Lovers' Lies by Shirley Wine Read Free Book Online Page A

shrugs. "It was more protecting my identity."
    Only it was Donovan not Donahue. "Why would you need to do that?"
    "Donovan money garners attention. Most of it not at all welcome."
    "You thought I was attracted to your money?" Hurt threatened to blindside her.
    "After seeing that floozy of a cousin of yours—"
    Heat flooded Victoria’s entire body as humiliation seared and another memory leaped out of the closet—
    —mortified, she'd watched Susan cross the gravel in a skimpy bikini just short of indecent.
    Victoria cringed with shame.
    Her father would have a stroke if she wore anything even approaching that revealing. A tiny square of cloth front and back was held by a narrow cord at the sides.  
    When Susan laid a hand on Seth’s arm, jealousy, hot and painful sat like a lead ball in Victoria’s gut.
    "You gorgeous hunk," Susan’s shrill voice turned heads in every direction. "You have my country cousin panting with desire."
    Seth looked in her direction and Victoria wished the ground to open up and swallow her. Whole.
    What could she say?
    Susan had acted the trollop, and suddenly Victoria fully understood his reticence. How could he know in the beginning that she was any different from her cousin?  
    "You’re not responsible for your cousin. What’s the voluptuous Susan doing now?"
    "She’s married with three preschoolers, the perfect wife and mother and a veritable paragon. I’m the family pariah," she said with wry irony.
    And this role reversal still jarred.  
    It was Susan who'd acted the trollop but Victoria who'd ended up pregnant. It was so clichéd.  
    "So what have you done to put you on the outer with your family?" He watched her, his expression laser sharp.
    Ooops! Put my foot in it, why don't I.
    Almost too late, Victoria saw the trap she’d created with her unwary words. With a dismissive shrug she turned away, mind racing. Any conversation with him was fraught with perilous craters. Sooner or later she would step in one. And when that happened—
    Keir gently caught her arm and made her face him. "What’s happened in your life, Victoria?"
    "Apart from leaving home and starting my own business," she weighed her words carefully. "Not a lot."
    If I don’t take into account raising this man’s son, alone.
    "You own Victorian Grace?"
    "My mother left me some money and I used it as seed money to start my business."
    "Yet you had such big plans, a lucrative scholarship, university, a degree in finance then overseas travel."  
    Victoria’s heart thudded in her chest, embarrassed now to remember how she’d shot her mouth off.
    Big time.
    Mentally sifting the past, she edited out revealing information. Of one thing she was absolutely certain. Keir Donovan was no fool and the last thing she wanted to do was raise his suspicions about her life, hell, about anything.
    Then why are you walking alone with him in the early morning? And holding his hand?
    Talk about sending mixed messages.
    Guilt had her freeing her hand from his. She pushed it deep in the pocket of the borrowed jacket.
    "Plans and people change," she said with quiet emphasis, praying he'd drop the subject. "Now, I can’t imagine doing anything else. Working with flowers is a joy."  
    While not her first choice, floristry provided a home for her and her son and also enabled her to schedule her work around Connor’s care. But most of all it allowed her to escape her father’s censure and domination.  
    She shivered.  
    The fierce battle waged over Connor still held the power to wound. When Andrew demanded Victoria give up her baby for adoption and resume her university scholarship, he'd underestimated her determination.  
    No one could coerce her into giving up her child.
    But this wasn’t something she could explain. "Your plans changed too, Keir. You went to America. What happened to your ambition to take over the family firm?"
    As his glance roved over her face, she felt heat seep into her cheeks.
    "I needed to escape. The