Secrets Read Online Free

motel down the road so we—” She broke off, sliding her eyes sideways at Dana. “Oops, better not tell that story.”
    â€œMore potatoes?” Dana asked, holding out the bowl even though Skylar hadn’t touched what she’d already taken. In Dana’s eyes, Skylar was a walking ad for “eating disorder.”
    â€œNo thanks,” Skylar said, seeming to be oblivious to Dana’s discomfort. Or was she? Dana wondered. Could she be as unaware of other people as she pretended to be?
    â€œYou have to forgive me,” Skylar said. “It’s just that we had such great times in college. Roger must have told you all about me.”
    â€œNo,” Dana said, smiling. “Roger never said a word about you.”
    She’d meant for Skylar to see how unimportant she was to her husband’s life, but Skylar took it differently. “Roger, darling, you dog! Keeping me a secret. Really!”
    Roger was sitting at the head of the polished, antique table and smiling. He wore an air of contentment, as though everything he wanted was sitting at the table with him. And maybe it was, Dana thought as she excused herself to go to the kitchen to get more rolls.
    She got the bread but she didn’t go back into the dining room. Instead, she went into the sunroom and looked out the back window. It was summer now and the leaves blocked her view, but sometimes in the winter she could see the water of the James River.
    When Roger had first shown her the site he’d purchased, Dana had been ecstatic. Most of the plots in Hamilton Hundred were fat little squares, but there were a few that were on the curves of the new streets, and they were long and narrow. That meant that she and Roger could put in a long driveway and the house would be at the back of the property. Instead of having houses on each side of them, they would be nestled in the trees. Over 40 percent of the subdivision was to be left as conservation area, never to be built on. All Dana could think of was what would be good for the children they would have. She’d been an only child, but Roger had come from a family with eight children. It was both their dreams to have at least four.
    Those had been happy days, Dana thought as she looked out at the woods that she knew led down to the water. The house they would build would have room for all the children and they’d have a wonderful place to play. Through the woods to the east were lots of little houses, but next door, to the west, was the only true mansion in Hamilton Hundred. As soon as plans for the new gated community were announced, someone had bought six plots and started building an enormous house. It wasn’t until nearly two years later that they found out the resident was to be Althea Fairmont.
    Dana heard her husband and Skylar laughing in the dining room and dreaded going back in there. She and Roger had never had wild weekends in a motel before they were married. But then, to be fair, she’d refused to go to bed with him until after they were married—which she was sure was why he did marry her.
    Sometimes at night she could see lights from the Fairmont mansion, but no one ever saw the Great Lady herself. She had employees to run her errands, and when she did go out, she rode in a black limo with darkened windows.
    Years ago, Dana had dreams of her polite, courteous children befriending the old woman and…She hadn’t thought much past that, but she had imagined mentioning to people that “Althea and I…”
    But none of it ever happened. Not the children and certainly not meeting the woman who had been called “the greatest actress who ever lived.”
    Instead, she and Roger had walked through the woods and they’d met Jefferson Ames there. Like them, he’d built a house on one of the few long, skinny pieces of land. His house was on the other side of the Fairmont mansion.
    But there the similarities between the families