Secrets

by Galia Ryan

  SECRETS

  by

  Galia Ryan

  Fanny Press

  PO Box 70515

  Seattle, WA 98127

  For more information go to: www.fannypress.com

  Galiaryan.fannypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Cover design by Sabrina Sun

  SECRETS

  Copyright © 2013 by Galia Ryan

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-516-1 (Trade Paper)

  ISBN: 978-1-60381-517-8 (eBook)

  Produced in the United States of America

  * * *

  As Always, for Jason

  * * *

  Acknowledgments

  It’s time I officially recognised the continual support and encouragement of Michelle W. Thank you for somehow finding the time to read and comment on every manuscript I throw your way.

  To Amber S., who read the first draft of Secrets ... and liked it!

  And to Catherine Treadgold of Fanny Press for the time and effort and your red highlighter pen! As someone once said, it is all about the journey.

  Chapter 1.

  Paris, France, 1989

  Stephanie lifted her wine glass and took a thoughtful sip.

  Charles couldn’t help marvelling at her composure. She was an enigma; a cool Nordic beauty, disdainful when it suited. Her powerful allure continually enthralled him.

  She was also proving a far sharper negotiator than he had expected.

  Her wide-set grey eyes were staring at some point far off in the distance. He knew better than to force his way into her thoughts. Having spent his entire business career creating win-win situations of one sort or another, he of all people understood the value of silence.

  It all came down to which was more important to her. What he was offering—sufficient funds to see her through a summer on the Côte d’Azur—or her virginity.

  He, of course, was gambling on the former.

  Stephanie frowned as she placed the glass back on the table. The action was precise, careful even. Her head tilted in concentration, and she eased the glass a fraction to the left.

  He breathed carefully, but she gave him nothing.

  The café was busy. More so than when he’d arrived, now that those who worked in the Paris quartier were vying with tourists for lunch-time tables. With his full attention on her, the background clamour had taken on a surreal quality. Chair legs dragging across the varnished floor and the normally jarring sound of cutlery touching on china hardly intruded. The private conversations of neighbouring tables rose and fell with intermittent clarity.

  He forced himself to relax and play his remaining card.

  “I have a friend with an apartment in Le Suquet. It may be free, I don’t know. I could ask.”

  “Le Suquet? In Cannes?”

  Now her eyes held his.

  He nodded.

  “I could have it for the whole of the summer?” Her perfectly shaped fingernail was tapping a staccato rhythm on the base of her glass.

  “Possibly.”

  “I would need it from May.”

  “May?”

  “Sure. Le Festival de Cannes.”

  The explanation was followed by a Gallic shrug, as if to imply it was only a mere detail after all. She learns fast, he thought.

  “You want to see the film stars?”

  “Of course.”

  Of course she did. At sixteen, who wasn’t interested in movies and film stars?

  “What about your studies?”

  This time the shrug was more emphatic. “I go to Cannes for the festival, I come back, I return in July.”

  “And your father?”

  Her look was contemptuous, and for a minute he thought he had truly blown it.

  “What will you tell him?” He tried again. It was important after all.

  “That I am staying with friends.”

  She had it all worked out.

  Subconsciously—or perhaps not—she had selected a long strand of ash blonde hair and drawn it across her mouth. The tip of her pink tongue slipped from between her lips to capture it, and his cock, already excited by the exchange, hardened further.

  He cleared his throat. “Why don’t I see what I can do?”

  Charles knew he would move heaven and earth to make it happen. Aware that she knew it, too, he waited for her to acknowledge their bargain.

  “Merde!” She had glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go or I’ll be late. Soeur Marie-Pierre will wonder where I’ve been.”

  Hastily swallowing the last of her wine, Stephanie leapt up and leaned over to kiss his cheek.

  “I’ll call you.”

  Charles nodded. He didn’t care that he had been outmanoeuvred. The end game was what mattered and he knew he had that in the bag. What really thrilled him was that she was proving a more worthy opponent than he could have ever imagined. A smile lingered at the corners of his mouth as he watched her weave through the last tables. Anyone could see her dark blue school uniform was glaringly at odds with her confidence and poise. A man in his early forties should have known better, but the mix of adolescent petulance and wily seductress was intoxicating.

  His wine glass was empty, the remains in the bottle hardly a few mouthfuls. He poured it anyway.

  Without her presence his exuberance soon waned. Easing back as far as his chair would allow, he wondered, not for the first time, just what he was doing. Stephanie was the daughter of his best friend and business partner, a man he had known for more years than he cared to remember. The families were close, and the idea of fucking Alain’s daughter—even if it was as much her idea as his—was completely insane. She was her father’s favourite child. God forbid he ever found out.

  So why tempt fate?

