Small Town Secret: Mayfield Springs Book 1 Read Free

stirring in the bed behind me. God, I'd better go before I ended up back in bed again.  
    I pulled my clothes on and checked myself again in the mirror, smoothing down my hair and trying to straighten my suit jacket to make it look like I hadn't slept in my clothes. Making an escape from a hotel room was never the most dignified of acts.  
      Pulling open the door, I prayed I wouldn't wake this girl. For a second she stirred in her sleep and murmured something inaudible. Then she rolled over and began to snore softly. It looked like the coast was clear. I tiptoed out the door into the hotel corridor.

    The maid in the hall smiled at me in recognition, and the bellboy in the elevator tried hard to look at me, but I could tell that he was quivering with excitement at being able to stand next to Chris Taylor even for a few seconds. Fame... it's the weirdest thing.  
    As the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, I heard them immediately. Paparazzi. Human vultures who lurked amongst life's landscapes, waiting for their vulnerable prey before pouncing. The bastards.  
    I pulled my sunglasses out of my pocket and put them on. Then, I pulled the baseball cap that I kept for moments like this out of the inside pocket of my jacket and pulled it hard down over my face. I took a deep breath, put my head down and headed for the side exit from the foyer. I never used the main exit anywhere - unless I wanted to be photographed that is.  
    Just before the exit, I ducked around a corner and shielded myself behind a large fake fern. I looked around for the name of the hotel - ' The Meridian' - never heard of it, and texted my driver to come and pick me up. Ten minutes away. Shit.  
    I leaned with my back against the wall waiting and thought of what would be coming up in the next week. Cassie's wedding. A chance to get home to Mayfield Springs. It couldn't be more different than here, than this weird moment hiding behind a pot plant and waiting to escape.
    Amy was going to be there. Amy, the love of my life. I wondered if she'd even talk to me again after what I did to her. I was a total asshole. I knew it at the time, and I still knew it now.
    I'd known Amy, my little sister Cassie's best friend since she was a kid. I'd never thought of her romantically, but when I went back to Mayfield Springs for Cassie's graduation, Amy was different. She wasn't Amy the tomboy anymore - she was this gorgeous, amazing looking woman with Amy's voice and sense of humor packaged in this amazing body as well. How could I not fall for her? But it was bad timing. I was six months into a marriage that no one at home knew about. And when my wife Stacey heard rumors that the reason her husband was staying on in Mayfield Springs was that I had taken up with a girl there, she soon made sure everyone in Mayfield Springs knew about her existence. The moment when I opened the door to Stacey my wife on the doorstep of my parent's home was the worst in my life. I sighed.   I lost my wife, the girl I really loved, and the respect of my mom and dad in the space of a second.  
    "Chris, Chris." An urgent whispering of my name broke my thoughts. It was Manuel, my driver.  
    Thank God, I was finally going to get out of this hotel.  

CHAPTER 4

    AMY

    "There's just no way I've gone up a dress size," I pouted into the mirror and prodded at my hips.  
    "You look gorgeous, so stop worrying about it," said Cassie, as she stood behind me snapping endless pictures with her cellphone.  
    "Stop that Cass!" I laughed. "I look like I've put on heaps of weight."
    "Oh my God Amy, don't be so ridiculous. You look beautiful."
    "But I'm so much bigger than you are," I said, glancing over Cassie's perfect body.  
    It had been a few years since we'd seen each other but as lifelong friends do, we chat on the phone regularly. But, Cassie looks so different from the last time I saw her. She practically looks like a model. She's got her brother's looks and that lofty arrogance that