Secrets to Hide 2: Naughty Little Christmas Read Online Free Page A

to work with him day in and day out? Very few people could hide the truth of who they were in a situation like that, not for long. Harley would learn what she needed to, and she would act accordingly.
    Minutes later she pulled into the driveway of her two-bedroom bungalow. Twinkling white lights outlined the small porch and the two small windows on either side of the front door. Harley had always loved lights at Christmas. As a teenager she’d bought herself a tiny fake tree with a short string of lights and kept the thing next to her bed every night of December. She would fall asleep watching the reflection of the lights in the small, shiny balls decorating the tree, wondering when she’d have a real tree and a real family to go with it. Now she did. She had Klio, and looking into her daughter’s sleeping face warmed her in a way she’d never thought possible.
    Harley kept the lights off in the living room, including the ones on the Christmas tree already gracing one corner. She made her way to the nursery in the darkness and settled Klio in her crib. The baby tucked tiny fingers between her lips, made a halfhearted sucking motion, and was out once more.
    Harley sighed at the picture the baby made, so content. Safe. Warm. Tears pricked her eyes. How could Sonny leave such a precious gift behind? And for what? An elusive high? A quick fix? Harley couldn’t wrap her mind around her twin’s callousness. Klio would never know treatment like that, not with Harley around. She was a good mother. She just prayed if Damien ever found out about his daughter, that he would be a good father as well.
    “Good night, little one,” she whispered before sneaking out of the nursery.
    In her own room Harley stripped, sighing in relief as her body was freed from the strict confines of her clothes. She stepped into the bathroom and set the baby monitor on the counter, then turned on the water. When steam filled the air, she climbed under the spray.
    A groan broke through, deep and heartfelt. The heat struck her aching body with force, digging into the muscles, cleansing away the grit of the day. She poured shampoo into her hand and lathered her hair, mimicking the water’s massage with her fingertips. As she cleaned, her mind whirled, refusing to give in to the fatigue that swamped her muscles. Scenes from tonight played through her mind, of watching Damien taking care of his business, his employees. She knew from a few mentions in the local society pages that he went through women like tissues, but his other clubs thrived just as much as Thrice. His life seemed so full.
    And hers seemed so empty.
    That was why she’d been determined to keep Klio. Harley hadn’t been able to save anyone else. Her entire fucked-up family, gone to the consequences of their own actions—her mother to the search for fame, her father to a broken heart drowned in alcohol, Sonny to drugs. In her head she knew their choices had nothing to do with her, but in moments like this, when the silence rang in her ears and the meaning she sought remained hidden, she couldn’t help wondering what was wrong with her that the people who were supposed to love her had instead run far and fast. She wouldn’t abandon Klio that way. The child she’d cuddled in her arms would never wonder why no one loved her.
    But sometimes, even knowing Klio was safe wasn’t enough. Nothing was enough to fill the emptiness inside her.
    Damien’s face flashed across the screen of her closed eyelids. The man was beautiful and so alive. His eyes, a rich, dark brown, pierced to the depths of her soul. He’d walked across the club, those eyes fixed on her, and he’d become a predator staring down his prey. Ready to devour her. She remembered the way attraction had arced between them as their hands met, the memory heating her body with embarrassing swiftness. She wanted to feel like that again, wanted to feel like the center of someone’s universe, the sole focus of one man, one time. It