  The idea of conquest was too banal. Nor did he have any need to prove his powers of seduction or his attractiveness. Men his age expected to lose their hair, but his was still thick and wavy. Even the sprinkling of grey at his temples added a touch of distinction. Not only that, but he’d been lucky to inherit a reasonably athletic build. The truth was, in all the years he and Antoinette had been happily married there had never been a shortage of other women to provide variety. And with no financial incentive whatsoever.

  For a brief moment he tried to picture the situation in reverse. He too had a daughter, just a year younger than Stephanie. What if someone had planned her seduction? He grimaced and shook his head. Somehow the image just didn’t work. Perhaps it was that Charlotte was in many ways still a child.

  Whereas the deliciously manipulative Stephanie—he lifted his glass almost as if in salute—had a maturity far beyond her years.

  * * *

  They had been stealing private moments ever since her father’s birthday party last autumn. It had been a close friends-and-family affair. The usual scenario of children gathered around gaming consoles while adults drank and gossiped. The food had been plentiful, as had the wine. At some point a birthday cake was presented and speeches made to laughter and applause.

  After a while he’d noticed his sons were missing. At eighteen and nineteen, they made it abundantly clear they had little interest in the celebrations. Wondering if they had left without the courtesy of informing him, he decided a discreet search was in order.

  Making his way amongst a group of young people lounging on the stairs, he reached the wide expanse of the upper floor landing and found it empty. His sons might be in
one of the bedrooms, but he thought it unlikely. Given the copious amounts of alcohol on offer, the bathrooms were a more promising place to look.

  He passed an open door and glanced in. Stephanie was lying on her bed, engrossed in a book. Her long blonde hair was messy, as though she had been continually running her fingers through it. He had a flash of recall and for a moment saw not his friend’s daughter, but a young Brigitte Bardot, a movie star and goddess from his youth. He hesitated a fraction too long, and Stephanie’s head lifted. She looked at him, the expression in her gray eyes changing from questioning to perceptive in an instant.

  He felt as if he had been caught in flagrante. He stammered an apology, hearing the garbled explanation—that he had mislaid his sons—as if it was coming from someone else.

  She rolled onto her side to support her head with her hand. A number of buttons on her tight-fitting pink and white shirt were undone, and he could clearly see the delicate lace of her bra and the surprising fullness of her breasts.

  “You can come in, you know.”

  She sat up and reached over to the bedside cabinet for her glass of wine. Wine? How old was she, anyway? he wondered. He knew she was younger than his boys, so she was what—sixteen, seventeen?

  He felt the stirrings of excitement. She was dangerous, forbidden. Common sense told him that entering her bedroom was the last thing he should do.

  He stepped inside and eased the door behind him but did not shut it completely. That would be a mistake.

  Closing her book she moved up the bed to make room for him. He sat down awkwardly, his breathing measured. The bed cover was rumpled and still warm from her body. He told himself he would stay just long enough to be polite. Ask what she was reading, and about her schooling. Safe topics.

  She lay back against her pillows. He tried not to stare at the open buttons and the delectable skin. But it was not only her breasts she seemed to be inviting him to look at. As was the fashion, her faded jeans were worn and ripped across the knees. Her hips were lean and boyish. Not what he was used to on a woman at all. She eased her legs apart, and his eyes followed. As if accepting an unspoken invitation he mentally stripped away the denim, imagining a wisp of fabric—white, of course—across her hips. He could almost feel the delicate pattern of lace under his fingertips. And beyond? Her flesh would be pink and moist, the pale hair around her cunt soft. Her entrance would be so very, very tight.

  He took a deep breath and forced it all from his thoughts. She had no idea what she was doing or the effect it was having on him. She was an innocent, and he should know better.

  She passed him her glass, which he took gratefully.

  “Are you sure you should be drinking this?” He smiled to soften the reproof. He needed to re-establish his position as a family friend. Let her know in no uncertain terms that, as the father of two sons and a daughter, he was used to teenage ways.

  “I think rules are meant to be broken.”

  There it was again.

  Her eyes were both seductive and challenging. As if daring him.

  He knew he should leave.

  He took a mouthful of wine. It was too sweet and too light for his taste. A Riesling, he decided, somewhat irrelevantly.

  She accepted the glass back.

  “Why don’t you fill it up for me?” she suggested. Her eyes were bold and challenging as she offered the bottle that must have been hidden in the gap between her bed and the cabinet. “We can share the glass.”

  His heart raced.

  She told him she was bored. Bored with the party, bored with school, bored with life.

  In hindsight, he should never have asked what she would like to be doing. He even knew it at the time.

  But he was unable to help himself. It was as if she was drawing him into her web.

  She smiled, her eyes full of mischief. Did he know a certain café in the city?

  He did.

  She suggested they might meet there one afternoon.

  His heart beat wildly. It was only Alain’s daughter, he reminded himself. He had known her all her life. What harm would there be in a cup of coffee?

  She leaned forward and kissed him. He was shocked. She put her mouth over his a second time.

  Even then he did not respond. He was too uncertain. Frightened even.

