Secrets and Seduction by Shay Lacy

Author:Shay Lacy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: romance, suspense
Publisher: F+W Media
Published: 2012-10-22T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

“You lied about your family,” Bryce accused after he closed his study door so Agent Andrews wouldn’t hear.

Ciara jerked and looked guilty. She swallowed. “I didn’t lie.”

“Yes you did. You said you missed them and wanted to be closer to them. But I thought you and your mother were going to come to blows before we left.”

“Families are complicated, you know that.”

“No, I don’t. You were very angry. I want to know what’s going on.”

“It’s personal. You said you didn’t want to discuss personal matters at work.”

“Then you shouldn’t have taken me to a family function. I’m making it my business because you lied about it.”

Ciara wandered to his study window. It was several moments before she spoke. “My father is a philanderer.”

It was the last thing Bryce expected to hear. He felt poleaxed.

“I don’t know if he was ever faithful to my mother, but she accepted it as her due.” Ciara turned to him. The skin on her face was taut, her color heightened by anger. “She’s of that generation of Latin women who were taught to expect their Latin husbands to sleep around.” Her words were deeply bitter. “I found out in my late teens and it sickened me. But when I told her, she wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t even angry. She just accepted it.”

Ciara began to pace. “My own father.” She spat the last word. “Their marriage was a farce. I couldn’t get far enough away from it, so I went away to college. I took a job in the AG’s office. If she wouldn’t leave him, at least I wouldn’t see his infidelities. I thought I’d run far enough.”

Bryce braced himself. The hurt throbbed off her.

Ciara crossed her arms across her chest. “His latest whore got pregnant and decided to have the baby. My brother.” She sneered the word. “My mother cried for weeks when she found out. My father spent time with both his families. I couldn’t stand for my mother to be humiliated any longer. I’d been telling her for years to leave him, but she wouldn’t. She honored her wedding vows even though he had no idea how to be a husband.

“I told my sister my mother would listen to her if she asked her to leave him. My sister is the perfect daughter in every way that I’m not.” Again, a slight bitterness tinged her words. “She was newly married and wildly in love with her husband, but she and her husband begged my mother to come live with them. And she did.

“I filed for her legal separation. But she won’t divorce him because it’s against her religion.”

If ever a witness spoke the truth, it was Ciara. If not, she deserved an Academy Award for that performance. But Bryce’s gut said it wasn’t a lie. She’d seen an injustice and moved to correct it. But she hadn’t been completely successful.

She was angry with both her parents. Bryce sensed her father’s actions had colored the way she saw life, the way she felt about relationships, maybe even the way she felt about men.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.