A Family Affair: Winter: Truth in Lies, Book 1 Read Online Free Page A

know. Don’t you see that, Uncle Harry?”
    The damn, sad fact was that he did see. He knew exactly how she felt, how she needed to search out the truth so she could understand the pieces of her life that no longer made sense.
    “I think you’re making a mistake.”
    “I have to know.”
    “And if what you find out is worse than not knowing? Then what?” It all rushed back, the words, the lies, the pain. “Then you’ve got a face, a voice that will haunt you for the rest of your life, Chrissie. It could friggin’ destroy you.”
    “I know. But if I’m going to end up hating the man I loved most in the world, then I want everything about that woman, her face, her voice, the color of her fingernails, embedded in my brain, so every time I think of my father, every time I wonder why I can’t forgive him, I’ll think of her and I’ll know I have a reason to hate him.”

Chapter 3
     
    “So why exactly, are you going away?”
    Christine folded another sweater, a tan cashmere, zip in the back, and placed it in the open suitcase on her bed. “Connor, I told you. I’m going to the Catskills to close up my father’s place.” She turned away so he wouldn’t see her face, not that Connor had ever been able to detect anything she hadn’t wanted him to. When she’d called him the night her father died and he offered to come over, she told him no, it was late and he had to get up early. He hadn’t insisted on coming, or better, hadn’t just showed up on her doorstep, pulled her into his arms, and held her the way she’d needed him to.
    “I don’t get it,” he said, crossing his arms under his head and stretching his long body on the bed. “I guess I just don’t get this whole trip thing. Why’d he go there every month anyway?”
    To see Lily Desantro, that’s why.  “It was his way of relaxing, I guess.” She pulled another sweater from her drawer, black angora with tiny pearls. “An escape from the pressure of his job.”  An escape to another woman.
    “Couldn’t he just go to the health club? Or play a round of golf?”
    “I don’t know, Connor. I don’t know why he had to go there. He just did.”
    “Okay, don’t get all testy.” He smiled at her, white on white against his tanned skin. “Just trying to figure it out, that’s all.” Connor James Pendleton, age thirty-two, fourth-generation graduate of Princeton and heir to Pendleton Securities, Inc. The Pendletons believed in the stock market, Ivy League educations, and first class. Christine and Connor had been together almost two years, had sunbathed side by side in Hawaii, snorkeled in Cancun, skied in Aspen, and taken a trip to Italy. Twice. With Connor, it was only the best, always: the hotels, the restaurants, the theaters, the people. The only part that lacked was their relationship. It was third rate, maybe less, and no matter how she tried to dress it up with pearls or diamonds or a package deal to Trinidad, it was still just that, third rate.
    Being with Connor was like investing in blue chip stocks; they might be a safe bet and look good in a portfolio, but they’d never give you the ride a tech stock would. Weeks could pass without making love and it didn’t seem to bother him. In fact, he didn’t seem to notice. But then, neither did she. That wasn’t exactly true; she did notice; it just didn’t bother her. How sad was that?
    Some days, she’d catch herself listening to her assistant, Elena, talk to her husband about inconsequential things like what he would like for dinner and could he pick their daughter up at daycare. It wasn’t what Elena said, but how she said it, soft, caring. Christine had tried that once with Connor, called him for no reason just to chat and tell him she was thinking about him. He’d put her on Hold, just for a minute so he could talk to Tokyo, and five minutes later, Bette, his secretary, came on the line and told her Connor would be tied up longer than expected, “closing a deal you know,”