Almost Innocent Read Online Free Page B

truth was.
    “You don’t need glasses, old man. It was Gabs.”
    He stayed silent, waiting for me to continue.
    “She didn’t know I was out.”
    He scoffed. “They must not have newspapers at that fancy school she teaches at.”
    I shot him a death glare, not liking his tone or his snide comment.
    He only chuckled, shrugging. “Just pointing out the obvious. It’s not like your release didn’t make headlines. The Kennebec Journal even had that piece on the Callaghan Crime Circuit. She’d have to be living under a rock not to see that shit.”
    “Or vacationing in Florida with her kid.”
    “Or that.” I could see him, out of the corner of my eye, staring at me. “That’s some crazy coincidence, huh? Almost as if someone planned it.”
    I reached for the cup of coffee that was now cold, needing something other than the steering wheel in my hands. “Almost. Pity Fiona rented that house on the beach for the entire summer then realized at the last minute that she couldn’t go, wasn’t it?”
    “Imagine that.”
    “I didn’t want her here, okay?” I snapped, knowing that he wouldn’t stop until he heard me say it. “She didn’t need to be dragged into all that bullshit. I did what I had to do to keep her and the kid off the reporters’ radar and out of the story. No one needed to take a trip down memory lane.”
    “Or you did it so you wouldn’t have to see her.”
    Fuck him. “I’ve seen her every day for the last twelve years.”
    “She know?”
    Normally I knew what he was talking about without him having to explain. Where Gabby was concerned though, there was just too much. Too many layers. “Know I sent her away? We didn’t exactly talk about that shit.”
    “No, dipshit,” he snapped, obviously annoyed. “Does she know that you’re still hung up on her?”
    I could deny it. It would be an easy lie that I’d told myself millions of times. There was no point though, because he’d see right through it. And the truth hurt much more than any story could. I needed to feel that sharp sting of regret, the stab of pain that always came with the knowledge that Gabby was never mine—it would help me focus. “She never knew to begin with.”

Chapter Three

Gabby
    “ I ’ve got to tell you.” Danni Samms, the Danni Samms, smiled as she leaned her forearms against the giant table in the obnoxiously large conference room where my meeting was taking place. “I wasn’t going to read this.”
    “She wasn’t.” June Wells— oh my god, June Wells —chuckled from her seat next to me, crossing her legs and pointing her more-than-I-make-in-a-year high-heeled toe at me around the edge of the table. “I had to force her, and she complained for days before she started. Then once she opened it, I didn’t hear a peep!” June laughed, raising a single brow.
    Panic started to rise within me. When I read something I enjoyed, I told everyone about it—from my friends to the cashier at the grocery store.
    As if sensing my worry, June shook her head slightly. “That means she liked it.”
    When I’d gotten the call for this meeting, the receptionist had said that I would be meeting with a SammWell rep. I’d assumed she meant that I was going to see some low-level chump whom I would have to convince to take my first few chapters to the company’s founders. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would be shuttled into a top-floor glass-walled room with the two legends themselves.
    And never, ever in a million years would I have imagined that they both would have read the sample I’d sent. This was a dream. It had to be. I was going to wake up and find that this whole screwed up morning had never really happened.
    “This,” Ms. Samms spoke again, slapping her hand harshly on my manuscript, “is bloody brilliant!” She lowered her head, giving me a demanding look that had me worried. “Tell me there’s more.”
    I opened my mouth to assure her that there was, but before I could answer, her