All the Secrets (All the Lies #2) - Charlotte Byrd Page 0,1

grieving the loss of my engagement and the terrible thing that Alex did.

My mind isn’t in the right place.

Liam’s supposed to be a rebound, nothing more, and that's exactly what he's going to be.

I came out here to the desert to find the real identity of a reclusive and best-selling romantic fantasy author by the name of D. B. Carter.

What I found instead was a man who used to be friends with my fiancé and who had exchanged a few words with me at my parents’ house.

Why was that?

Was this whole thing a set-up?

My thoughts go back to how I found out about him. I wrote messages on various Facebook groups and forums. Then a guy named Matt Lipinski wrote me back.

Liam said that he has no idea who Matt is, but now I'm not so sure.

What if he's been lying to me this whole time?

What if this whole thing is a prank?

Liam is waiting for me to make a decision, but I have already made it.

I'm a journalist and I don't pay people for stories. He's not offering me money, but he's asking me to do something worse.

Maybe he's not coming straight out and asking me to sleep with him, but it’s somewhere along that line and I don't like it.

I'm not for sale.

My body can’t be bought for a price.

He can go fuck himself.

Without saying a word, I turn around and head back to my car.

It didn't start before and I don't know if it will now, but I pray that it does.

I take a deep breath.

I slowly press the accelerator and then push the start button.

I hold my breath and I shut my eyes tightly so it takes me a few moments to realize that my Prius actually started up.

“Oh, thank the Lord!” I exclaim when Bruce Springsteen starts to blast from the speakers.

Looking in the rearview mirror, I see his silhouette on the porch and quickly pull away from his house.

I drive down the long unpaved, dusty road leading up to the iron gate and pull out onto the highway. I don't look back again until I get on the freeway, finally letting out a sigh of relief.

It takes me four hours to drive back to my apartment in Los Angeles. It's Saturday and the traffic shouldn’t be that bad, but there's been a few accidents so we are all stacked bumper-to-bumper.

Normally, the drive should take about 2 1/2 hours, but I don't mind. I'm used to the traffic and I just sit back in my seat, turn up the music, and space out.

I want to lose myself in Springsteen's “Badlands,” but instead my thoughts keep going back to Liam and his forty acres in the desert.

He was respectful, polite, and welcoming, yet distant. His eyes were razor-sharp and his voice was smooth like velvet. I pick up my phone and open the Dragon Anywhere dictation app.

I have gotten used to making verbal notes about my research and stories while I sit behind the wheel.

Now I want to jot down some thoughts while we crawl through Pasadena.

“His hair fell softly to his eyes as he spoke. His voice was soothing and relaxing, reminiscent of the voices used in those meditation apps. He put me at ease and I wonder if he does this with others. He mentioned that he has no idea who Matt Lipinski is and yet I believe that it's one of his identities. How many does he have?”

Of course, not all of these facts and observations will be included in the story if it's ever published by Coast.

For now, I’m just jotting them down for myself.

“After what happened with Alex, after walking in on him having sex with his boss and finding out that he has been seeing her longer than he has been seeing me, my world has been upside down. Maybe that's why I became so intoxicated with Liam. I wanted to be with someone who is the opposite of Alex. I needed to take my mind off my heartache and the pain. That's what rebounds are, right?”

I dictate everything that happened at his home. My impressions of walking into the place, seeing him for the first time riding a horse, and my surprise at who he was.

I include whatever details I remember.

The kitchen was open concept and there were no cabinets.

The plates and dishes were all handmade and neatly piled on open shelves.

The floor-to-ceiling window walls gave expansive views of the desert.

The fact that I did not stay there long