  Her tongue eased between his lips. Alarm bells went off.

  Christ Almighty.

  “In some cultures I would be married by now,” she murmured, her fingers snaking around the back of his head to entwine in his hair.

  Charles knew that he was not solely to blame for their relationship. Of course, society might argue otherwise. Technically, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. Stephanie was above the age of consent. Not only that, but by mutual agreement the physical nature of their relationship had been limited to little more than kisses and a little exploratory touching.

  He swallowed the dregs of the wine in his glass.

  Mutual agreement? He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She had been the one holding back, but only after allowing him a little bit more each time. He told himself she was simply experimenting with her awakening sexuality. Better with him than with someone less caring.

  Or was the reality that she was a self-assured girl on the cusp of womanhood and he, little more than a gullible older man? Was he being used? It was a sobering thought and not particularly good for his ego.

  “Charles, fancy seeing you here. I had no idea you were in town.”

  Abruptly brought back to reality, he started, and then shook his head as if pleasantly surprised.

  “Mathilde. It’s been a while.”

  He stood to allow the tall, fashionably thin woman to brush his cheek with hers, and with a gesture that spoke of familiarity, placed a hand on her waist. Her perfume was sensuous, beguiling, and in sharp contrast to the tight lines around her eyes and mouth.

  “Too long, darling. Are you alone?”

  She was looking pointedly, and not without a little curiosity, at Stephanie’s empty wine glass.

  “I am now. Why don’t you join me?” He caught the eye of a waiter as half a dozen or so glossy carrier bags were dropped onto an adjoining seat.

  “My God, it just gets worse!” Mathilde sat, elegantly crossing one leg over the other.

  “What does?”

  “Trying to find something decent to wear this season. If it wasn’t for Ungaro, I don’t know what I’d do. Even you, Charles, would be horrified at some of the disasters out there, and what on earth Lacroix was doing with that skirt I’ll never know.”

  Charles took in the meticulously styled shoulder-length hair and flawless makeup. He had no idea who Ungaro was, or even Lacroix for that matter, but judging from the outfit she was wearing, she certainly had nothing to complain about. The cream and black jacket must have been tailored to her exact measurements, as would have been the trousers. Mathilde demanded nothing less than perfection when it came to her appearance.

  “I can see it must be difficult,” he said.

  The look she gave him was withering. “If you only knew. Just bring me a glass of Pouilly-Fuissé.” She acknowledged the presence of the waiter with an airy wave. “So tell me, darling. What brings you up to town?”

  Her smile, intended to invite confidence, was a little too contrived.

  “Sadly, nothing more exciting than an afternoon with our accountants.”

  Thank God he looked the part. Only at the last moment had he discarded the chinos and polo shirt he’d intended to wear in favour of a grey suit and pale blue tailored shirt.

  “Too much work and not enough play?”

  He forced a laugh. “I wish I could offer you something interesting, but I’m afraid my life has become rather boring of late.”

  “Somehow I doubt that,” she purred, reaching over and deliberately running a finger down the bowl of Stephanie’s wineglass. “You forget how well I know you.”

  He didn’t rise to the bait, and if she was disappointed she hid i
t well.

  “How is Antoinette?” she asked instead. “We haven’t seen each other in weeks.”

  Charles knew his wife didn’t care much for Mathilde, perhaps because he and Mathilde had once enjoyed a short but passionate affair. He didn’t think Antoinette had discovered that particular infidelity, but the possibility couldn’t be discounted.

  “She’s good. She’s taking a course in interior design. Didn’t you know?”

  “No. How wonderful. And you. Are you taking any courses?”

  There was no mistaking her meaning.

  “Like I said, I’m far too busy for that.”

  “I think you’re holding out on me.” Mathilde paused to allow the waiter to place her glass on the table. As he cleared the one Stephanie had used she gave Charles a knowing look. “Darling, how long have we known each other? Since when have you not had a little something on the side?”

  He credited his wife with being a good judge of character. Had Mathilde always been so dislikeable, he wondered, or was it a trait that had blossomed only recently? It made little difference. He had no intention of divulging his private affairs to anyone, least of all Mathilde, who was obviously hoping for a delectable titbit of gossip to enliven her next dinner party.

  Chapter 2.

  There were just two ways to access the grounds of the convent. Through the handsome front gate, or via the more modest tradesman’s entrance in the side alley. It was no contest. Staying within the shadow of the high brick wall, Stephanie eased the narrow door open just enough to slip through undetected.

  The more direct route to the main school building was via a warren of kitchen and laundry facilities. But those corridors were out of bounds to pupils. Instead she took the wide gravel path that rounded the chapel and skirted a wide expanse of lawn. She knew there was a good chance of being seen. All that was needed was for someone to glance out a classroom window. But her excuse for being absent from her studies—that she had been meditating in the adjacent rose garden—was plausible enough.