Page 62 of Keep Him Like Secrets

She told me she’d changed her first name.

But at some point, she’d clearly changed her last one as well. Because in this day and age, it was almost impossible not to have a trail leading back to you at some point from birth to her mid-twenties.

When that search turned up nothing, I set my sights on her company. Which didn’t even exist.

Amato Holdings was simply a crummy office with a plaque on the door. Not a real business.

I honestly wasn’t even surprised by that information.

None of it ever sat right with me.

I mean, when she was in slacks, heels, and a blouse, she walked like a newborn giraffe, stumbling around on wobbly legs. But when she was in jeans, boots, and a tee? She had an undeniable swagger, a loud confidence that filled the air around her.

She wasn’t who she said she was.

And I hated being deceived, even if I knew that made me a complete hypocrite.

And, yet, I couldn’t talk myself out of wanting her, of reminding my doorman about her, of hoping and praying I might see those elevator doors slide open and have her walk in.

It had become such a fantasy that I almost didn’t believe my eyes when I walked down to find her standing there.

As soon as she was there, all that other shit, it fell away.

All that mattered was her.

Was us.

Was whatever the hell had been simmering between us since the moment we’d met.

Hell, since the moment I saw her on the street outside of my office building.

It had taken superhuman self-control to take my time with her, to go slow, to soak up every moment, each sensation.

Because some part of me was terrified I’d never get another chance.

The way she’d tensed as soon as it was done told me how dangerously close I was to that being the case.

Somehow, though, I’d convinced her to stay.

Eventually, she even melted against me as my arms held her. Then, slowly, as my fingers skimmed over her, she drifted off to sleep.

And she slept like the dead for seven straight hours.

I’d been with her most of that time.

But my own internal clock insisted on getting up around five. When I would usually head off to the gym.

Instead, I slipped out of bed to shower and make coffee.

As I walked back into the bedroom with two mugs, I froze.

And it came rushing back again with painful clarity.

She was lying to me.

The morning light spilled over her naked body, making need stir again. Until my gaze went to her hair.

It had never been a trick of light.

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