Page 5 of Bitter Secrets

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Then I’ll be able to do it quicker this time around.”

“He hurt you.”

Her voice shook as she whispered, “Many people have hurt me.”

His pause told her that he caught the implication. Colette and Ariana had hurt her continually throughout her life, and their recent desertion at their father’s funeral was still fresh in her mind.

“I want you to be happy.”

Her eyes filled with tears because she knew he meant it. “Then drop it. He wants to change, Lyle. He can’t if we don’t give him a chance.”

“You must really love that fucking bastard.”

Relief weakened her knees. Thankfully, the couch was nearby.

“Tell me you’re there of your own free will, that he isn’t abusing you, and this has nothing to do with Hennessy & Co,” he ordered.

“I’m here of my own free will. I’m not being abused, and this has nothing to do with the company,” she recited quickly.

“I can’t believe this shit,” he muttered. “Any indication that you’re lying to me, that there’s any coercion involved, and it leads back to that fucking company Colette’s obsessed with, I’ll do whatever’s necessary to get him out of our lives once and for all. You understand me, Min?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll be checking in regularly.”

She nodded because she couldn’t speak. Several seconds passed before she realized he hung up without saying goodbye. She dropped the phone and covered her face with shaking hands.

Maybe she had more of Maximus in her than she thought. She never imagined she’d be able to turn the tables on her brother-in-law. On the other hand, her threat wouldn’t have worked if Lyle didn’t have something to hide. Under other circumstances, that would have bothered the crap out of her, but she was too drained to care about Lyle’s secrets when she had Roth’s to deal with.

She climbed to her feet and walked toward the glass walls lining the grand living room. It was a beautiful day with fluffy clouds decorating the unreal blue sky. Fall was giving way to winter. The explosion of orange and yellow amidst the sea of gray was almost gone as the leaves began to fall, leaving Central Park naked and bare. That’s how she felt. Stripped, raw, and exposed to the elements.

Although she was safe from the freezing temperature, she still felt chilled. She went back to the kitchen and heated a kettle as she downed Alka-Seltzer to rid herself of a headache and sour stomach that had plagued her for days.

It was done. She convinced her family for the time being, but how was she going to endure a year of this? Growing up in the public eye, she knew how to don a polite mask in public, but she had never kept up an act longer than a couple of hours. And she was expected to keep up this act twenty-four seven? Not just in front of her family, but with Roth as well? How could she look him in the eye after what he’d done?

The way Roth went after her housekeeper—no hesitation and no care for the woman’s age or frailty, made her sick to her stomach. The way he twisted her neck, threatening to snap it… That move had been so practiced and natural for him. She broke out in a cold sweat thinking about it. In between stilted, overly polite messages where her sisters tried to act like they weren’t checking on her, they informed her that Thea had been released from the hospital with a neck brace and bad bruising. It was a miracle Thea hadn’t sustained more serious injuries. He could have killed her.

If only she had bumped into Thea when they fetched her laptop from Tuxedo Park, her housekeeper would have been able to slip her the letter at a more opportune moment. Then, all of this could have been avoided. She pursed her lips. No. She could have avoided all of this if she had declined his offer to get coffee when she ran into him that fateful day in Philadelphia. Even now, she remembered asking herself:What was the harm in a cup of coffee?Now, she knew the answer. The rest of her life.

She had the insane urge to beat her fists against the glass or trash the kitchen that seemed to be put right every morning, even though she had never laid eyes on any staff. Instead, she stood there motionless. With her mind as clear as a snowy television, she couldn’t sleep or eat and spent most of her time staring into space. She jumped at every little sound, expecting Roth to appear with the same vengeance that he had in Colorado. He’d driven her back to the city in the dead of night. When they’d entered the penthouse, she’d braced for a showdown. Instead, he left without a word. She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. She was on pins and needles, waiting for the spotlight to be switched on and for Roth to start the next act. It was a dangerous game, where she didn’t know the rules. Not knowing how to protect herself, she had never felt so vulnerable in her life. Her hand went to her throat, where invisible butterflies desperately tried to get free.

The kettle screamed for her. She swiped it from the stove and poured herself a cup and put in two peppermint tea bags. She remembered her mom always drank a cup before bed. The scent had been a source of comfort to her, but even that memory seemed to have lost its potency in the face of her current crisis.

She tucked a notebook under her arm, then she walked back into the grand living room and settled on the cushy window seat. She stared down at the maze of buildings and roads clogged with traffic, wishing she was part of the crowd, a nobody with normal problems like an irritating neighbor or bitchy boss. Everyone thought they wanted wealth and power. They had no clue how much they would have to compromise or that the mind games and politics would chip away at their soul. If she wasn’t a Hennessy, Roth wouldn’t have been interested in her and she wouldn’t have put everyone she cared about in danger. Ripples traveled over the surface of her tea as her hands trembled.

“You don’t see him again. Ever.”

“I don’t want to.”

The echo of the promise she made to her father came back to haunt her. Why hadn’t Dad told her that he blackmailed Roth to make him sign the divorce papers? Why entrust Thea with the letter and disc instead of telling her face-to-face? He created an elaborate ruse that failed because he hadn’t been open and honest with her. She thought they stopped keeping secrets from one another, but he hadn’t trusted her with this one.Why?

She stared straight ahead, eyes glazed with worry, as she blew on her tea. From the moment she saw Roth in Colorado, he’d been determined to find out who inherited the bulk of her father’s fortune. Was there another asset besides Hennessy & Co that he coveted, and was biding his time before claiming it? Did he offer the one hundred million dollar settlement at the end of the year to conceal his true intentions? He couldn’t do anything without her consent, but that was little comfort when he had fooled her too many times to count. Apparently, age hadn’t made her wiser where he was concerned.

She set her mug aside and flipped through her notebook, which should have been filled with ideas for her new book. Instead, the pages were filled with theories on all the ways Roth could ruin her life. She spent hours jotting down everything he said from the moment they clashed in Colorado. The problem was, everything that came out of his mouth could be interpreted in dozens of ways. How could she read between the lines when she didn't know what she was looking for? She wrote down her conversation with Kaia and the few lines from Maximus’s letter she managed to read.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that Kaia echoed her father’s sentiments. Both warned her that a life with Roth would lead her down a path of destruction and pain. Kaia hadn’t seen her son in years, yet she’d known her son was capable of coercing a woman into marriage. Had he done so in a previous relationship? She ran her fingers through her hair and hissed when they caught on a knot.

If Roth was so dangerous, why wait until her wedding day to bring up the past? Kaia had ample opportunity to speak about her son. She’d called Kaia once or twice a year even after they divorced and she hadn’t said a thing when she arrived in Colorado. It was the first time they were meeting face-to-face and she was raw from Dad’s passing, but Roth was the one thing they had in common. Kaia’s“You don’t know?”before Roth interrupted them was killing her. Didn’t knowwhat?

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