Secrets and Lies (Cassie Scot) Read Online Free Page B

about it, let alone use it, that something was Evan. Not that I wanted to start a fight between father and son, but I couldn’t imagine Evan standing for his father taking any hostile action toward me.
    More importantly, I didn’t want to gain a reputation for being easy to push around. That’s why I had poured hot coffee in David McClellan’s lap, and why I wouldn’t obey Victor’s orders now. I might not have any choice when it came to his son, but he was another story. If he wanted to talk to me, he would have to find a less arrogant way to do it.
    With that in mind, I grabbed a muffin and a glass of orange juice from the kitchen, and sat on a bar stool at the counter. Not surprisingly, Victor joined me barely a minute later.
    “Is this your way of testing boundaries, Ms. Scot?” Victor asked.
    That rankled. It was also the second time in less than a month that someone had likened me to a toddler. “That assumes you have any authority over me, which you don’t.”
    “Maybe not, but I did offer my protection, and all I’d like in return is a few minutes of your time.”
    I turned to face him fully, and I could feel my face reddening. “Are you suggesting that stunt you pulled back there constitutes some kind of debt?”
    He frowned. “Maybe not, but isn’t it at least a friendly overture?”
    “So, now you’re my friend?”
    “Why not?” Victor asked. “Apparently, you no longer have familial ties to my enemy.”
    I didn’t know what to say to that, so I took a bite of my muffin.
    “You really shouldn’t work here,” Victor said.
    “You sound like my brother. Let me guess – it will make people think I’m unprotected.”
    “David seemed to be thinking along those lines.”
    I shrugged, trying to look completely unmoved, though in truth, the incident had made me feel uneasy. The town I had lived in and loved my entire life had seemed to grow a hundred pairs of tiny, blinking eyes, all focused on me.
    “Look, Mr. Blackwood, this is my life, and it’s really no one’s business where I decide to work. So why don’t you get to the real point of this conversation? I assume you want to warn me away from your son.”
    Victor laughed. “Why would you think that?”
    Images of my own father warning me away from the Blackwoods flashed through my mind. “What do you want, then?”
    “I actually came here to tell you to do the smart thing. Marry him.”
    I froze, thinking back to Evan’s nightmarish proposal. So, marry me. And I hadn’t been able to say no, despite wanting to; despite wanting nothing to do with magic any longer. Evan, too, had offered me protection. I can take care of you , he had said. As if I were a puppy instead of a woman.
    “Wait,” I said, “why would you want me to? I thought you hated my family.”
    “Oh, I do.”
    My insides twisted. “So this is some kind of sick revenge?”
    “I’d call it fate.” He smiled, but the expression didn’t make it to his eyes. “It’s really for your own good, you know. You need protection, and when you started working here, you basically confirmed all the rumors going around that your parents cast you out.”
    “Why should anyone care?” I’d asked Evan the same question, but never received an answer. Suddenly, getting those answers became a much higher priority. Unfortunately, Victor didn’t seem inclined to share.
    “I’ve tried to talk sense into my son, but he won’t listen. He could force you, you know.”
    I shivered, but didn’t otherwise respond.
    “So, now I’m trying to talk sense into you.”
    The door opened with a jingle, and something in the air told me my day had just gone from bad to worse.
    “Edward,” Victor said, as if greeting an old friend.
    I faced my former father for the first time since he had announced his intention to disown me. He looked just as he always had, with straight dark hair, brown eyes, a long, angular face, and a wide, curving mouth – curving downward into a frown, that is.
    If