosely fitted pale blue dress. It doesn’t have to hug