The Family Secret by Kiersten Modglin

Author:Kiersten Modglin [Modglin, Kiersten]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-30T13:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

When I wake the next morning, there’s a note on the pillow next to me in Lowell’s handwriting.

Family meeting. 8 a.m.

Downstairs study.

It’s important that you’re there.

I check the time and find that it’s just after six. Even after my late night, my body refuses to sleep in.

I take my shower, contemplating what the so-called family meeting could be about. Part of me hopes he’ll address my suspicions about the affair. Prove to me that he and Emily have nothing going on. Fight for me. The other half will be mortified if that’s what his plan is.

After I’m out of the shower, I dry off, dress, and blow-dry my hair before heading downstairs. When I arrive at the study, Emily isn’t there. I’m not sure whether to feel angry or relieved over that fact as Lowell stares at me from behind the desk.

It’s odd seeing him here when I’m so used to now seeing him behind the desk in the upstairs office. That one, the one the Bass men have used as an office for many years, feels cold. Lifeless. Formal.

Here, in a room I assume is mostly decorative, I feel comfortable. It’s cozy, even with the oversized desk taking up most of the right side of the room. The rest of the room is filled to the brim with bookshelves, plus the fireplace and armchairs, bookshelves, and a bar cart. It’s my favorite room in the house, but now, it’s tainted by what happened last night.

Just thinking about it, heat rises to my neck, and I put a hand up to cover it.

Lowell clears his throat. “Morning.” He hardly looks at me as I sit down in the chair I’d been seated in last night. I flash a glance at the sofa and lock eyes with the man sitting on it.

I avert my gaze in a hurry, my throat like a desert. Dallas is sitting on the sofa, leaning forward over his legs, elbows resting on his thighs. He gives me a mischievous grin when he catches me staring, and I can’t help thinking he can read the guilty look on my face.

I turn my body away from him in my chair to face the opposite side of the room. My pulse is pounding, and I feel unable to catch my breath.

Across from him, in the direction I’m now facing, Fallon sits in an armchair that nearly matches mine. She’s dressed in a white-and-black pantsuit with oversized sleeves that makes her look more like she’s planning to announce the chosen tributes for The Hunger Games than attend a family meeting.

Lowell’s footsteps move toward me, though I can’t see him at first from behind my chair, and then he appears. He stands in front of the fireplace with a terrifyingly serious look that says he’s going to tell us we’ll all be required to sacrifice our firstborn to his cause.

“Thank you all for coming.” He fiddles with a button on his shirt.

“Some of us had no choice.” Dallas groans.

“Fallon, can

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