Page 31 of Dirty Secret Love

River shakes his head. “You’re wrong.”

“I see things from a different perspective. After all, I’m just an outsider,” I counter, crossing my arms over my chest. “Just by observing, I know that even when they might never say it, your brothers love you and care a lot about you.”

He shrugs. “Give it time. The closer you get, the clearer the picture becomes.”

I roll my eyes.

“So, River Thorndale, what did you do in your past life?” I tease, trying to dig a little deeper into his history.

His face becomes momentarily serious, eyes darkening. “I wouldn’t know. The guy is not here—and you better remember that, or we’re all dead.”

I recall the alarming news reports we watched earlier—a burning building, officials suspecting arson. He’s not kidding when he mentioned earlier that if I call the police everyone—including the town—might be in danger.

“The guys that are setting fire to your properties?” I ask.

“Cal thinks so,” he begins, a grave look on his face. “The theory is our father had ties with the mafia. Mag and I need to dig deeper into the company to figure that out. He got killed, and they wanted to kill the entire family—hence, Cal got a friend to drag us all out of our homes and flew us here in the middle of the night.”

My heart races. “So you’re here because they haven’t figured out who’s behind it?”

He nods. “Exactly. And the FBI? They’re on the hunt too. To them, our sudden disappearance means one of two things: we were murdered, or one of us is the murderer,” he says, his gaze searching mine, gauging my reaction.

“But none one of you killed your dad, huh?”

He leans back, attempting to brush off the tension with a casual façade. “You know, when we were in New York, we didn’t spend much time talking about our oh-so-thrilling family sagas after we had mind-blowing sex.”

“We didn’t, huh?” I tease, raising an eyebrow.

He smirks “Of course not. After what happened between us, who had the headspace to talk about anyone else? It became all about us, darling.”

“I’m not darling,” I protest.

“You surprise me, Sutton Asher”—he tilts his head, regarding me with a false seriousness—“Wait, do you have a middle name?”

“Fatima.”

His brows knit together in genuine surprise. “Fatima?” Is it me, or does this man keep repeating what I say? I’m not saying it’s annoying, but it’s getting old. Should I tell him?

“Didn’t I tell you my parents are extremely Catholic?” I say without complaining. “They middle-named us after saints. Sailor is Monica, and Spencer is Francis.”

“Spencer Francis?”

“Yes, it’s funny, but why do you want to know?”

“Mom always loved to use our full names to grab our attention,” he recalls. “Hearing ‘River Bryce Thorndale, you better come downstairs now, or you’ll regret it’ always did the trick.”

“You lived in a penthouse in New York?” I ask, glad that I’m finally hearing more about River’s childhood.

He hesitates for a fraction of a second. “I can’t disclose my origins, sorry.”

A pang of disappointment hits me. “I thought we were in another place in this relationship,” I admit, trying to mask the hurt in my voice.

He rubs the back of his neck, visibly uncomfortable. “We are in a place, but I can’t tell you much—for security.”

“It feels more like a trust issue,” I gently prod, looking directly into his eyes, seeking understanding.

“Have I told you that sometimes I want to kill my brothers? But in a way, they’re my people. If someone messes with them, it’ll be kind of fucked up, you know,” he says, and I’m not sure if he’s realized that by trying to change the conversation he gave me another piece of what he hides.

I smirk because this proves that he cares more than he wants to admit.

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